07.29.07
My Story - part 1
It was a cloudy, dreary fall day in November of 1971. I was an American spending my junior year of college in Avignon,
I had been raised a Catholic in a nominally Catholic family. By that I mean, that lip service was paid to the rules of the church and avoiding sin and such but I never got the notion there was any feeling behind any of it. I didn’t sense any religious feeling at home, and I certainly didn’t sense any such thing through all my years of Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school or even the first years of college.
During my high school years, freshman religion classes focused on de-mythologizing all the years of Catechism we had so meticulously memorized in grammar school. We were taught that there was no such literal place as heaven or hell (they were states of being,) that Jesus was only figuratively the son of God (anthropomorphic language) and that the bible taught only stories, not the literal truth (it taught history, not science) I took all this to mean that all the years of study in elementary school were for naught. Nonetheless, I was excited to learn about the possibility of a new, more mature form of religion. I could hardly wait for the next year when they would surely teach us the real truth!
Well, to my extreme disappointment and confusion, in following years, the religion classes contained only courses on family life, comparative religion and the like. No Catholic truths were ever disclosed to us. By the time junior year rolled around and we were supposed to be choosing a college, all I could think was that despite eleven years of Catholic school to date, I was being seriously left in the lurch. I had been stripped of all I was taught to superficially believe and nothing was left in its place. For this reason, I felt my main task in college would be to study religion at a higher level so that I could finish my education with a solid base on which to live the rest of my life.
Enter the Catholic University of America. The high school guidance counselor demanded that my parents appear in his office to discuss my choice of college. He told them in no uncertain terms that it was a “radical institution” and maybe dangerous. This was the late sixties and I suppose my parents assumed he meant politically radical. He didn’t elaborate further and my parents had confidence I was not at risk for politically radical behavior so I set off for Catholic U with their full approval.
Well, my early years at college included a couple of religious experiences that seemed to deepen my faith – the original type taught in grammar school.* (see below for details of some religious experiences) But all the while, the theology and philosophy courses that formed the equivalent of a college minor encouraged us to question everything we had ever been taught. Theme papers were assigned on religious topics and we were informed that if we quoted catechism answers we would fail the course. The professor wanted original, personal thought. Many of the theologians we were assigned to study were essentially non-believers. Their logic was carefully digested and elaborated upon.
It was also during these years that I acknowledged to myself some examples of extreme hypocrisy among many of the traditionally religious people I had known - women I remembered from my hometown, who would so piously walk down the aisle from Communion each Sunday that you could just about see a halo above their head, who would then turn around come Monday morning and tear a fellow member of the Margate Mothers’ Club to pieces behind her back. Meanwhile, the people I genuinely admired most seemed to be those who felt no need for church. Much of this information I was carefully sealing away in some corner of my brain but I still held on pretty tightly to the original religion I had been brought up in.
Fast forward to that fall day in Avignon. I was a French major you see. It was part of the mission for that year to become as French as possible; to leave behind as much American-ness as possible and truly assimilate another culture. I was only just beginning to get into this by November. But, well that trip to Mont Ventoux, with the interminable car ride and me being left out of the conversation (argument) found me at a point where I had already left behind a lot of the normal cues to behavior and belief I was brought up with. The theology courses at Catholic U left me with a lot of questions I had dared not articulate even to myself while existing in the confines of my birth culture. But spared of all the habitual cues to thought patterns I was accustomed to and being in a culture that largely upheaved my own anyway, I spent that time in the car to Mont Ventoux ruminating over all the religious concepts to which I had been exposed to date. I allowed my logic to take me wherever it might.
Suffice it to say that I had gotten into that car as a traditional believer and I walked out essentially an atheist! In under an hour I had decided that logic and reason trumped fourteen years of religious training. There was and could be no such creature as the God of the catechism classes. No angry punishing God who would condemn you to eternal damnation if you were accidentally hit by a car on your way to confession with a mortal sin on your soul. No being in the sky who would grant your most meager prayer if only you had been good enough. I decided that no such God was necessary. No such God was possible. Yes, there was evil in the world, but there was too much good for an angry punishing God to have created it all. And if there were a supreme being, he or she could not possibly harbor such petty, human emotions as the God I had been taught about. That God could only have been conjured up by man, a figment of human imagination. Most of all, I decided that to live a good life, it was up to me. It was not dependent upon whether I could commit sins and then get to confession in time to have them forgiven. How about if I just lived by a standard where I didn’t do wrong things?? If I avoided doing the things I considered wrong simply because it felt better to do the right thing, I didn’t need to concern myself with eternal punishment or reward. If I didn’t believe there was any life after death, how could I care about reward vs punishment? I decided the only thing that counted was the here and now; that life right here on this earth was an incredible gift. It was gift enough that if only I took every opportunity to make this of this life the best I possibly could, then if by chance, there was an afterlife, no sort of god up there could fault me for the use I had made of that gift. I would determine my life’s course and as long as I followed my own conscience, I would always know I had done my best. So I had taken a huge leap before stepping out of that car as an atheist! But you see, that moment did indeed represent my very first step toward personal growth. It was my first step in taking an adult level of personal responsibility for my life. I was not waiting for God to show me the way. I knew it was up to me. Now I know a lot of traditionally religious people are going to point fingers at me for showing false pride, and such. Well, I just want to point out that that I knew immediately this was a very serious step. It meant there was no God to fall back on in times of strife. If it was all up to me, then that would apply to the adverse circumstances as well as the good ones. I could tell at the time I had made a decision that required great strength and determination. It was uncommonly liberating to be freed of the fear of inadvertently transgressing on one of the “little” laws of the church, missing Mass, not going to confession. It was very empowering to know that this decision meant there would be circumstances wherein I could not rely on the rules of the church to determine my choices in life. I would have to figure out each situation as I went along. It felt good! It felt scary – but I was ready. I plowed full speed ahead. In retrospect, thirty-five years later, I realize that my decision that day was just the first of many growth steps I have taken since. The belief stance I took allowed me to seek further growth opportunities and further truth all along instead of being close-minded and self-satisfied that I had the only real truth all my life. It led me to a point where I could appreciate others points of view and others’ beliefs. It has been a blessing beyond compare and I have never for a moment regretted leaving behind the God I learned so much about in Catechism those early years of Catholic school.
