How a Child of Converts Became an Atheist

I sit wringing my hands as I watch my father, with his dark beard and long flowing side-locks approach the car. I am about eight years old and he has taken me along, as he had done many times, on one of his deliveries. I wonder, "should I ask him? Will he be angry with me?" I am so nervous, the pit in my stomach has all but enveloped me. His car door opens and he climbs into the drivers seat. I decide that I must ask him, and hope for the best. I heard myself ask: "Abba (Dad), how do we know we are right; the Jews I mean?"

The question was out in the open, there was no turning back now. He looked at me, his eyes were not filled with rage, as I had anticipated, but with love. The very first thing he said to me was: "Great question, son." He then went on to present me with an answer that had left an impression on him. It didn't so much matter what his answer was, it only mattered that it was okay for me to doubt the religion, the path, he had chosen. He then concluded, the way my parents always do when I or my brothers ask questions: "I am proud of you for asking, keep on asking."

There are religious people who reject the natural skepticism in their son or daughter. They either get angry with them for their lack of faith, or they brush off the questions as silly or childish. Their children may remain religious or they may stray, but those parents have failed one of the most important challenges that every parent faces: That of, teaching their children how, as opposed to what, to think. How foolish are such parents!

My parents, who are converts to Judaism, understood the beauty of the question. They praised our inquisitive minds. They challenged our assumptions. They understood that without the question, there can be no progression. If a child inquires into the nature of God or reality, the parent, whether a believer or not, should marvel in the fact that their young son or daughter is seeking to learn about the most important aspects of human life. In that moment, the parent can either lay the foundation upon which the child will build his intellectual tower, or they can shatter the child's most important will, the will to know. My father, on that day, laid the first brick.

My parents, after searching and experimenting with many other ways of life chose Judaism. However, they have always encouraged my brothers and I to ask, to challenge, and most importantly to find the truth for ourselves. I hear stories of children hiding their disbelief in God from their parents. Some have to go so far as to "escape" the confines of their home if they wish to espouse their thoughts. Children who do not believe in their parent's God may be excommunicated, disgraced, and hated by their own families. I have no such woe. My parents, my family, have been nothing but embracing. We debate, we discuss, but we never stop loving one another.

So, are my parents to blame for my atheism? Yes. But not because they did something wrong, but because they did something right. They taught me how to think for myself. They challenged me to find the truth, where ever that journey may take me. They cheered me on always, no matter if I was a ultra-Orthodox lad, or a wild-haired hippie. Their smile is filled with so much love when they repeatedly say: "We are so proud of you."

I do not know what my future will bring; my path may not be that of my parents. But we will always be a family, a loyal family. A family that embraces great questions over easy answers. A family that, though both in the secular and religious world the family structure is crumbling, will stay together. I will continue to seek truth, continue to doubt, continue to ask, and I know there will be a family waiting for me, always. On that day when I was eight year old, my father proved that to me.  

Thank you both so much. I love you.

The Temptation of Belief

I have discovered that the majority of atheists find themselves unable to believe. Many of them, whether they were raised religious or not, have always had trouble believing that there was an invisible being watching over them, anxious to hear their prayers. Many atheists are of the stance found in Blaise Pascal's Pensées, where the hypothetical unbeliever declares: "...I am so made that I cannot believe."

Yet, there is another class of atheist, a class of which I am part, to whom belief comes naturally. We are tempted, and have perhaps, been convinced here and there, to believe the impossible. I, for one, spent 24 years engulfed in the absolute belief in God, heaven, and miracles. I was not surprised, and willingly believed, the stories of holy men performing supernatural events. I saw "God's guiding hand" through many of my own experiences. I believed stories about demons, and angels. I believed stories of Elijah the Prophet taking the form of other people to help a Jew out of a tough situation. It was not hard for me to believe the intangible, the incomprehensible, it was as real to me as the sun in the sky. I am a natural believer. I identify with the powerful words of Jean-Paul Sartre when he wrote: "That God does not exist, I cannot deny; that my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget."

