A Theological Radical
Paul Heffron
I describe my pivot point in my piece in Free Inquiry, “My Theological Quest Ended in Secular Humanism” (FI February/March 2018), an installment in the “Faith I Left Behind” column. Studying radical theological trends led to a pivotal moment in which I said over and over, “God ain’t doing a damn thing.” I had wanted to believe that God through Christ would make us into new beings, but it simply wasn’t happening to me. What’s more, there was no real evidence that anything was happening by supernatural intervention. I realized I had to leave the church and the ministry and start over. It wasn’t until the first issue of Free Inquiry came to me (out of the blue) that I recognized my identification and connection, completing the pivot—or the result of the pivot.
Paul Heffron was a founding member of Humanists of Minnesota and served in various positions. He’s been a professional musician and was the pianist and composer with the Freethought Band. He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Shoreview, Minnesota.
An International Scandal
Cheryl Smith
At age nine in the fourth grade, I learned in social studies class about people in India and their Hindu religion. Given what I had been hearing at church, I asked my mother and father what happens to children in India who die older than the age of seven and who had never heard about Jesus and so had not accepted him as their personal savior. They advised me that these children would go to hell. I really did not like this answer, and thus began my period of questioning. I did not argue with my parents at that point in time—but in my mind, I began going in a different direction.
The Great Unicorn and Satyr Cover-Up
John Compere
The first six decades of my life were spent as a casual, comfortable, and compliant Christian who enjoyed the community of church participation with family and friends. After retiring from military and civilian careers spanning half a century, I began a serious study of religions, scriptures, and their histories, which led to teaching adult education courses on biblical history—from both denominational and independent sources—in a large progressive church near two universities in a major metropolitan area.
During this time, I discovered a critical truth not disclosed by church or clergy. Neither “The Bible” nor “infallible and inerrant” biblical scripture exists. No original biblical texts remain. There are only copies of copies of copies of copies, made centuries after the originals and altered by countless changes and tenuous translations. There are various versions, all corrupted for compliance with church doctrines and dogma.
New Testament gospels are not historical biographies written by original disciples whose names appear upon them but anonymous accounts of oral stories (hearsay) compiled into ancient Greek texts by non-eyewitness authors long after Jesus lived. These authors followed the Old Testament to ensure conformity with the messianic prophesies and the liturgical year. Gospels were gratuitously attributed to the original disciples for apparent authority over other writings (by definition, they are fraudulent forgeries).
Some clergy admit these facts but offer revealing rationalizations: (1) The laity cannot handle the truth; (2) It would undermine the credibility and authority of the church that preached otherwise. Such circular reasoning is without merit, because the first is a direct result of the second. It is a sad commentary on religion when truth is traded for theology tenets.
The mythical unicorn was in early biblical versions until the modern era (such as the original King James Version and other early Bibles at Numbers 23:22, 24:8; Deuteronomy 33:17; Job 39:9; Psalms 22:21, 29:6, 92:10; and Isaiah 34:7). It was removed and replaced with “wild ox” by deliberate deceivers ignorant of basic animal husbandry. A “wild ox” does not exist and has never existed. An ox is a domestic male bovine castrated by humans for docility and heavy labor. There are no “wild” human-castrated male bovines. The mythical satyr was similarly changed to “wild goat” (Isaiah 13:21, 34:14). These dubious deeds were done because if mythical creatures are part of hallowed biblical scripture, then it must contain other myths also—which could cause believers to question its truthfulness.
The unicorn and satyr cover-up was a pivotal point in my decision to finally retire from organized religion and become a secular humanist. It was one more act of moral malfeasance by organized religion, finally undermining any trust or belief I had in its authenticity and authority.
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in later years relieved of them.”—Hypatia (Roman philosopher, martyr, and woman)
John Compere was a Brigadier General in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and served in the U.S. Army (retired). He is a disabled American veteran (Vietnam Era), a retired U.S. judge, a retired civil trial lawyer, and a Texas rancher.
