When Dead-Logic was brand new I shared a 20 page paper I wrote for one of my graduate classes titled, "My Three Crises of Faith: a Learning Autobiography." This paper, which served to provide my personal story concerning my struggles with god, faith and religion, started me on the path of becoming one of those "skeptic bloggers," albeit unbeknownst to me at the time. I wrote the paper in October, 2009, right after I got married to the woman who would soon after become ex-wife #2. I'm posting it here for newer readers (and older readers who missed it the first time around). The only changes I have made to the content of this paper are the addition of hyperlinks to the many references I make in the paper, and a brand new section which recounts the two years of my life since I wrote this paper. I warn you: it's long. Really long. If you read the whole thing, however, you will gain a much better understanding of me and my journey.
Thanks for reading,
- Bud Uzoras
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009:
The following is a 20 page paper for one of my classes. It's supposed to be a "learning autobiography" about me. In other words, I need to write about what I have learned, and how I have learned throughout my life. My paper is titled "My Three Crises of Faith" because there are three significant periods of my life that have influenced my intellectual (and consequently, my spiritual) life: what I call my "Three Crises of Faith." It's long, but it's one of the few times I get introspective, so I'm posting it here for whoever wants to read it.
My Three Crises of Faith: a Learning Autobiography
By Bud Uzoras
Religion is the intrinsic component of the story of me as a learner throughout my life, for how I have developed as a person, student and thinker correlates with both how my association with religion (in my case, Christianity) has affected me and how I have viewed and applied religious beliefs and systems of theology through the years. The milestones of my life vis-à-vis the progression of my learning and education are what I call my “Three Crises of Faith.” Each of these moments has marked a significant phase of my intellectual and attitudinal development. The purpose of this paper is to describe each of these three events and explain why each event is significant to me as a thinker, learner and (consequently) a person.
One definition of “crisis” offered by Dictionary.com is, “a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life.” Each of these three periods of my life is an emotionally stressful time, fitting of the label “crisis.” Another definition of “crisis” found on Dictionary.com is, “a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, esp. for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.” Each of these three periods is marked by fundamental changes in my thinking, disposition, values and philosophic paradigm. That each event is considered a “crisis of faith” denotes that each is a period of intense doubt and conflict about both my worldview and major life decisions.
Prelude to a Crisis: “The Tingling Kneecaps Experiment”
My account begins in high school, but I need to provide a little back story: As a child I was plagued with recurring nightmares. During the week my repeated nightmare involved a dragon that swooped down from the clouds at night and consumed me with fire from his mouth. I would usually visit my grandma and grandpa’s house on the weekends, and there I would have my recurring “giant ants” nightmare. I faced a dragon every night of the week and giant ants on weekends, because I suppose even dragons need a break.
I thought about death often when I was a child. Fear of death overcame me in my nightmares. This fear was bolstered after watching the 1984 movie “Dreamscape,” because I was convinced that if a person dies in his dreams, he dies in reality. I no longer had the recurring nightmares in 1984, but I still had nightmares almost every night. Variety is the spice of life they say, though whether this applies to nightmares or not is debatable.
If god were to come down and tell me those nightmares I had were written and directed by John Carpenter, I’d be inclined to believe him. I was a child afraid of death, afraid of closing my eyes at night in fear that they’d never open again, who dwelled upon death frequently during his waking hours. The fact that “A Nightmare on Elm Street” also came out in 1984 didn’t help me much either.
With the exception of the time I conducted my “tingling kneecaps experiment” (I’ll get to that in a moment), I believed in the existence of god the way I believed in the existence of my parents. I accepted the stories I heard at Christmas and Easter, and thanks to the 1977 film “Jesus of Nazareth,” I was amazed at how bright Jesus’ blue eyes were. Certainly he must have been King of the Jews.
Each night I said my prayers, and each night I had my nightmares. Each day I held fast to belief in god, trusting him to watch over me and keep me safe, and each day I feared death, dreading its inevitable arrival one day. I would tell myself that when I die I will go to heaven, so everything is okay and I have nothing to fear. The part of me that creates the fear emotion was not listening.
The cognitive dissonance between my strong faith in god and my equally strong fear of death planted the first seed of doubt in my mind when I was six years old. I remember lying in bed one night at my grandparents’ house, thinking about dying and going to heaven. As a child my thoughts of heaven always included flying cars and jet packs, because it’s heaven and of course stuff like that will be there. I recall thinking that when I get to heaven I’ll be able to ask god for a real lightsaber and be able to use the Force to move objects with my mind. Heaven is awesome. I imagined all my friends and family there, all happy and flying around with their cars and jet packs.
