Introduction
Hello!
To be clear, I do not hate god. I have no ax to grind or bone to pick. I have no score to settle. I have no story of trauma. I have no ‘de-conversion’ story. I did not suffer a great disappointment in religion or in a clergy-member. My de-conversion was gradual, almost imperceptible; a drifting away from dogma and Faith – hence the title of this work. Perhaps backing off from dogma makes for a descriptive allegory; as one might back away from a diseased pooch with frothing mouth and rheumy eyes, nevertheless, the analogy fits.
My relationship with family and friends, who are mostly firm ‘Believers’ (People of Faith), has not been seriously, deleteriously effected by my ‘drift to atheism’. Perhaps the subtle ‘drift’ is the reason for their forbearance. I’ve had conversations – some heated – with one or two more vocal, fervently opinionated members of my family but nothing that a smile and remembered birthday greeting couldn’t paper over. I imagine and have been told that they pray for me and my immortal soul and I am grateful for their misplaced concern.
In short, to date, none of them have declared a ‘fatwa’ against me. I feel neither ostracized nor marginalized from the familial circle for my lack of belief. But, there have been minor familial traumas, I must confess. Once, a family member, concerned for my lack of Faith, recommended that I read ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis. It was suggested with the knowledge that the piece has been celebrated as a wonderful argument for the ‘glory of Christian belief’. Since I was a Tolkien fan and Lewis was a member of the ‘Inklings’, a group of writers which met at the pub in Oxford, ‘The Eagle and Childe’, I decided to read it, despite being horribly disappointed with Lewis’ ‘The Space Trilogy’. I tabled my skepticism and bought the slim book to read.
First, Lewis asks that the reader accept the New Testament as factual. (Warning, Will Robinson!) That’s quite an ask as the New Testament is twaddle and gibberish for reasons cited in the preface; utter lack of historicity, multiple editors across centuries, faulty translations, transcription errors, lost source manuscripts, etc. However, for me, the point which under-cut the work’s premise was that Lewis determined that all people were ‘Believers’ whether they professed their faith or denied it. He gave as evidence the example that universally, mothers cared for their children in similar manner, regardless of hardship or cultur.
It’s a fine sentiment but untrue as any anthropologist or sociologist will attest to. There are people in the world who do not regard a ‘Christian’ devotion to motherhood as the epitome of virtue. Lewis had poisoned the well by starting his argument with a conclusion based on the contingency that Christianity was a universal truth which everyone accepted as a necessary fact whether they professed belief in it or not. Lewis’s own prejudice had colored his understanding of the world and had tried to pawn it off as a truism.
I left off reading the book at that point; realizing that Lewis’ paean to his Faith was dishonest hogwash. My dismissal was not on that single point concerning the universality of motherly devotion but for the coupling of that error with the requirement that the reader accept and internalize his premise and then suspend disbelief. In effect, Lewis expects the reader to switch off skepticism and swallow whole what he purports. He was preaching to the choir I had resigned from years before. I refused to concede the point which he had dishonestly tried to make.
When in my 30’s, I had a heated discussion with my born-again brother in which I attempted to introduce Joseph Campbell’s theory of the ‘Hero with 1000 Faces’ – the universality of the various primal myths – to him as evidence that the Bible was based on other, older stories (e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Flood, the cult of Osiris, the Egyptian mythologies of resurrection, virgin birth, etc.) My intention was to pave a path between our world views and to broaden his understanding of his own belief. The attempt to conjoin the Christian stories with similar stories of previous civilizations fell on flinty ears. They were vehemently denied as too preposterous to consider; blasphemous and satanic.
My claim of an absence of familial ostracism is not to say that a certain ‘curtain’ hasn’t fallen between the less vocal members of my extended family and me as a result of their discovery that my views on the existence of a deity differs from their own. I have been chastised for daring to disturb the delusions of other believing family members.
Such is the cost.
I never formally ‘de-converted’, as I mentioned above. There was no coming-out party or informal ceremony. I never reached a point (or a chasm) when I declared myself to be an ‘atheist’. I never purposefully and fraughtfully ‘came out’ as a non-believer.
