Letter to a Christian

Dear _______,

I was deeply touched by your very honest and personal letter, partly because I never would have guessed how similar our stories are. My first sexual experience was also a date rape (at age 15) which left me feeling absolutely ruined and which led to many destructive choices down the road, including promiscuity, alcohol abuse, and isolation far from my home. Even now, my husband and I are treading the painful path of dealing with how he feels about the many men I slept with and how badly some of them treated me. It is hard for him to square his adoring view of me with the slutty behavior of my past, and it makes him violently angry to think about the things some of those men did and said to me and how worthless they made me feel. He obsesses over it. I also had deep depression and suicidal feelings because of the resulting sense of worthlessness and hopelessness. It was part of what led me to accept Christ at the age of 19. I did feel like I needed forgiveness and a new start then. After more years of healing, though, I saw that I was more of a victim than a perpetrator. I needed to forgive more than I needed to be forgiven. I needed to understand why I made the choices I made and who was harmed by them. I was not ruined by sex. I was ruined by my own beliefs about what happened. I was hurt by sex, but it was my own belief that I should be a virgin until I married that really messed me up. I intend to teach my children that sex is a natural and enjoyable act between two adults in love. I will urge them to wait until they are sure they are ready and are in a committed relationship with someone they love and believe they can trust. I will also try to help them decide that nothing anyone does to them can “ruin” them. As they get older, I will try to explain some of the complicated dynamics that make sex into a powerful weapon and what they can do if they are pressured to do something they don’t want to. I know in the end that they must decide for themselves what their values are. My mom was a feminist, and she tried to teach me something very similar to what I hope to teach my kids, but I decided for myself to be a virgin bride because I always valued honesty. I didn’t think I should wear white if I wasn’t a virgin. Isn’t that silly? But it broke my heart when my virginity was taken, and I never will get the big white wedding I dreamed of as a child.

I’m not sure where to start to explain how being an atheist works for me. I suppose I should explain that I am not as hardcore as I sound. I cannot honestly say that I know for sure that there is no God. I have had my own share of miraculous events, and I still cling to the hope that I will be reunited with my beloved dead some day. But I cannot believe in the Abrahamic God...Yahweh, Jehovah, or Allah. To me, he seems so barbaric that even if he is real, I cannot worship him. I’d rather burn for eternity. The core of my problem with Him is the blood sacrifice. What kind of decent God requires or even allows the crucifixion of an innocent man to atone for the sins of all mankind? I have never done anything to merit eternal damnation or blood sacrifice. Can you imagine damning your kids to eternal hell for stealing a candy? for doubting something that makes no sense? for failing to love a barbarian god whom they have never seen a speck of proof of? For being of the same nature as Adam and Eve? Where is the righteousness in that? Can you imagine thinking crucifixion is a suitable solution to the problem? Would you reward them for murdering the best human ever? Would you reward them for accepting that bargain 2,000 years after the fact so they can go to heaven and avoid the unfortunate pain of hell? I cannot worship a God that values an impossibly difficult leap of faith over honesty and thoughtfulness and open mindedness. I cannot worship a God who offers exclusion and punishment to those who cannot help but doubt. I cannot worship a God that no two humans can fully agree on, and on whom most war is founded. It seems so fundamentally wrong to me that I reject that God absolutely.

I don’t mean to rant. I value open mindedness, and I don’t know everything, but I have made my choice for strong reasons, and I am angry about the violence being done every day in God’s name. I hate it that a woman dies in childbirth every single minute of every day on this planet because she cannot get medical care and yet Christians deny her access to birth control. I hate it that Muslims think it is okay to stone a woman to death for the sin of being a rape victim. I hate it that my Jewish neighbors won’t eat at our house because my kitchen isn’t kosher. I hate it that gay kids have to cope with the self loathing that comes from growing up gay in this largely Christian nation. The thing that makes me angriest, though, is when Christians try to force the rest of us to follow their beliefs by legislating morality. If I don’t believe it is a sin to have gay sex, then why should gay marriage be illegal? To me it is just a different lifestyle, one I do not understand and will not pass judgment on. I really do believe that religion does more harm than good.

It is hard to give up on God, though. It hurts beyond belief to think that this brief life is all there is, and to believe that every loving relationship in my life will be severed by death. It is almost unbearable, but it forces me to cherish my loved ones and each glorious day more than I might otherwise. It makes me want to fight for what I believe is right because if this life is all we get, how can we justify building our happiness on someone else’s misery. It’s their only life, too! It makes it even more important to be just and honorable and loving because there is no second chance or divine forgiveness. I am exactly who I am. If I murder, I am a murderer. If I steal, I am a thief. Any forgiveness I receive can come only from my victims. I will not be redeemed by blood.

I believe in my own goodness. I believe my children are inherently good. Every day they demonstrate to me that I am right about them by being loving and thoughtful and honest. I have always thought it sort of funny that believers think atheists have no reason to do good. Does that mean that Christians are only good because God says they should be? Is it because they want to go to heaven, or because they fear hell? I believe in doing good because it is the right thing, because I have to live with myself if I don’t, and because we cannot have a civil society without civil behavior. Besides, it feels good to do good. Goodness is its own reward. I know that is not true for everyone, but in my experience, being religious does nothing to redeem a bad apple.