Then the thought hit me: what if there is no heaven? What if god doesn’t exist, and there’s no lightsaber waiting for me when I die? These are pretty deep questions for a six year old to ask. These are terrifying questions for a six year old to ask himself alone at night in a pitch-black bedroom. If there’s no god, then where will I go when I die?
Horrible images filled my mind. I saw myself dying and entering into eternal blackness, unable to move or see or hear. I imagined myself dead, but still in my body and fully aware of my surroundings. My overactive imagination would not relent, and I saw myself buried, trapped in my coffin in a lifeless body that could never move again. In retrospect I wonder whether Edgar Allan Poe had such thoughts when he was a child.
I lay in bed, surrounded by the blackness of night, my mind now replacing the silence of a peaceful neighborhood with the shrieks and howls of macabre visions which rival anything conceived by H.P. Lovecraft. I buried my head under my pillow, wrapped myself up in my blanket and prayed to god: “If you’re really there god, and we get to go to heaven when we die, then make my kneecaps start to tingle so I know you’re there.”
Seconds after whispering that prayer I felt a tingling sensation which started from the back of my knees and moved to the front. The feeling in my knees grew so strong that I had to sit up and rub my legs. I could hardly stand it. I felt as though someone were somehow tickling me under my kneecaps with feathers. The feeling lasted for about a minute, then subsided gradually.
I attended Catholic school from first through fourth grade. Religion was my strongest subject in school. I have always been intelligent, and I had as solid an understanding of theology as any child could. Still, I do not know how my six year old mind came up with this prayer, but clearly I was opposed to fideism rather early in my life, long before I knew what the word “fideism” meant. My desire for evidence was placated easily because of my stronger desire for what I believed; that is, I really wanted god and heaven to exist, so I found evidence to make me feel better about believing it, regardless of how strong that evidence is (which I learned later is a problem most adults have difficulty overcoming). Still, this is a significant moment in my progression as a learner. I needed a reason to believe.
The kneecap experience may have an explanation that is purely psychological, but for a boy who is only six years old, this incident provided sufficient evidence to confirm that what I was told about god and Jesus and heaven were all true. I was convinced god answered my prayer. Soon after this “tingling kneecap experiment” the lightsabers and jet packs of heaven supplanted the demons and ghouls of my fears. Thoughts of my family and I existing happily in heaven erased the images of my being trapped in a coffin, facing an eternal “Cask of Amontillado” style fate. I slept soundly that night.
I still feared death and I still had nightmares; however, I had this faith in god upon which I leaned whenever my overactive imagination got the best of me. That there is a god seemed obvious to me. I could not understand how someone could not believe in god. Everyone I knew believed in god. Even the President of the United States of America waved and said “god bless you, and god bless America” after he spoke. Without question, I knew there was a god. Little did I know that the seed of doubt planted that one night when I was six would lay dormant, only to burgeon into a full-blown crisis a decade later.
Crisis of Faith #1: “My Problems Began The Day I Saw Jesus in My Closet.”
By the time I was 16 years old I was attending church regularly with my best friend Steve, whose father was the minister. I was not only a regular fixture at our weekly youth group meetings, but Steve and I were the unofficial leaders of the youth group. I preached my first sermon at age 15, and even attended a “Young Preachers Seminar” at Lincoln Christian College, which was designed to help equip and nurture the future Christian ministers of the world.
I was one of “those Christians” in high school: my wardrobe consisted of a dozen or so Christian t-shirts, each emblazoned with explicitly Christian messages in designs patterned after logos and symbols of the pop culture. I wore those shirts with pride, proclaiming to the world like a walking billboard that Jesus was wicked cool and being a Christian was “all that.” My friends were the same way. To this day I give my friend Christopher a hard time because of a ridiculous crayon-green shirt he wore in high school that mimicked the Sprite logo, but instead of “Sprite” the shirt said “Spirit.” Classic.
I had an impressive collection of Christian music cassette tapes. I listened to Christian rock bands like Tourniquet, The Prayer Chain, Dig Hay Zoose, Bride, Believer, The Crucified, Deliverance, One Bad Pig, Scaterd Few, Vengeance Rising, Mortification, and other bands whose names will live forever in the minds of the Christian metalheads of my generation. And no one will ever forget Stryper’s classic anthem, “To Hell with the Devil!”