I do vaguely recall defining myself, when in my twenties, as an agnostic; as it seemed a more comfortable pigeon-hole and a more easily defensible position to hold than atheism. (FYI: an agnostic is a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.) The decision to define my position on the existence of a deity was, again, a private one; it was not announced to anyone.
I was a Roman Catholic and received all the appropriate sacraments of childhood and early adulthood; Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and Confirmation. My god-parent at my Baptism, in infancy, was my maternal uncle, whom I suspect was less than a fervent adherent to the teaching of the Holy Roman Catholic Church as he was openly gay, a drag performer and a bit of an outcast. I cannot verify my suspicions as we never had a conversation on religion or faith. Nevertheless, as he was a notable influence in my life, seeds of doubt may have been sowed by his presence in my life.
I was not raised in Catholicism, per se. I consider this essential to my ability to break away from the Catholic faith with relative ease for I was not subject to the childhood indoctrination which many children endure. As I recall, until I was about to be enrolled in parochial school at St Teresa’s for second grade (I had attended a public grade school for my first year), my family didn’t attend church at all and we children were never subjected to church-y teachings. However, the maternal side of my family did have some shallow roots in the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
My mother told me the story of her paternal grandmother’s conversion; this story was corroborated by her father, my grandfather, who was not a religious man to any extent. I only assume that he was a Believer in god because I have no reason to think that he wasn’t though his thorny relationship with my gay godfather affirms an adherence to Catholocism.
The story of my great-grandmother’s conversion, as I recall it is this: my great-grandmother was walking on the streets of Kankakee, Illinois one day after her immigration and heard the sound of the choir at a small Catholic church called St Mary’s. Drawn by the sound of the voices of the choir, she entered the church. She was confronted by a priest who convinced her that becoming a Catholic was the right thing to do for her soul. That was her conversion story as far as I remember it. I never learned if she held to a religion prior to her conversion. She, was not, apparently a devote or fervent practitioner of the Catholic Faith.
Incidentally, our family was not a member of the parish of St. Mary although my mother and her brothers went to the parish school long before I was in the world. This close involvement with the parish community explains the generational indoctrination at play on my mother’s side of the family. My father’s family was different.
My father was a ‘non-denominational’ Christian, to my knowledge. He converted to Catholicism before marrying my mother. His family migrated from Tennessee to Illinois and assumedly were Christians of a Protestant persuasion. Their Protestant roots were a bit scandalous for Catholic society and hence never spoken of. It was my father, the convert, who was the more insistent – adamant, even - about keeping his family in line with the liturgical demands of the Church. His fervor was, undoubtedly, meant to assure the Catholic side that he was sincere. This would also explain why we were enrolled in a Catholic school when we were able. We became able by moving to a parish which had a church school.
As a prerequisite to my enrolling in Catholic school in the parish of St Teresa, we, the family, were required to attend weekly Mass and take counseling from a parish priest. Once we were enrolled (my sister and I) in school, weekly attendance at Mass became an inviolable necessity under penalty of soul-death and eternal damnation in the fires of hell, as well as well-meaning pestering from the parish priests. All this was taken unblinkingly by me as fact of the new regime of Catholicism. Novenas to the Virgin Mary, saying the rosary, receiving the sacraments (Confession and Communion) all followed as we were ushered into the rituals, credo and liturgy of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Most classes at the parochial school (St Teresa) were taught by nuns. I remember being taught by Sister Veronice, a loving and kind young woman. Sister Bernardas, the eighth-grade teacher was in charge of training and scheduling the altar boys; she was older and gruffer. I was eager to become a ‘Knight of the Altar’ as it endowed one with social prestige and I began training by learning Latin liturgical prayers. One prideful moment was when, in a public ceremony, I was inducted into the ranks of the ‘Knights of the Altar’ and received a gold lapel pin as proof of my new rank. I was also induced to join the choir, as I had a decent singing voice. This also brought additional prestige and privilege as well as additional responsibility.