I may be a believer by nature, but I am an atheist by choice. Though religion's warm embrace tempts me, I reject her. Though the mysterious and fantastical call to me, I do not hearken to them. It is irresponsible for me to accept claims without proof. Without being able to check a premise, what right have I to call it reality? 

I must interject here only to state, that I am in no way perpetuating the repeatedly told "axiom" that religion is the best way of life. I have shown in other essays that I firmly do not believe that to be the case. Yet, the comfort that religion gives, existential and otherwise, cannot be denied. Moreover, for someone who wants to believe -- who's being summons him to believe -- religion seems all the more tempting. 

Humans tend to believe many claims without sufficient proof. I, no doubt have done so, and will probably be guilty of it, in some manifestation, again. Can this be called a healthy perception of reality? Can man believe whatever he pleases? When truth is no longer an ideal to strive for, what limits should be put on man's untamed imagination? If we are to believe whatever we desire, without some objective method of testing those beliefs, we have but erased the very word "truth" from the universe. 

If the idea of "truth" is to matter at all, if we are to understand reality, however slightly, we must determine for ourselves a tool for measuring it. I have chosen reason. Reason can be tested, critiqued, and most importantly mended. It has no sacred scriptures it must consult, no dogma it must appease. It requires no believe, no blind faith. It desires free-inquiry and a thirst to learn. It demands honesty and open-mindedness. It is the tool that has propelled mankind from primitive tribes scurrying around the Earth, to advanced civilizations that are currently pushing the boundaries of space. 

Reason is not an end in itself, but a tool. There is yet room in the world for wonder, love, poetry and all other conceivable forms of art. We cannot however, be without reason. It must be the tool that is used to measure all the important questions of life. All other aspects that are to be found in the universe that make living so glorious, must be allowed to roam free, only after reason has established the safe borders.

This is why, as natural as it is for me to believe in religion's claims, as tempting as it is, I cannot. Not unless I can reasonably prove them to be true. That is my duty to the truth. To seek her out, even if she is almost impossible to find. I mustn't capitulate to my feeble heart's desires to be comforted as I once was, by religion. Friedrich Nietzsche correctly wrote: "There is nothing more necessary than the truth, in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value."  

I may at times be tormented by my doubts, my uncertainty. I may be beaten down by my skepticism. But I will forever know, that when faced with the "two roads diverged... I chose the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."    

Atheist: The Dirty Word

I am an atheist.

I remember the first time I was brave enough to say those words. I say brave, not because I live in a community where heretical statements are treated as capital crimes worthy of death (though but a few kilometers from where I sit, this is no doubt the horrifying reality), but because saying that word amongst certain folk is tantamount to committing social suicide. For months, I had been calling myself names like: doubter, seeker, or agnostic. While all these labels are true to a point, they are but tools I used to evade having to say that word. 

As of a few weeks ago I said the words: "I am an atheist." It wasn't in front of a big crowd, nor as a rebel cry in the face of religious fanatics; in fact, I believe the first time I said it was actually in the company of my best friend who is also as atheist! Yet, as the words poured forth from my mouth, I felt a rush of power surge through me. It was like I had transformed from being a lost puppy to a strong and confident lion.

In reality however, nothing really changed. I still am full of doubt, I still am seeking rational claims for existence of God, and I still am -- perhaps most importantly -- open to be proven wrong and placed once again, in the familiar arms of my childhood faith.

Why then, did I insist on calling myself an atheist? For that is what I am. A man without a theology.

The word "atheist" in our society as become a sort of dirty word. When said, it has giant waves of negative connotations both on believers and non-believers alike. I imagine that some regard it as synonymous with anti-religion. There are people who actually regard my questions on faith in almost an antipodal fashion since I uttered that word. So long as I was a mere "doubter," there lingered hope for me yet. The moment I latched onto that abhorrent word, my doubts become foul and my influence, a danger.  Obviously, not everyone regards this word in such a negative light, but I, in my believing past, certainly had distaste for it's pronouncement. I am sure there are many others who dislike this harmless word, I therefore feel the need to set the  record straight.

