The journey to enlightenment is invariably complicated, tracing a winding and sometimes traumatic path with many forks and detours along the way. I did not ultimately turn against religion or become a critic of its most prominent leaders simply because they fell short of my youth’s exalted expectations. But watching the evangelical movement navigate the turbulent events of the early 21st century has been a real catalyst in pushing me—along with many of my peers—to nonreligion.
Years of unanswered questions and senseless dogma finally culminated in defeating any remnant of religious integrity at the hands of Donald T***p. On the night of the 2016 election, one of the most depressing evenings of my life, already a reluctant agnostic, I anxiously wondered if this travesty might finally inspire evangelicals to reexamine some of their fundamental beliefs. For as long as I can remember, the primary contention of religious leaders has been that, whatever their faults might be, political leaders must maintain some basic sense of right and wrong.
Faced with the sacrilegious rebuttal of that idea, however, they doubled down on excuses—holding up idealized goals of abolishing abortion, banning sexual equality and freedom, remaking the Supreme Court, and forcing America back to their version of medieval religion—turning a blind eye to the most heinous and traitorous President in American history.
Whereas I had once seen the malaise of contemporary religion in terms of compromise, elitism, archaic dogma, and the endless quest for power and money, these new developments (and countless others like them) cast evangelicalism in a new light. Perhaps the problem was not a dearth of authentic and relevant leadership but a deeper issue of ignoring the basic tenets of Jesus Christ.
Though frustration with this apparent hypocrisy may have been a powerful accelerant, I ultimately ended up as an atheist because of an intense and uncensored journey back through religion’s horrific and murderous history. Repeatedly as I read about the atrocities committed by religious people in the name of their version of god, I wondered how these verified and classic histories could have been hidden from me.
The institutions of my life (family, church, education, and culture) had effectively censored and rewritten history, much like DeSantis is currently doing in the state of Florida, and right-wing conservatives are systematically doing in America. Truth, love, equality, goodness, freedom, and morality are spiritual values that have paradoxically been forsaken and corrupted by religion since time immemorial.
If this story piques your interest, you can read a more detailed account of the early stages of my trajectory away from religion in a little booklet I wrote called “My Confession,” available at amazon.com
Questions about the role of God and religion in today’s world have never been more critical. Many of us are searching for a place where we can find facts, scientific reason, hope, and moral courage. For some, answers are still found in the divine. For others, including the New Atheists, religion is an “enemy.”
But to me, Humanism offers another, more balanced, and inclusive response. It highlights humanity’s potential for goodness and how it is possible to lead lives of purpose, compassion, and, yes, enlightenment. Humanism can offer the sense of community we want and often need in good times and bad—and it teaches us that we can lead good and moral lives without the supernatural, without higher powers, and without God. There are over a billion nonreligious people worldwide, and our numbers are growing exponentially.
In his compelling and thought-provoking book “Good Without God,” Greg Epstein says, “Humanists are adherents of one of the four largest lifestances on earth, along with Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. It’s time to recognize that nonbelievers are believers too—we believe in Humanism—in short, we can be good without god. To put it another way, Humanists believe in life before death.”
I no longer choose to serve an invisible being that compels followers to ghost, shame, judge, condemn, torture, and murder those who do not look or believe as they do. I no longer choose to spend my days fearful of eternal punishment in Hell.
I do choose to share values and spiritual practices I hold dear with my companions, community, and world. I wish to be understood, loved, and appreciated for who I am. I choose to be free from having to believe things that make no sense. I choose to be free from having to pretend I know something that I don’t. I choose to be free from having a relationship with a being I strongly suspect has never existed and cannot be known. I choose to be free from submitting to an authority that cannot be questioned. I choose to treat each person as having inherent worth and dignity and to make informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.
Finally, to paraphrase Jonathan Haidt, enlightenment is not something you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of the requirements are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your being. Other conditions require relationships with things beyond you: just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something more significant. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. A sense of meaning and purpose will emerge if you get these relationships right.
Selah.