Goodbye, Jehovah
Robert Conner
I was raised by a Jehovah’s Witness mother and grandmother. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, as you know, are always prattling on about Armageddon and foolishly predicting the year Jesus will come back. In my mid-twenties, I started to become seriously suspicious of these claims—so I decided to “get to the bottom of it” by enrolling in a state university to study Greek so I could read the “inspired word” for myself. In the process, I encountered Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), the book that pulled it all together for me. Apparently, Schweitzer had figured out while still in his teens—because he was obviously way smarter than I am—that the claims of the New Testament were simply incompatible with the way things played out in real history. For me, The Quest opened the door, like hearing the tumblers move in a lock and the grating of rusted hinges. I recall being rather surprised the solution had turned out to be so simple!
Since Schweitzer, much has been learned about the psychology of religion, particularly as it pertains to iconic places. It is probably no coincidence that the behavior attributed to Jesus in the gospels happens to closely match the widely recognized Jerusalem Syndrome, a point I explore in John W. Loftus’s recent anthology on miracles, The Prophetic Failure of Christ’s Return (pp. 278–301). What seems to defy explanation is how belief persists despite dramatic and repeated disconfirmation, a phenomenon that has been explored by many writers, such as Leon Festinger. We should also have come to better understand why large numbers of people are willing to harm others while accruing no benefits for themselves, a subject of Carlo M. Cipolla’s brilliant analysis, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.
We now have sufficient evidence to call religion what it is—a common and dangerous form of mass insanity. Still, even if one accepts that assessment, it’s probably far too late to take defensive measures—particularly given that recently, the temperature in Antarctica was higher than it was in Los Angeles. At this point in life, I’ve concluded that it’s wildly improbable that humanity will survive its own mentality, so the details of our current disastrous course are becoming progressively moot.
Biology 1, Faith 0
Anonymous
My parents were subsistence farmers in rural Texas, suffering with the reality of living in the Jim Crow south. Fortunately for my siblings and me, they moved to central California when I was two years old. (I am now seventy-one.) They were devout Baptists; my father was a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday school. We went to church every Sunday.
I never liked church or wasting my Sunday playtime in there, but I always assumed that when I got older I would see the light, get the “holy spirit,” and be “saved.” In junior high, I took a basic science class, fell in love with it, and even joined the Saturday afternoon science club. The more I learned, the more my doubts about Genesis and the whole creation story grew.
In high school, I took intermediate biology with a great teacher who opened a whole world of information to me, for which I will be forever grateful. I began to notice that during the minister’s sermons every Sunday I would vacillate between boredom and picking holes in the logic of what he was saying. I knew better than to mention this to my parents or siblings, but I was rapidly coming to grips with the fact that I was no longer a part of the flock. My senior year, I took advanced biology. I worked my butt off to get the grades to go to college because I knew I had to be able to move out of my parents’ house if I was ever going to be able to be my own person. I earned a bachelor’s degree in biology.
I have never been confrontational, and I have a great relationship with my family. They have accepted me as the other-than-ordinary one.
Hello, Aristotle
Leonard Deutsch
When I was seven years old, my mother married my stepfather, and I was baptized as a Catholic. I became an altar boy. Once when I lost a ring, I prayed to St. Christopher, and after a week I found it—thereby proving the efficacy of prayer. After mass one Sunday morning, I even had a vision of St. Mary in the clouds. My catechism book told me that my purpose in life was to know, love, and serve God.
In college, I read Aristotle, and that changed everything, because the Greek philosopher looked at life from a pre-Christian perspective. In other classes, I adopted the scientific method. My worldview was challenged, then shattered. Reading is dangerous because it may provoke thinking, which may provoke skepticism.
The obvious conclusion was: God did not create man; man created God and the many vengeful and loving gods embraced by myriad religions. So, I created my own humanistic god. (You may Google “Nasciove,” which stands for nature, science, and love.) P.S. I don’t want or need converts.