Atheism is not a belief that there is no God or gods. It is the lack of belief in God or gods. To put in differently: "I don't believe in God," is not the same as, "I believe there is no God." Granted, in practice these two are one in the same. That is to say, there will be no difference between believing there is no God, and not believing in God in the way one may act.

However, anyone who truly believes there is no god, that is, he knows there is no god, upon brief analysis will conclude the obvious: To say that anything absolutely does not exist, no matter how unlikely the existence of that thing may be, is an impossible claim to make. One cannot say with certainty that God does not exist. Of course, one can not say that Bertrand Russel's celestial teapot does not exist either.There are those believers who use this as a proof of God! Which is comical yet, intellectually depressing.

With regards to using the unfalsifiable nature of God to bolster one's faith, Richard Dawkins in his (in)famous book "The God Delusion," wrote: "We would not waste time saying so because nobody, so far as I know, worships teapots, but, if pressed we would not hesitate to declare our strong disbelief that there is positively no orbiting teapot. Yet strictly speaking we should all be teapot agnostics: we cannot prove that there is no celestial teapot. In practice, we move away from teapot agnosticism towards a-teapotism."

So, to be in atheist, is to live life as if there was no god. It is to quite literally, not believe in him. We needn't be afraid of the word nor treat it as just another religion. Though I am sure that there are people who claim to know there is no god, this is not, and rather taints, the very intellectual approach which is actual atheism.

Christopher Hitchens in his book "God is Not Great" defined quite accurately and with grand erudition, as was his manner, the "belief" of the atheistic community: "Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake."

However it is in fact, because of this popular misinterpretation of the word: atheist, which led me to feel powerful and confident upon allowing that word to escape my lips. Even though, nothing really changed, in a way, everything did. Such is the power of words.

What if there IS a God(s)?

What if I die and find myself thrust into a divine world and placed before God for judgement? What if all my calculations were wrong, and I was supposed to suspend my reason and live a life of blind faith?

This is a challenge brought to many atheists, and indeed, I have asked myself this very question.

As a formally religious person, there remains in me fragments of faith and so, I take this question a step further and live my life by a certain maxim: No matter what I do in life, I want to be able to face God (if he exists) at the end of days and present him with a coherent answer for all my actions.

However, I have given up on the truth of my faith, or any system which does not see reason as the way of determining fact validity, and so, the question from above (pun intended) persists: What if I'm wrong?

Of course, every religious person should ask himself this very question. After all, there have been thousands of gods worshiped since the beginning of time. The chances that out of the thousands of gods you either guessed correctly, in the case of converts, or happened to be born into the right faith, in the case of most believers, are incredibly slim.

This is the obvious counter-argument to the famous wager of Blaise Pascal. Pascal's wager which reads that it is more rational to live with the belief in God. Since it is a 50/50 chance whether he does or does not exist, it is the most rational conclusion to choose belief. If you are wrong you die and nothing happens, but if you are right you enjoy an eternity of happiness.

Of course, he seemingly did not consider the fact that perhaps his faith was misplaced and that another god was the true god and would now punish him for all eternity for his mistaken belief. As I said, the probability that one guessed right out of the thousands of choices are very difficult odds indeed.

In reality, therefore, whether religious or not all must have an answer prepared for the "day of reckoning." Now, before I continue I must say: This is not an important question! We humans must live our lives with what we can see and feel, we cannot challenge the very essence of our knowledge with fantastical unproven claims. I cannot allow some fear of hell to interfere with my philosophical or scientific mode of thought.

However, as I said, it is a question posed to, and thought about by many atheists, I therefore feel as if it is worthy of a response albeit a brief one.