My first love, however, was hip hop, and needless to say I had quite the collection of Christian rap tapes, including such groups as S.F.C. (Soldiers For Christ), P.I.D. (Preachers in Disguise), Dynamic Twins, IDOL King, Cauzin' Efekt, D.O.C. (Disciples of Christ), Freedom of Soul, and the legendary D-Boy, who was shot and killed in 1990 at age 22, just one week after completing his album “The Lyrical Strength of One Street Poet.”
Music has always been a way for me to communicate with others and express how I feel. Music is a way for me to understand how I’m feeling. I use music the way other people use therapeutic massage, counseling sessions, alcohol or Vicodin. While I had the same dreams of being a rock star that any teenager has (and a little known fact about me is that I actually have a decent singing voice, though it’s only heard when I’m in my car, in the shower, or intoxicated), I’m not a musician, but rather an avid listener with wildly eclectic tastes who wants to know everything I can about this wonderful creation called music.
Music influences the world, and the world influences music. I learned at an early age that one can learn much about a culture or group of people by examining its music. I used music as a means of communicating with others. “Hey, listen to this rap tape. It’s dope.” “Check out this song. It’s like the lyrics were written with my exact thoughts in mind.” Music, however, was not merely an instrument at my disposal; it was a constant reminder of what people in the world were thinking and feeling. Music serves to communicate the concerns and plights people face.
Grunge became popular in the early 90s and was marked by lyrics exhibiting apathy, nihilism, chaos and dissatisfaction. Nirvana, often considered the “flagship band” of Generation X and the grunge movement, solidified their position as my favorite band in high school. Their Sartrean message ran contrary to the admonition of positivity I heard in the lyrics of my other favorite bands, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul; however, both sides shared at least one quality which left an impression on my attitude: rebellion against established authorities.
Music was not the sole or even primary catalyst that spurred the development of my rebellious tendencies, but I cannot ignore its influence on me as a thinker and a learner. As a teenager I wore my Christian t-shirts in part to rebel against the world. “Look at me! I’m different! I’m a Christian!” I held membership at a church ran by stodgy old men who believed that “if it was good in 1950, then it’s good today.” I rebelled against a pointless system of rules and regulations by growing my hair long and wearing jeans with holes in the knees to Sunday morning worship. “The Man” wasn’t going to keep me down. And while the elders looked upon me with disdain, “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols played repeatedly in my head.
Aside from the typical problems associated with teenage existence like acne, insatiable horniness and skewed self-image (as an adult I have overcome all but one of these afflictions), and in spite of the fact that I still suffered from nightmares and I hated my high school, I was in general a relatively happy teenager. I had a loving family and close friends. I believed my life had a divinely guided purpose, and I was moving down the path towards fulfilling that purpose. Heaven was waiting for me when my life had run its course, and I was okay with the possibility that perhaps it’s not all lightsabers and jet packs. I remained confident in my worldview – until the seed planted a decade prior began to germinate.
I woke up one morning and went about my usual business. I showered, trimmed my beard (yes, puberty hit me at an early age and I had a full beard in high school), brushed my teeth, dowsed myself with an overabundance of cologne reminiscent of Noah’s flood, and reached in my closet for one of my favorite Christian T-shirts. At that moment, I froze. I don't remember what the shirt said - most likely a "Jesus saves" message in a flashy Gen-X motif - but I remember staring into my closet at the picture of Jesus on the shirt, reading the words on that shirt and asking aloud, "Is any of this true?" Up to that moment I had been a committed Christian, and everyone knew it. Most of my wardrobe proclaimed a Christian message. At that moment skepticism and doubt entered my mind – and both were armed to the teeth and dressed like Rambo.
I had a propensity for logical thinking. I always had an interest in philosophy, even though I had no idea that what I was interested in was called philosophy. All I knew was that I liked to think and ask a lot of questions. Now, after seeing Jesus in my closet, questions filled my mind like air into a balloon. My fear was that, like a balloon, if it were filled too much it would explode.
