Over the years that I matured, I vacillated back and forth with faith in the divine. As I wavered between full blown atheism, agnosticism and Catholicism, I tried to keep my mind open to the possibilities of what life was about; all the while trying to see the subtle details that we tend to overlook. I wanted, like anyone else, to know the truth, whatever it was.
My initial problems stemmed from my lack of inspiration in attending mass. I simply could not get excited about reading scriptures or discussing biblical lessons in CCD. When you're young, all you want is...well...whatever it is that you want at the time. Trying to take scripture and interpret it into my daily life just didn't make sense. I started going to church less and less.
Finally, I just stopped believing altogether.
When I was in college, I went to a fair with some of my friends, and on the way back to the parking lot, I encountered some Christians witnessing the Word to some people they met. They weren't making a lot of friends anytime fast, but people were mostly politely declining. Curiosity overcame me and I approached them. After I introduced myself, I gave them a brief history of what I knew and believed (and didn't believe). I asked the man who was the leader of the group about himself, mainly just wanting to know from him about how he came believe and have such a strong faith in some higher power he couldn't prove exists.
He was very frank in his answer. He was an abusive and unfaithful husband, a liar and a drinker. One day, he stopped and listened to a street preacher and realized there was another aspect of life he hadn't considered until that moment. Once he heard the Gospel and felt nothing but guilt and regret for his actions, he wanted to set his life right.
I asked him "If you knew the decisions you made in your life were wrong and hurting yourself and others, why not simply change because it's the right thing to do?"
He responded with a question. "Under what authority do you determine what is right and wrong?"
"My common sense, my opinion, my..."
"...and what happens when your opinion conflicts with others who's opinions differ?"
"We argue."
"Then how do you settle who is right when you reach an impasse?"
After thinking about it for a few seconds, I just said that we'd have to agree to disagree. He just sighed and said "That is the inevitable result of what happens when what is right and wrong is defined by individual choice. I stopped making my own choices of what was moral and embraced God's Word."
I never forgot that exchange, and for a while my mind was open to the possibility of God.
A few years after I graduated, I was introduced to a nice girl who my cousin set me up with. We enjoyed spending time together, and both of her parents liked me. But her sister, a manic/depressive who had become a born again Christian after she was introduced to Prozac, began to undermine our relationship by getting my girlfriend to attend her church. They slowly ate away at her self confidence and initiative, eventually convincing her that I was a bad influence because of my Catholic upbringing. It was the first time in my life where it ever occurred to me that Christians of other denominations would undermine someone because they were Catholic. Seeing as our collective systems were all centered around Christ, I just couldn't figure out what the big deal was. That incident gave me a profound sense of distrust of Born Again Christians; not because they were different, but because I saw deceit in their methods. It frustrated me because the passion and strength of their beliefs was something I respected, and separating that aspect of their faith from the experience I had was difficult, and it left me shaken and doubtful.
Later, I watched my cousin, who had married a Jewish woman, not only suffer the pain of losing her to Hodgkins Disease, but also suffer the indignity of being insulted and mistreated by her family because he was not really Jewish. It didn't matter that he never left her side and never wavered in his devotion, or that he converted before they married. He never fully recovered from it, and after a few years of failing health, he died in his late 30's. I watched the happy horseshit he went through and it chapped my ass royally that in the end of his life, it seemed that all the aggravation and sacrifice he went through in the desire to appease the religious expectations of others had amounted to nothing. That turned me off to religion in a huge way, and my mind closed up again.
Then something happened I didn't expect. While I was working for Merrill Lynch, I met a person who, of all things...made me give up atheism altogether. He was the epitome of all the things that I had been taught were wrong. He was chronically dishonest , with people he worked with and even with people he regarded as his friends. He was boorish, crass, snobbish, elitist and demonstrated a massive ego.
Through the normal course of our days at work, we got to know each other. Invariably, the subject of religion came up, and I was quite surprised at how seemingly interested he was in hearing my thoughts on the subject. After hearing me out, he shrugged and told me that I had been wasting my time trying to find answers or hem and haw over finding meaning in everyday events. As he saw it, life was a brief flash that ended, and then there was nothing. When I tried to use an example by pointing out the consequences of a business deal he related earlier where a customer had effectively been ripped off after not getting what he paid for, he said "So what? Shit happens, he'll get over it."
When I expressed my incredulity at his response, he told me I needed to avoid the trap of looking at things in black and white.
Now, it was at this moment that the conversation I had with the man at the fair back in college came back to me, and I suddenly realized something that made me feel very uneasy. If my co-worker's concept of morality was just as justified by his own point of view as my own, then what he believed could never be wrong. If life did not continue beyond this, and there were no ultimate consequences to our actions, then nothing, no matter how horrible, beautiful, loving or hateful could ever...EVER mean anything.
While I know that my co-worker was no more a representative of all atheists as the Westboro Baptist Church is to all Christians, it left me aghast that a person who was otherwise intelligent and educated with an MBA could feel justified in acting the way he did. Then it occurred to me that what I saw as decency or a desire to do the right thing was not common sense or shared by everyone. Anyone who has ever had children have seen that, left to their own devices, kids will act selfishly, bully, tease and prey on others that show weakness. Concepts such as compassion, morality, selflessness and generosity are not inborn traits, but lessons that need to be learned, enforced and taught by example. A religious upbringing had given me a moral compass and center that continued to serve me in a positive way, even when I was too immature to appreciate it.
My negative experiences and observations of the consequences resulting from the extremes of both zealotry and secular hedonism made me a better person. I learned that I didn't have to become a fire and brimstone preacher to accept the simple message of forgiveness and love taught by Christ, nor did I have to give up reason and critical thinking just because I rejected the vapidness or moral malaise of secular humanism. That balance has made me a happier, successful and more well-rounded individual.
So it is in that good spirit and happiness that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and God Bless us, everyone.