As an altar boy, we were instructed to beat our breasts as we recited, in Latin, “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” (i.e. Through my fault, through my fault, through my own grievous fault’) every time we said the Apostol’s Creed, the declaration of belief in Almighty God and the dogma of Catholicism. The breast-beating, incidentally, was meant to symbolize the passion and suffering of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. During Mass, the hand bells were rung, by an altar boy (or server), at each of these public admissions of guilt.
Guilt for precisely what was informed by the Boston Catechism, which all students were intended to internalize if not memorize. The Boston Catechism was to instructs us on the ‘Truths’ of the Catholic Church; to wit:
‘Who made us? God made us.’
‘Why did god make us? To know, love and serve him.’
Down the rabbit hole we went, unthinking and unquestioning. Never questioning. Questioning was the work of the Devil!
I recall that my favorite books for a time (about 9 years old) were ‘Six
O’clock Saints’ –simply told tales of martyrs for the ‘Faith’. Dominic Savio was my favorite and so I took the name ‘Dominic’ for my ‘Confirmation name’. In the Catholic tradition, it is the martyrs for the faith who are held in the highest esteem, as examples of behavior and outlook. Dominic Savio, Stephen, the first martyr; there is a near endless list of those who laid down their lives for their faith. Many others, such as St Rose of Lima and St Ignatius Loyola tortured themselves as penitence for god. The highest aspiration was to die for one’s faith; ‘with your shield or on it’.
Very Spartan. It seems that this attitude, this life-philosophy that ‘suffering is joy’ is quite a Stoic idea. I, myself, have usually leaned towards epicureanism without knowing much about Epicurus, Epicureanism or Lucretius until I read Greenblatt’s ‘The Swerve: How the World Became Modern’.
I recall marching row on row, column by column into the parish church to say the rosary as a school, daily during the months of May and October. (October was Holy Rosary Month and the month of May was devoted to the Blessed Virgin.) I recall being gratified that my earthly mother was named ‘Mary’ and so, felt a special affection for the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven.
(Very Oedipal, now that I think of it.)
I attended St Teresa for three years from second grade through fourth grade. Then, our family moved to a new home and a new parish.
Upon moving to a new home, out of the parish of St Teresa, I was transferred to the parish school of St Rose of Lima.
St Rose was a very different atmosphere to St Teresa, as I recall; starker, older and stricter. The nuns were of a different order, Benedictines, and a different temperament. They wore the typical black habits of the time but had starkly peaked wimples and starched gorgets that resembled the pharaoh’s ceremonial beard. They were also armed with rosaries which were easily a meter long with large rose-wood beads, nickel-silver chains and large silver crucifixes. These rosaries were used to whip recalcitrant students who’d literally and figuratively stepped out of line. The priests were Viatorian; a teaching order renown for being harsh in manner.
I stress that the harshness of these nuns and priests did not engender resentment in me. However, my time at St Teresa’s was more warm-hearted and compassionate compared to my tenure at St Rose. I, again, under-took my duties as an altar boy and in the boys’ choir but the bloom was off the rose, so to speak.
At St Rose, there were no gold lapel pins for ‘Knights of the Altar’ and as a transfer, I was obliged to prove myself anew as a ‘server’. That I did so was proven by my being selected to serve early morning Mass held in the nuns’ chapel in the convent. This was nothing short of terrifying as I had to arrive before 5am to the darkened, silent halls of the convent to prepare for the solemn ceremony held under the discerning and watchful eyes of the nuns. No misstep was allowed; any slight wavering while kneeling or standing brought chastisement and removal from that rotating position of prestige.
As a member of the choir, I was expected to intuitively read and understand the archaic and esoteric notation of Gregorian chant. It was a puzzle which I never adequately learned. The choir-master was a very stern priest, Father Ruffalo. (Called ‘the Buffalo’ behind his back, of course.) One memory that lingers and niggles is being called out during a rehearsal by Father Ruffalo. He angrily asked me why I was staring off into the distance during one of his frequent tirades. “Are you having a vision of the Blessed Virgin? Pay attention!”