"How do I know god exists?" That I asked such a question meant I did not know whether god existed or not. I had always presumed the existence of god. I always had this idea that an atheist was just some weird or evil person. After all, I thought, how could someone not believe in god? Now I thought I was going to become an atheist myself. I could find no peace. Is there a god? Did I have any reason to trust what the Bible says? What if I believe in the wrong god? The questions continued to pour into my head, and I had no idea to whom I should turn.
I did not want to be known as the guy who “fell away.” I had listened to many sermons about “backsliders” and people who turned away from the faith. Such people were reprehensible. Anathema! Anathema! For a long time I kept my doubts to myself for fear of what people would think of me.
My prayers were reduced to a few simple words, which I repeated every night before I fell asleep: "If you exist, please show me that you exist. If you are there, and if you can hear this, please answer." Night after night I said these words. Day after day I received no response. I wondered why god appeared to be hiding. As I have said, music is a tool of communication and understanding for me, and the lyrics to the song “Smell the Color 9” by Chris Rice (interestingly enough, a Christian singer) sum up my state of mind during this period: “... sometimes finding you... is just like trying to... smell the color nine...”
“Smell the color nine? But nine’s not a color. And even if it were you can’t smell a color. That’s my point exactly.”
After months of keeping my faith in a holding pattern, I decided to talk to my youth minister, who was the preacher at another church. My church paid him to conduct the youth meetings every Thursday. While he was a familiar face to the youth, he was still enough of an outsider that he was the perfect person to talk to about my disintegrating faith.
I called him and a couple days later he and I met. I told him all about my doubts and questions. His reaction, at the time, surprised me. Instead of pointing a finger at me and telling me how evil and wrong I was, he said, "Everyone goes through some doubts, and that's okay." The implied message I did not understand at the time was that “it’s okay... as long as you come back to the faith.” Soon after, he let me borrow a few books on Christian apologetics - though I did not know it was called apologetics then.
I read those books from cover to cover, over and over again. Even though I demanded something more reasonable than tingling kneecaps, once again my desire for evidence was appeased easily because of my stronger desire for what I believed. I did not want Christianity to be wrong. The arguments I found in those books were enough to keep me in the faith because that’s where I wanted to be in the first place, and I had not yet overcome the egocentrism that prevents many from examining their beliefs objectively. Concerning my attitude, I had learned nothing, reacting to my crisis the same way I did when I was six.
However, because of this crisis of faith I was introduced to philosophy, albeit viewed through the lens of a particular set of presuppositions. At 16 I knew about the classical arguments for god’s existence: the Ontological Argument, the Cosmological Argument and the Teleological Argument. I knew the names Kant and Hume, even though they were introduced to me the way I imagine Batman would introduce the Joker and the Penguin.
I acquired more books on Christian apologetics, and studied them every night. I learned about René Descartes, Thomas Aquinas, Søren Kierkegaard and C.S. Lewis. I read that a guy named Nietzsche declared “god is dead,” and I laughed along with the writer of the apologetics book at this incredulous notion. “Certainly god is not dead,” I thought. “God is alive and well. There’s so much proof!” I had much more than tingling kneecaps; I had the argument from design! Look at the complexity of the patella, and how it is attached to the tendon of the quadriceps femoris muscle, which contracts to extend or straighten the knee. The vastus intermedialis muscle is attached to the base of the patella. The vastus lateralis and vastus medialis are attached to lateral and medial borders of the patella respectively. This complexity could not have come from chance. Therefore there is a god. Crisis solved.
My sardonicism reflects neither how much I actually learned during this time nor the significance of this period of my life, so I will try to make this as clear as possible: while my exposure to apologetics – coupled with the fact that I had few significant intellectual encounters with people outside Christian culture – made me more closed-minded in the short term, this introduction to such concepts and issues was my first step towards discovering my life’s true passions: objective, critical thinking and the study of philosophy. Everyone starts with preconceptions. I was no different.
I survived high school with my Christian faith intact and afterward attended Lincoln Christian College in August 1993, where I stayed until they kicked me out in December 1995. I was “asked to leave” because of poor academics. My grades were bad because I didn’t try and didn’t care. I did not want to be there. Surprisingly, I learned a lot. I always had the ability to absorb knowledge. I listened to the lectures. I just rarely did the work.
Soon after returning home I became a part-time youth minister. This marks the beginning of an eight year period in which I worked in various churches in paid ministry (1996-2004). I also enrolled at South Suburban College, the nearby community college. Getting kicked out of Lincoln was a shot to my ego, so I wanted to prove myself. My thinking became more Nietzschean as I felt I was fighting to find some kind of purpose in my life. And my weapon of choice in this fight was the pen. I registered for only one class at the local college: Creative Writing.
