Budding Atheist

I think I'm in transition from being a non-practicing Southern Baptist to being a reluctant atheist. Is this what being 45 does to you? Is this "middle-aged crazy" or am I opening my eyes?

Like the good little former Bible thumper I am, the realization that I may not believe what the majority says you're supposed to believe scares the hell out of me. It's like one part of me is dragging the rest kicking and screaming into a new worldview. I wish I had faith. As much as I despise some of the flaws in modern Christianity and its patriarchial outlook, I think I could find a niche for myself if I could just MAKE myself believe it all; I almost talked myself into that kind of blindness when I was a teen. Less as a college student and then as a newlywed. Less so as a divorcee. Even less so today, as a happily married suburban mom.

As I've gotten older and farther from naive belief in unsubstantiated popular myths, I am less and less satisfied with the platitudes of my religion. God doesn't answer prayers. He doesn't speak. He doesn't even hint. So what good is he? Why are we supposed to worship a shadow? Actually, there is no shadow; it's like being asked to worship a mirage and hoping that you'll at least get a glimpse of it if you squint just right. I've been squinting for years.

And my old religious training is making me wince at those thoughts. Who am I to expect a response from God Almighty?

But if one of my children knocked at the door until her knuckles were bloody, you can damned well expect that I'd answer it and welcome her in. Why doesn't this so-called "God" do the same? Is he weak? Disinterested? Working on a bigger plan that is far more important than me? Or is he just not there? Why should I care? If he does exist, why worship someone whose compassion and love and ability to make human contact are so far removed from humanity's understanding as to make him unreachable?

Is he just a jackass -- a cosmic-sized bully that I need to be careful I don't get caught bad-mouthing?

Maybe the kook fringe New Age interpreters of quantum theory are right -- the only "afterlife" that exists is the one that you create in your own mind. If you believe in hell, there'll be one. If you believe in reincarnation, then you'll have that. You get the idea.

What the hell happens if I believe in hell, but not in God?

I hope that if I do fully commit to atheism that I'll be able to reach contentment with it. If only I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no hellfire after death, I'd be perfectly fine with the concept of just ceasing to be when I die. I could say, "Okay, this is my time, and then afterward life goes on for others." But it's the doubt that hooks you, isn't it. No one wants his or her sphere of influence to go away, but I can accept it. I just don't want eternal suffering.

And isn't that a pisspoor reason to keep trying to believe. I just despise inconsistency, and the Bible is riddled with it. I hate smugness and self-congratulatory elitism, and Christianity is stuffed to the gills with both. I hate intrusiveness and corruption of ideals, and today's Religious Right and the idiot president I helped to elect are trying to erode all hardwon barriers between church and state. Christianity doesn't satisfy me, but so far the lack of it isn't doing me any favors either. Dammit.

I don't expect a religion to be perfect -- just be believable. This one isn't. I don't expect worshippers to be perfect; I'm clearly not. But I expect something more than what I see in churches I've attended -- more than I've seen in the lives and conversations and actions of Christians I know.

What am I? A budding atheist, or a disaffected Christian struggling with my own disillusionment and sense of hopelessness and helplessness? Just a suburbanite not yet aware of my own "preciousness" and the need to get over myself?

And still, I find myself doing the socially acceptable thing of offering my prayers to the sick and the widowed and my blessings to the recently married and the new parents; these are largely the only times that god-words still pass my lips, when I'm trying to reach out to someone to whom God still matters. I just can't bring myself to abandon the Christian posture. Yet. So I guess that makes me just as large and nasty of a hypocrite -- or as big of a coward -- as those who I disrespect. Where do those words come from, as they're no longer from the heart? It just doesn't have the same ring to it to say, "I empathize with your pain/joy. I care about you and I'm here for you."

Maybe it should. But it doesn't yet.