This puzzled me then as it does now. Wasn’t I supposed and expected to have a religious experience in the cathedral? Wasn’t that the intention and purpose of all of this? Why, then, was the priest mocking and belittling me for a presumed expression of piety?
I bring this up because it perhaps lends to the ability, the ease by which I drifted or ‘de-converted’. Not having been indoctrinated until after reaching the ‘age of reason’, (i.e. 7 years old) perhaps I could informally, unconsciously question the actions of the clergy as well as the validity, the veracity, the soundness of the dogmas and teachings of the Church. I was also fortunate to have come of age in the 1960s, an era when being a Christian was seen as a lazy cop-out and when investigating Ancient Wisdom, Eastern religions, mysticism and alternative belief systems were de rigueur. It was the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, after all.
Being raised Catholic, the bloody sacrifice of Jesus and the redemption myth permeated everything. Any endeavor held within it a degree of purification and sacrifice. Sacrifice was a driving determinant for nearly every activity.
Again with the Spartanism!
Sacrifice and redemption were constant themes drilled into our heads and hearts daily. Suffering was seen as noble and was an emulation of the suffering and sacrifice of ‘Our Lord, Jesus, Savior’. To avoid suffering was considered cowardly and impious because, they alleged, by suffering, we humans could gain ‘grace’ – a sort of S&H Green-stamp program for the redemption of our soul.
Something as banal as eating a meal was presented as a ‘stoic’ exercise. Eating what was not pleasant or agreeable to your taste was to be taken as an obligatory sacrifice; eating spinach, say, or mushroom soup was a way to demonstrate appreciation for my mother’s effort in preparing the food and appreciation to my father for working to provide the food. It was a penance of a sort for something - being human, perhaps.
‘Think of the poor children in China (or India, or Africa) who don’t have spinach! (or broccoli or mushroom soup)’ was a shop-worn refrain in my childhood.
Likewise, wearing clothes entailed a submission to the dictates of authorities. Personal wardrobe was usually determined by the uniform worn to parochial school as decreed. What clothes were worn outside of school was also dictated by the availability of hand-me-downs or the economic consideration of the price of the garment in question; price-point being of greater importance than comfort, style or taste. Once more, appreciation for the effort – the sacrifice – of my parents for providing the clothing for me was stressed as a severe necessity and obligation; sacrifice and duty.
School work was a chore, of course; one must needs knuckle down and complete the task in a timely manner. Complaints were heard unsympathetically. The opportunity of attending school was esteemed as a wonderful thing that was not enjoyed by many others. (Poor children, or Africans, for example.)
Home chores were considered in much the same way; imposed so that one could ‘develop character’ and learn a proper work ethic. Acquiring the proper ‘work ethic’ meant that one was acculturated to the sacrifice of individuality in order to complete the work assigned whether the task was satisfying, edifying or desired by the individual. One of my daily tasks – rain, storm, shine or snow - was to gather pebble-sized coal in a large pail from an out-shed and fill the large hopper which fed the furnace to warm our home. Failure to do so meant that not only was the house without heat but that toxic gasses would fill the house. It was a daunting task; fraught with the pressure of responsibility, duty and forbearance.
That ‘work ethic’ as sacrifice was also endemic to all sports. To ‘play’ sports became the antithesis of ‘play’. It was a task to be performed so as to develop a proper work ethic – to work and suffer through pain and discomfort. That was the sacrifice of strained muscles, bruises, wounded ego and submission to bullying coaches and team-mates.
Giving service as an altar boy to church ritual (mass, novenas, benedictions, etc.) was a sacrifice of time and energy. This service was demanding; standing stock still, kneeling on hard surfaces, (stress positions) getting up at very early hours, fore-going breakfast as a necessary, fast and deprivation to ensure worthiness to ‘god’. Daily sacrifice was as a crucible to improve and be worthy of the bloody sacrifice of Jesus, who suffered and died for our sins – as we were constantly reminded.
That background said, I slowly became an atheist and an epicurean over time.