If there is a God(s) I will say to him/her/them: I am sorry that I did not believe in you. How was I supposed to? You allowed so many people to declare mutually exclusive faiths that I was left with no one to follow. Why did you create reason, if in order to believe in you, one had to abandon it? Why did you give me an intellect powerful enough to destroy you? Why did you hide yourself in such an absolute manner if you wanted my complete devotion?

I should hope that any god worth believing in, would accept my honesty. I hope that the god(s) will be happier that I used the reason given to me to create the most truthful existence that I could. I hope god(s) will admire that even when faced with the dark cloud of doubt, I ventured forth pursuing, above all else, truth.

I am aware, however, that I might be sent to hell by Zeus or Ra or Baal or Molech or Chang Hsi or Dionysus or Epona or Fenrir or Horus or Jupiter or Lakshmi or Marduk or Odin or Si-Wang Mu or of course, the Abrahamic God, the popular God of the last few centuries, who either agrees with Moses, Jesus, or Mohammad. (For the readers sake I did not write all the gods listed.)

That is a chance I am willing, or rather compelled, to take.

A Stab at Poetry - A Tale of Misery

A Tale of Misery

What purpose hath man if it all comes to this,
a tale of misery that ends in abyss?
For naught does the wise seek,
day brings day and lesser his heart beats.

Sought did I, all paths of men.
Alas they are spent, and hearts broken.
For land is tossed only to bring winter winds.
Man’s place of ending is where he begins.
Sweat seeps forth only to be transformed to tears
Man’s joys are soon vanquished by the shadow of fear.

Yet ever we search; mankind’s cruel game,
generations return from whence the former came.
The path is far too beaten paved by the steps of tens.
Questioning are their minds and ever the trail bends.

Something! There must be something more!
But with every escape, comes another door.
On and on the endless chase,
the body of dust is pushed in haste.
To sit, relax, and to finally die must
yet the hunger, the thirst, forever tortures us.

If man is as beast a conclusion must be made,
that man's endless search indeed ends in the grave.
Yet, if I find that there exists the Ultimate good,
forever man’s journey will remain to me understood.  

The Noble Question Mark

If you were born yesterday, with your mind and ability to reason as strong as it is today, would you believe everything that you have believed in until now?

Since we were born, our intellect as been swarmed by outside influences, convincing us how and in what to believe. Way before our ability to reason, in fact, even before we knew that we possessed an intellect, our mind was capturing data practically without a filter. Everything sank in to our subconscious and shaped how we were going to think and interact with the world. This process is still taking place at this very moment.

This understanding, which is known to all, should make us deeply suspicious of what we claim to know, or in what we believe. Had you been born into a different family, in a different time, would you not see the world in a completely different manner? Can you really trust your beliefs, if, had you been born into your enemy, you would have waged war against those very beliefs?

It is for this reason that I am, or am trying to become, a rationalist. I say "or trying to become," because I am aware that there is a good chance that a lot of the way I think is directly correlated to the circumstances in which I was raised. I know that much of what I find important is a product of what I saw and heard beginning as early as my infancy, and thus, my ability to reason may be flawed.

However, the advantage of rationalism is that it is open to outside critique. It is open for debate. One can, and I always encourage it, argue with my every word. As the old adage goes: two minds are better than one. If those two minds are of different opinions, the clarity of thought that they will produce will most likely be far greater than that of a thousand minds who agree. Healthy discourse between mankind is the only way to reach some understanding of reality. If two people are committed to reason as a guide, they will be able to penetrate and escape the blind influences of their upbringing, and reach ever-nearer to the Truth.

When man grasps tightly to what he knows to be true -- what he was taught to be true -- without considering whether it is rational or not, the result is warfare. Until people are willing to challenge everything they know and believe, they certainly cannot claim that any of their beliefs are true; only that they believe them to be. Some of the greatest immoralities have been committed by unquestioning sheep "following orders."