You put in quotes from Matthew Henry and Rick Warren about how one must have faith despite lack of evidence, how one is judged by how one acts when God’s presence is undetectable. I can’t. I chose to believe in 1985, but I could not turn off my rational mind. Plus, the further I move from faith, the more honest and whole I feel. I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to shut down lines of reasoning because they plant doubt. I don’t fear debate and discussion with others about what they believe because I am absolutely certain that I have followed the best path for me. I do feel awe and reverence in nature but, like Carl Sagan and John Muir, I believe that the miracle of my existence and that of our living world is every bit as wonderful without an author. My life has meaning because I live each day as the rare and precious improbability it is. I have the energy to volunteer and to pursue my core values because there will be no second chance. I don’t know everything. I know I might be wrong, but odds are most humans are wrong. There are so many religions and philosophies, most of them must be wrong. What reason do you have to choose the path you are on among the thousands of choices? If you had been brought up in the insular animist culture of Myanmar, you’d almost certainly be an animist, wouldn’t you?

You asked if I pray and where I find comfort and guidance. I never could pray, even when I was trying to believe. I guess I don’t have enough imagination. I seek comfort in nature. I am always uplifted by the beauty and wildness of the natural world. I seek guidance from within myself by walking, journaling, and meditating in nature. You asked if I think I’ll see my Mom again. I honestly don’t know. Just because I don’t believe in organized religion doesn’t mean that I am closed to the possibility that there is more to consciousness and personality and the universe itself than I know, or that somehow we do carry on after death. I think it is unlikely that I will see her as she was in my life. I take comfort in the knowledge that the water in her body was released into the clouds and into the web of life when she was cremated. I touch the salt water when I go to the shore and take comfort that her elements are there where her ashes were scattered. I feel like her spirit carries on in my heart and in my children. I hope that when I die I find that we are all reunited somehow. After she died, I read books about near death experiences, seeking some sort of evidence that I would see her again. This is the most painful part of atheism, as I have said before, but it does make me really appreciate the people in my life every day.

You asked what I hope for and in whom I place my trust. It sounds arrogant to say that I trust my own heart and I trust the people I love. It isn’t arrogance, though. I can’t help being who I am and following my own internal compass. I do not trust people who claim to know who God is and what God wants. To me, that is the ultimate arrogance and dishonesty. I don’t mean you here. You are not telling me what I should believe. It is religious leaders I refer to. The only one I know really well is the pastor of a Bible church, and he is one of the most seriously messed up individuals I know. He means well, and seeks healing for himself and his flock, but I really think that his beliefs keep him from seeing the truth and healing, and I believe his search for answers in the Bible leads him to interpret scripture as creatively as any other religious leader, including jihadist ayatollahs in Iran. His family is as wounded and unable to heal as he is. He has been crying every day for the past four years over the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. His wife hates herself because she cannot write the novel she has been trying to write for the past 20 years. I really believe it is because she realizes that she needs to be honest in order to write, but if she is honest about her own lack of faith, her entire world will fall apart. Their children are as messed up as they are. On top of it all, he recently decided to get out of the ministry and take a sales job. He sought a “Christian” company with “Christian ethics.” He is now selling air purifiers for a pyramid scheme company called _________. He had to pay $10,000 to become a salesman for them, despite the fact that this was the last of their savings and they are in imminent danger of losing their home. Now he is selling a product that puts harmful ozone into room air. The company intentionally uses verbal sales tactics and not documentation so they can make claims that they are supported by the American Lung Association and NASA. When I did a bit of research to see if I could support his efforts by recommending his product to people I reach as an American Lung Association volunteer, I learned that the company is specifically cited by ALAW, Consumer Reports, and NASA as a company which is making false claims and whose product is harmful to those with lung conditions. How’s that for Christian ethics?! Add in the Catholic priests who diddled little boys and girls under their care, protestant televangelists who fleece their flocks and screw whomever they like, and the thousands of other examples of abuse of religious authority, and you’ll begin to see why I despise people who dare to preach.

You also asked why I continue to celebrate Christmas and Easter. It is just because we started the traditions when my oldest was small, and I cannot take that away from my kids. They enjoy the traditions even without the beliefs underlying them. I fumble my way forward same as all humans do.

My greatest role model, ________ told me, years before I called myself an atheist, that she did not believe she had ever done anything to merit Hell, and she believed that the dead live on only in the memories of those who loved them. She never went to church, prayed, or spoke of faith or God. Yet there is no denying that she lived a wonderful, full life and reflected the values of love and family and generosity. When I compare her to the Christians I know well (and I don’t mean you here), the Christians don’t look so good. They mistrust science and reason because they fear being led astray. What kind of real God would be threatened by scientific scrutiny? They don’t take responsibility for their own emotional growth and their impact on the world around them because at heart they don’t believe this life matters as much as the next. From my perspective, they are throwing away all that is real and important for something imaginary. It is insane! Just as Christians think science is dangerous, I think faith is. Once you believe something because you choose to, or because someone says you should, and you discount evidence to the contrary, you are set up to be a lifelong sucker. It’s just like George Orwell’s “doublethink.” Once you can accept that God created the world in a week less than 5,000 years ago and that the planet is billions of years old and all life evolved from single celled organisms in primordial goo, your ability to reason is done for. They can’t both be true, and only one theory holds up to scientific scrutiny.

I feel unkind, bashing Christianity this way. I don’t want to insult you or _____. He is doing such good work as ___________. Fighting the abuse of children has to be one of the most important missions possible. And I know you are a beautifully loving and giving and brilliant woman. I don’t for a minute believe I am smarter than you. I just don’t believe you two are good because you are Christians. I believe you are good despite being Christians. I know you will disagree. I am content to leave it at that.

Lovingly,
Rachel