The Empty Baptism
Charles Lawrence Glisan
I will join the ranks of octogenarians this year, and I had to reach far back into my now-foggy memory banks to identify my pivot point. As a child, my mother regularly took us (myself and four sisters) to the Church of Christ on Sundays, and we celebrated Christmas and Easter big-time. My father seldom participated in the Sunday routine and, now that I think about it, was probably at best agnostic when it came to religion. He seldom attended church with us and never discussed it.
At any rate, at about age sixteen, many of my friends in the church were answering the call and being baptized, egged on by a very likable youth pastor. So, one Sunday I took the plunge—literally—because this particular congregation had complete baptismal facilities. Keep in mind that this was a big deal in the church community, and many recently baptized persons professed to be enlightened and renewed and otherwise closer to God.
I, however, could discern no change in myself and never received any calling or message from God as was promised in all the sermons and Sunday school classes. Looking back now, my atheism was born at that point. From there forward, my interests in science, biology, and astronomy—sparked by the science-fiction writers Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and others—led me inexorably away from faith and onto the path of reason and logic. Asimov, in particular, enchanted me with his fiction and educated me with his nonfiction books.
For over fifty years, I never really confronted my atheism. I instead sailed through life blissfully, observing childhood Christmas and Easter celebrations with my Christian wife. With the death of two sisters and my wife from cigarette-smoking–related illnesses and faced with the prospect of a retirement living alone, I turned to an old friend—the internet world and YouTube. That led me to Christopher Hitchens, which led me to Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and eventually to Matt Dillahunty and the Atheist Experience within the Atheist Community of Austin, Texas. My social horizons have expanded greatly, and I continue to marvel at the range of human intellect displayed from stubborn ignorance and reliance on faith to incredible scientific achievements through the powers of logic and reason. I am also currently the president of a local Optimist Club, which has further expanded my social prospects. Look up the Optimist Creed (Optimist International), and you will find a beautiful secular and moral substitute for the Ten Commandments.
Born Charles Lawrence Glisan on December 12, 1940, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, he was raised in Texas living in Palacious, San Antonio, Tyler, Houston, and Dallas, Texas. Glisan graduated from high school in Dallas and from Texas A&M University in January 1965. He served three and a half years in the U.S. Army and was discharged as a Captain in 1968. Glisan worked as an accountant and retired in 2008 from El Paso Electric Co., a publicly owned utility. He has been married for fifty years, with one wife and two daughters.
The Tumor That Wasn’t
Ethan Hirsh
It took twenty-five years before I grasped the full meaning of my transition. In 1987, at forty years of age, I stopped being active in a religion that relies on prayer for healing. I formally withdrew from church membership a few years later. For the next two decades, I comfortably believed I left that religion because of its inconsistencies, shortcomings, and sometimes outright hazards. Yet I retained great respect for its better points and for followers able to make it work in their lives.
To this day, I say very little critical about that church because I’m grateful that its teachings kept me from doing drugs in the 1960s and showed me a calm, balanced way to approach life. Still, as I learned more about physiology and psychology—once more-or-less taboo topics—and observed the vast harm caused by religions worldwide, I finally had my personal “come-to-Jesus moment” (sans Jesus, of course). I realized not only that I was a secular humanist but that I needed to thoroughly deprogram myself by acknowledging every way that those decades in which I attempted to follow religious teachings had harmed me. Moreover, I had endangered children on whom I had imposed those beliefs. I began to see more objectively the many kinds of magical thinking that composed my former faith, and I realized how to refute them. I was amazed how long I had drifted along before reaching that point.
I joined the humanist movement, and the more I’ve read its principles and followed its reasoning, the more clearly I identify as a committed humanist—my morals and standards intact; my faith in reason, science, and compassion stronger than ever. I am happy to see humanism gaining more structure, identity, delineation, and representation.