There is a place for faith, as there is for love, but reason must precede it! Just as we expect the abused spouse to realize that their feelings of love for their other are not products of reason, but wild untamed emotion, so to, must we hope for the religious dogmatists who commit heinous crimes in the name of their faith. Any system claiming to have divine inspiration must be placed under meticulous scrutiny. Especially those systems that cause it's adherents to harm or hate others. Before accepting what we were taught, let us examine the teaching, and require the teachers to present evidence.

Imagine if all religions would wait until a person reached an age where he could reason, before presenting the precepts of the religion to him. I don't know if it would be the end of religion -- indeed many people convert to religion at older ages -- but in would be the end of blind religious obedience.

Belief, as I have said and explained in previous posts, is not a choice. It is a by-product of one's surroundings. We believe -- much of the time -- what our parents, community, country, and era believe. The question then, is not why you believe, but rather why don't you doubt what you believe?

This is a very difficult challenge indeed. It is to place an enormous question mark on all that you believe to be true. It is to have the courage to face the unknown, and after much mental labor create your own reasonable conclusion. Of course, most people would not be able to make claims about a lot of things, for who has the time to study every aspect of human life. This would not be a bad thing. The ignorant man with a closed mouth is respected, the opened mouth ignoramus is contemptible. Doubt can make the man uncomfortable, but dogma can destroy the world.

Any person who wishes to live a life of truth, must not be afraid to venture into the world of doubt. The honest question mark is far more noble than an inadequate period.

Why I Don't Believe pt. III

See prior to posts in this series here: Why I Don't Believe pt. I and here: Why I Don't Believe pt. II

Ungodly Morals

Perhaps the most difficult aspect for me has been the task of trying to discover a moral code outside of religion. In fact, this is the most repeated attack against the atheist community by the religious. "Why be moral if there is no God?" 

I once heard a powerful quote of an anonymous author: "You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, than you lack empathy not religion." 

While this does not fully answer the question by any means, it certainly quiets the attackers by reminding them that if the only real reason they are moral is to please God, they need to spend more time correcting their ethical character than criticizing non-believers. 

I will not attempt in this post to tally the number of dead bodies by either the hands of the religious or atheistic communities throughout history, for that is neither the point of this post, nor in anyway a reason to believe or not. People kill. Sometimes while muttering a name of a deity and sometimes while muttering a national ideal. As this post is titled: Why I Don't Believe, I will focus on the points that effect me personally.

Before we attempt to answer the question of why be moral in the face of godlessness, we must ask: How can we define morality without a divine code of ethics? 

I once heard Sam Harris in lecture at Oxford University give over what he felt could act as a way to know what is a good act and a bad one. He said that if we could imagine the worst possible misery for everybody and everything, for every second, without relent until the end of Earth's existence, that would be Bad. Once bad was defined, he said, we could start a continuum, and everything that brings us closer to this misery was bad and anything that furthered us from it was Good.

[For a deeper and far more articulate explanation of this concept, read the book by Sam Harris titled: The Moral Landscape. In it, Harris answers with careful all-inclusive analysis, the question raised above. Truly a remarkable piece of philosophical and scientific writing.]

Of course this is not a perfect system, and there may be moral dilemmas that would be very difficult to discern right from wrong, but it is a system bound in reason. Every conclusion can be analyzed, and critiqued, nothing is divine and therefore can change, as science, and human reason progress.  

Even if one were to posit that without a religion declaring the chosen word of God we will always be in a world of moral relativism, I shall declare: Would that be so bad?

Let us assume, for a moment, that this is correct, then I ask you: Is any system good enough? Is it not cowardly to retreat to a religion, any religion, so as not be in the uncomfortable reality of relativism? How far would you go in order to dwell in the Absolute? Would you kill infidels? The question is not meant to attack any specific religion, but to point out the fact that saying that the worst case scenario is moral relativism is saying you will accept any system so long as it is not relative. 

Of course one may retort that he would never pick to believe in an immoral religion, and I need not patronize my readers with the glaring circular logic in such a statement. 

What does moral relativism really mean? It means that as painful as it might be we cannot say: Hitler was evil. It means that we always must remember the clause: "He is evil, but only in my perception." I can see why many people retreat from such a claim. 