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*religious experience #1. My parents, my brothers and I lived largely removed from everyday contact with our very large extended family which included my mother’s numerous cousins and their children. About the only time we ever saw them was for weddings and funerals.
The category of “children of my mother’s cousins” included one charming young man, just about two years older than me with shiny black button eyes that gleamed when you looked at him. All the girls in the category, some of whom must have been first cousins to him, had a crush on him. And certainly, I was not immune to his charms either. But never in my wildest dreams did I consider the possibility of any type of real relationship with him. Imagine my surprise when I was about seventeen and this guy began traveling from where he lived, somewhere near Philadelphia, to my parents New Jersey shore home, some sixty miles away, presumably staying with friends, but also always coming over and taking me out.
It was a few “dates” later that I realized this was actually a dating relationship but long before that we had invoked the dire consternation of my Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was the type who, up to the time of that incident, had always seemed to totally mind her own business. Now she was becoming very vocal about the evils of my seeing - let’s call him “Jim.” In contrast, my mother, for the first time ever in my life, seemed to be at a loss for words. Aunt Margaret would call my mother and tell her it was a huge mistake to allow me to see him. Mom would hem and haw, not making a commitment either way, but you could see she was confused. On one occasion, as we were about to pull away in Jim’s car, my mother raced out of the house, and put her hands on the window, blurting out “Isn’t it nice that cousins are getting together! It is so nice for cousins to know each other because we are all family and should stay in touch!”
There was a whole lot of discussion about whether I was doing the right thing – not any between Jim and me you understand – mostly just among other members of my family. In the middle of all the confusion, I really could not tell if I was doing anything wrong or not. Just that it was real hard to turn down the dream date that all the distant cousins had been drooling over for so long.
At one point I was supposed to be spending a few days at Aunt Margaret’s house in Philadelphia and had a prearranged date with Jim, where he was to pick me up from her house. I knew my aunt would disapprove and I did not know what degree of difficulty she was going to give me. In anticipation of the trouble I was going to get, and for once in my life really not knowing what the right answer was, I turned to God and begged: “Look, I really don’t know what the right answer is here. I am having a lot of fun. I don’t think I am doing anything wrong. If I am however, the fun times are not worth it. If dating Jim is wrong, please God, just give me a sign. I will stop.”
Well, that very evening, Jim came to pick me up as planned. We had a lovely time but at the end of the evening, he told me his parents were giving him a hard time about seeing me. He said they told him it was not fair to me (one can only guess why!) and that they were making him stop taking me out. Being the shy, quiet type I was then, I could not discuss this with him directly. I just accepted that this was my sign from God that seeing Jim was wrong and that was that.
Of course, it did give me pause that the first thing I ever remember praying for in my entire life, was granted to me immediately. You can see where that sort of experience would lend credence to the type of religion I had grown up with. You pray to God for what you want, and he grants it. I could have prayed for a million dollars and that God should grant it. I remember thinking what a nice crutch that was. I trusted it - but yet still did not. I held back from any total commitment.
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Religious experience #2. I was in the tiny, very cute chapel that stood between my dorm and another one in the same area at
MPJ said,
July 29, 2007 at 10:10 pm
<p>You can see by this story how up until that day in Avignon, I seemed to be following a course of accepting a traditional preset (”stage 2″ - see my article on “Religious Development for Dummies”) religious course. However, as of that day in Avignon, I had moved into the next stage - skeptic/individual. This is the story of my Stage 3 conversion. Read on……</p>
MPJ
MPJ said,
September 18, 2007 at 8:14 am
Michael Teply wrote:
Just wanted to let you know how I enjoyed your story on the ex-christians site.
I too went to a catholic school and went to mass 6 days a week. I
continued to go to mass on sundays until I took a humanities course in college.
The course I took allowed me to understand what the catholic church was founded
on. I never entered a church after that.
MPJ said,
September 18, 2007 at 8:16 am
To Michael Teply:
Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it.
Steve Van Helfteren said,
February 6, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I think we should not forget that the church and the various religions of the past and some of the present had and have the tough task of tamming the humam animal. Religion is part of the development of human kind as we know it today. Some societies are still under that spell until they wake up and find a better way to live.