My actual pivot point? I’ll never forget the day I left work to visit a nearby oncologist’s office. As the father of two young kids, I could not live with the tenuous reliance on prayer to heal the growing lump on my back. I was supposed to believe there is no evil, yet to believe at the same time that I had better get busy praying to get rid of the something that wasn’t there. If it was a tumor, as I suspected, I could die. A nurse put her hand on my shoulder and said the doctor would take good care of me. After years of blather about compassion, I felt a huge wave of relief feeling her genuine compassion.
The doctor took a quick look and told me I had a large subcutaneous sebaceous cyst—a stopped-up pore. Would I like him to take care of it? “PLEASE!!” He sent out for a scalpel (not in his usual toolbox), made a quick jab, then pushed and kneaded for several minutes until he’d gotten all the guck out. A stitch or two, a little bandage, and I was back at work a few minutes later.
I never forgave the church for subjecting me to needless months of fear and anxiety. That was the real beginning of my major course correction.
Ethan Hirsh, seventy-four, is a writer, editor, and photographer living in the Kansas City area. He retired eons ago from a career in corporate communications primarily for utility and energy firms. He spends much of his time tending the forests and grasslands of a nature preserve in the Missouri Ozarks.
Everybody Does What?
Dianne Leonard
I’m now sixty-seven. I was a “cradle Catholic.” I made my first communion at age eight, and my first confession preceded it by about a week. There were six of us kids, and our parents brought us all up with two precepts: “Don’t lie” and “Don’t cross picket lines.” About a year after my first confession, I realized that when I made my confessions I was lying to the priest, saying I’d done stuff that I hadn’t—just to have something to say and because, of course, all of us were evil.
I asked my mom what I should do, and she said, “Don’t worry about that. Everybody does it.”
Huh? After they’d been telling me all my life not to lie? Six months later, still worrying about the lying, I realized the Roman Catholic Church was lying to me. I’d been told that Catholic religious beliefs were unique, that the Church was the “one true faith,” and so on. Imagine my surprise when I read mythology during that period and found “unique” Catholic beliefs all over the place! I never looked back after that. I didn’t even hear the word atheist until I was in my mid-thirties, though. It turned out my five siblings got to the nonbeliever place too, all around the age of eleven or twelve. We use different words to describe ourselves and got here in different ways, but here we are.
My Church Wasn’t True
Richard Packham
My ancestors had been Mormon on both sides, going back several generations, and so I grew up as a good Mormon boy living in a largely Mormon community in southern Idaho. I married my devout Mormon high-school sweetheart at age nineteen “for time and eternity” in the Mormon temple, and we produced three Mormon children in three years. I graduated from Brigham Young University with high honors and received a generous scholarship to continue my studies at a prestigious eastern university. It was my first experience living in a “gentile” environment.
I was excited by the chance to “spread the Gospel” to my new non-Mormon friends, my fellow students. I soon made myself that unpleasant person who pushes his religious beliefs unwanted onto others. It seemed no one was interested. And some of them—devout Lutherans, Catholics, and Anglicans—seemed to know already a lot about my religion, things that I had never heard of, such as the Missouri “Mormon War” of 1838, Joseph Smith’s “Avenging Angels,” and Brigham Young’s teaching that “Adam is our God, and the only God with whom we have to deal.”
I was determined to prove them all wrong and get to the bottom of these problems, proving to them (and myself) that Mormonism was indeed “the only true church.” This was sixty years ago, long before the internet, so my only resources were the university libraries. But they had an abundance of material on Mormonism. Not much helped. I found plenty of evidence that Brigham Young had indeed taught his Adam-God doctrine, and yet I had never heard anything about it in my Mormon education. I finally wrote to the official church historian, an apostle who later became president of the church. His response simply denied the evidence.
I remember vividly the day I was sitting at my carrel desk in the university library, trying to make sense out of all the contradictory information I had accumulated over a period of three years, trying to come to a conclusion that would justify my faith in my church. Suddenly, at that moment, the thought struck me: The Mormon church is no different from all the other churches. Like them, it is merely a human invention, “the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.”