Even if that were the case, however, we can still conduct ourselves morally. We could still --using reason-- determine what we found to be right and wrong. In fact, since religion could not possibly preempt every moral dilemma that would face man, many is the time when even the most scholarly of believers must resort to reason to answer a moral conundrum. What we lose essentially, in a world of moral relativism, is our damning rights. 

Yet, the question from the beginning of the post persists: Whether or not we can determine right from wrong, is there any reason to act morally in a godless world? Is there any reason to act in a moral fashion if we are truly just evolved primates seeking to survive? In the end of the day, why shouldn't man act as a beast, seeking pleasure, and destroying anything in his path. 

[Notice the question here is not, "Can we be moral," or "Are atheists moral," both of these are proven by the mere fact that there are many atheists that I would trust with my life, and who are incredible examples of human ethical behavior.]

The simple answer, perhaps ironically, is: Self-Interest. Unlike the beasts of the field, man has an intellect which informs him that if he would act as a beast, and everyone follows suit, society would crumble and his own hopes for survival diminish. He will be left hoping that he is stronger or faster than the next threat. The civilized world would collapse as would most, if not all, of the human race. His morality is then, the most reasonable act known to us, that of self-preservation.     

The question that immediately follows this answer is: What about altruism? Even if it is in man's self interest to not commit crimes, what logic could ever motivate him to helping his fellow man? Why should I help the needy who will never, because I did in it anonymously, be able to repay my deeds? Again, the question is not whether people can act altruistically or not, but rather is there any reason I shouldn't fight the urge to help the poor? Why shouldn't I strengthen my character, so to speak, and harden my resolve against being swept up by their pleas?

And again I answer: Self-Interest. Everyone must ask themselves, in which world would I rather live: A world in which the rich help the poor or a world of cold selfishness? Today I may be the one with money in my pocket, but any person who has lived for even a short time knows that tomorrow I may be the one with the open hand and downcast eyes.  

I will further say that most religiously motivated acts of ethical behavior are, in their deepest essence, acts of self-interest. The believer says: Since God is watching all man's deeds, God will reward or punish me according to my deeds. He therefore, will be motivated out of self interest to act in accordance with his God's will. 

Therefore, both the theist and atheist have a the same reason to act in a moral way: The protection of the Self. For the atheist it is protection in this world, for the theist, the next.   

Of course, in reality many of us -- theists and atheists alike -- act morally, not out of conscience self interest but because something inside of us demands us to. We are compelled, and beautifully so, to help raise the downtrodden and look out for one another. The religious would say that this is the soul of man, always urging him to goodness. The evolutionist would say that these are misfirings of our primal state. Regardless of why we are, it is clear that mankind is generally trying to pursue goodness. I do not mean to sound as though I am diminishing all acts of kindness and self-sacrifice to the base need to protect oneself.

What I am venturing to answer here, however, is the "why be moral," not the "are we moral?" The why question doesn't care that we are moral -- perhaps because of our very nature -- but attempts to claim that it would seem to be an act of great irrationality to perpetuate such morals. I have shown, I hope, to the contrary. I posit that any man, using reason, can understand the great importance of moral behavior and finds no need to accept -- on this basis -- a religion.

Defining Good and Evil may be difficult without the two tablets. It may require great strides of reason in order to determine whether an action is moral or not. It will change, as our perception changes. Yet, I see this system -- a system which uses reason as it's guide -- as a far better system than unverifiable claims of God's will. Whereas the former admits to being man-made and therefore flawed and subject to correction, the latter being supposedly divinely inspired will never change and can, in effect, cause great harm to humanity's progress. As to the question of the "why be moral" I have shown that there is great logic to motivate our good deeds, even our altruistic ones. 

Once again, the question of morality is a challenge to atheism, a challenge to godlessness, but not it's demise.

Since I do not need to retreat to religion to understand good and evil, nor do I need religion to motivate me, I do not believe.