As a young man I struggled with the faith and through my own sheer idiocy lost it almost altogether for a while. I remember with some shame those times I spoke out against the faith. I read atheistic philosophy. I read Nietzsche. I was even prone to dropping an “uberman” at times. I considered myself an intellectual. I know.
I called myself enlightened. Yet I was miserable. I’m not saying a little miserable. I was deep, dark and angry miserable. Yet somehow I was proud of my deep dark edgy miserableness. I consoled myself that everyone else wasn’t brave enough to face the nothingness. But I was.
I laughed off everything and found myself dreadfully serious. That is the paradox of atheism. Oddly enough, when I was enlightened I felt burdened. I’ve come to decide enlightenment is a heavy philosophy, not suited to living.
My life was filled with thinking about death. I didn’t take life seriously but I thought of death incessantly.
Through what I called sheer luck but later would recognize as grace I picked up a novel by the intellectual atheist Ayn Rand. Hey, God uses everybody. After reading her novels I began reading her essays one of which blasted Christianity and William F. Buckley.
I wondered what about Christianity could make this woman so apoplectic. I decided to find out. And that, without getting into all the particulars here, was the moment. Yes, Ayn Rand prompted my conversion. She wouldn’t be happy. Though I’m quite sure she was unfamiliar with that particular emotion.
I began reading Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” and after a few years I was delving into the Fathers of the Church.
One of my main hurdles to the faith was the “Thou-Shall-Not-Ness” of Catholicism. I saw the faith as essentially walls of rules surrounding us which we crashed up against in our efforts to be happy. I still saw atheism’s rejection of religion as liberation.
It was then that I read Mary’s response to the Angel who told her she would conceive Jesus. I’d read it before but it really hit me this time. The whole history of man balanced upon that moment. You cannot make too much of Mary’s “Yes.”
So through that moment, I began to look at Catholicism as a “yes” culture.
I thought of marriage. We say, “I do.” We affirm that we are saying yes to loving this other person and only this person for the remainder of our time here on Earth. It is a great yes. But that one ‘yes’ contains two billion ‘no’s.’ I am essentially saying “no” to every other woman. (I can almost hear their collective sigh of relief.) We are called to actively love. The no’s are reminders.
I have found that it is a paradox that bringing on the “burden” of Catholicism has given me the feeling of lightness. I know now that by accepting something I have necessarily rejected other things. The burdensome nature of atheism is that you can’t reject anything because you’ve chosen nothingness.
Now when I lay down at night I think about life. I think about my children’s lives. And I feel light.
October 26, 2007 at 7:10 am
Great post. I think this fits many of us who strayed during (at least for me) college and grad school days. I never completely lost my faith, but I acted like it a lot of times.
October 26, 2007 at 9:17 am
Yes, a wonderful post, CMR. You remind me of a recent post of mine: here is part of it (your reference to Mary’s “Fiat!” could be added at the end of it):
‘At the times I have felt the most “pummeled, punch drunk and staggering”, I have had only one possible course of action left to me… to hand everything over to God… “I can’t cope, Lord. This is too immense, too big for me. I can’t carry it alone.” Of course, God doesn’t want us to try. His Son has already carried everything for us and will continue to do so if we let him. But in the midst of our suffering, God asks us to do more than that, for our own benefit: to lift our eyes to the heavens, to behold his Son, to offer ourselves to him and offer to take up His Cross with him. This may seem like madness! Why ask for more pain and suffering when you can barely cope with what you already have to carry? To think this way – understandable though it may be – is to forget the words of Jesus:
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ (Mt 11:28-30)
I have always felt a great affection for Simon of Cyrene, to the point where I wrote a short story about him (see here). In deep humility, I imagine Jesus and myself on the way to Calvary, helping each other to carry their cross.
It is possible to go through the kind of suffering our family has been through and yet retain a heart anchored by God’s deep graces of peace and joy. Possible, not easy. It requires you to hand over your whole life to Him, and be prepared to let him “take you where you would rather not go” (Jn 21:18 – Jesus to Peter).’
God bless.
October 26, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I don’t se ehow refusing to lend credibility to idea and propositions that have no evidence means you can’t reject anything. I have rejected a lot of things. Namely the utterly unsubstantiated claims of all religions. You have rejected a lot of things too. You have rejected every other religion and for the same reasons I have (presuming you gave it some thought) I just go one further and its the only on on which we disagree.
October 26, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Now when I lay down at night I think about life. I think about my children’s lives. And I feel light.
Very nicely said. This is really similar to my experience. Thanks for articulating it so well. I’ll be linking to it! 🙂
October 26, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Well done Matthew. I can relate. not to the atheism, but to the no versus yes. I have posted my extended thoughts at my blog.
Thank you for expressing it well.
October 28, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Excellent post. Than you for putting it so succinctly.
November 5, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I think this post really points to what religion really is… A belief. You went from reading and studying logic based texts to something that made you feel good. As an atheist, I am glad for the joy you have found and again as an atheist think you have made an excellent choice. If you can truly believe then that is a beautiful thing as long as it doesn’t cloud your logic and perceptions and you still savor life to the fullest.
To me atheism wasn’t a choice, I can’t believe in an all might being any more then I can a red-yellow striped elephant. Mans vanity leading to a hope for eternal life is understandable, but believe me non-belief can be more fulfilling then any religion. Live life to it’s fullest receives new meaning, as does respect for the fellow human. We all have one finite life, enjoy it and respect others who are different is all it’s about 🙂