I felt tremendous relief at that epiphany. It was truly like a light had suddenly been turned on. I raced home to tell my wife. “Honey, the church isn’t true!” I blurted out to her as soon as I got in the door. But she would have none of it. She turned her back and stomped up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door. That was the beginning of the end of our so-called “eternal” marriage. It held together for a couple of years more, but she finally divorced me, unable to live with a nonbelieving husband.
I have never forgotten or regretted that moment in the university library.
Richard Packham, retired college foreign language teacher, attorney, and founder of the nonprofit Exmormon Foundation, has long been active among former Mormons. He writes extensively about Mormonism and Christianity on his website, packham.n4m.org. He lives with his atheist wife near Roseburg, Oregon, raising cattle and timber.
Released from My Past
Tom Peratt
I remember at age fourteen giving my younger brother a black eye for taking the Lord’s name in vain. By age seventeen, I was disillusioned with the hypocrisy of church members and stories in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, that made no sense.
After four years in the military, I began my college education, which cemented my conversion to atheism. Historical and religious literature opened my eyes to cults of belief. The Allegory of the Cave; The Age of Reason; and knowledge of the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and Christian condoning of slavery contributed to my conversion. All religions had the panacea for the misery, pain, and anger that abounded in our world. The world’s religions had the answers for our existence and death, which I found highly suspicious. Science, with evolution, biology, chemistry, physics, and geology, opened my eyes to a new reality.
I felt—and feel—unshackled, released from my past. It was exhilarating and still is to this day at age seventy-five. I adhere to the saying, “The word God is but a metaphor for the mysteriousness of the Universe.” I am a primitive and nearly insignificant in the known cosmos, but I am certain that man-made religions are not the answer for me.
A Believer in the Books
Robert Hersh
I have been a doubter since I can reconstruct what’s left of my memory. (At seventy-seven, I remember less than I used to.) Reading the logic of individuals such as Tom Flynn, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Dan Barker, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, et al. would be my pivot point. I look forward to your logic, common sense, and outright defiance of stupidity in every issue.
The Gospel Truth
Ruthe J. Rustin
This is how I decided I was no longer a believer.
I was born into a strict religious family and named after my mother’s missionary friend. It was assumed that would also be my path.
My older sister and I witnessed to the neighborhood kids, turning the old garage into a chapel. She played the trumpet, and I preached. I kept my younger sister awake at night, telling her she needed to accept Jesus or she would go to hell. I didn’t mean to scare her; I was a real believer.
I went to a Wesleyan Methodist liberal arts college, where I studied biblical Greek for two years along with my other classes. In my junior year, I took a course called “The Life of Christ,” a study of the four gospels. The professor analyzed the discrepancies between the gospel stories and tried to explain the paradoxes.
After a few weeks, I started thinking that these were just stories written by four men, not (as I had always been taught) the inspired words of God.
This led me to consider that the entire Bible (Old and New Testaments) was just recorded oral histories. If so, they were more myths than facts. It followed that there was probably no god involved.
That made me realize there was probably no heaven or hell; in fact, there was nothing after death. Whew! What a relief! I had nightmares about hell for most of my life. Now I felt free to live my one and only life as the best me I could be.
However, I am still ashamed of my fanatical early behavior, especially toward my sister.
Much later, I learned of the long decades between the Bible’s written words and the supposed actual events. Also, I discovered that there were no original texts; the words had been copied by scribes for hundreds of years, almost guaranteeing that errors and changes were introduced.
All this study led me to becoming a secular humanist and an avowed atheist.
Ruthe J. Rustin taught high school mathematics in upstate New York; moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, working for Pacific Bell in its IT department; eventually transferred to Telcordia in New Jersey. She is now retired in Philly, involved with several local and national nonprofits concerning separation of church and state as well as systemic racism.