I suddenly felt alive. I began writing poetry, anecdotes, and short stories through which I conveyed all the rage, all the confusion, all the struggles of my life (many of which are beyond the scope of this essay). All I did was write poetry and stories, and draw pencil sketches. For a time, I turned into the quintessential tormented artist. Then I registered for an Introduction to Philosophy class. Like I said, I always liked to think, and by now I was somewhat of a scholar in Christian apologetics. I thought I would like the class. Little did I know how much I would like it.
The professor, Dr. Stark, was brutally honest and incredibly intelligent. Every class session he pushed his students to their cognitive limits. He challenged us to think critically about the views of the philosophers we were studying, and he challenged us to think critically about our own beliefs. A lot of students hated his class. I loved it. He was the only philosophy professor at the school. I took every class he taught. Dr. Stark admonished us continually to seek the truth. He rejected relativism with a vengeance. His teaching and his passion remain with me today. He has shaped my thinking more than any other person.
Oh yes, I still hated school. But I discovered, through the teaching of Dr. Stark, that I loved learning. That passion for learning grew, and I soon learned to tolerate school for the sake of learning. In other classes, I wrestled with teachers who never allowed themselves to consider other views. For example, I fought tooth and nail with an English teacher who was adamantly opposed to the topic I selected for my research paper: “An Argument for the Existence of the Soul.” She went so far as to tell me that she was "losing sleep" because of my selected topic. I wrote my paper anyway. “The Man” wasn’t going to keep me down.
It was an "A" quality paper, whether the grader agreed with the argument or not. In fact, I am not sure I even agree with the argument put forth in my paper. I received a "B." I accepted it. My reward was in the study, preparation, and writing. I was not going to let school – and especially not some closed-minded unthinking muttonhead who passes herself off as an English teacher – get in the way of learning. I must have done something right, though, because I was eventually inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.
I read Carl Rogers’ book A Way of Being recently, and in it he speaks of his willingness to take risks in life. He writes: “But perhaps the major reason I am willing to take chances is that I have found that in doing so, whether I succeed or fail, I learn. Learning, especially learning from experience, has been a prime element in making my life worthwhile. Such learning helps me to expand. So I continue to risk.” 1
Rogers understands the difficulties of education, and thinks that, sometimes, taking a risk is the best – if not only – option. I think of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which is often seen as a metaphor for education. Dr. Stark, in his lecture on Plato’s Cave Metaphor, said that education is oftentimes a violent process. Sometimes one is confronted with an idea that shakes up her paradigms. Sometimes one is forced to consider things from another point of view and cannot help but change her way of thinking. Sometimes, as Plato’s cave suggests, the move from ignorance to knowledge is a painful procedure.
I had discovered my weapon: the pen (nowadays a metaphoric pen, given that everything I write is now typed in this glorious computer age). Then I discovered my arena: philosophy. If philosophy is the "love of wisdom," and if Pat Benatar is right in saying "love is a battlefield," then one should not expect such an education to be easy. I had begun to experience what John Stuart Mill would call "Socrates dissatisfied" and wondered whether I’d rather be a "pig satisfied." But it was too late. I had been dragged out of Plato’s cave. I could hear Plato himself saying to me, “You've taken the red pill Neo, and there's no going back.”
I still saw school as a thing to be hated, but now that hate created a rage within me. My rage turned into rebellion. I discovered my rebellious nature fuels my desire to learn, so I decided to “rage against the machine” in order to learn. I cannot rely on my teachers and professors to teach me. I cannot place my faith in any school system. I am responsible for my own education. Therefore I must rage, I must rebel, I must risk.
Risk necessarily implies the chance of loss. The risk associated with education and devotion to Dr. Stark’s axiom of “seek the truth” came with the loss of confidence in the paradigms I had embraced for most of my life. The more knowledge I gained the more I realized just how little I really knew. The more education I received, the more ignorance I realized I had. The arguments and evidence I had memorized in those Christian apologetics books no longer seemed as strong in light of the arguments and evidence I encountered to the contrary. The case for my faith was no longer as air-tight as I once believed. Apparently the seed of doubt was planted deep, and my intellect was fertile soil.
This loss of confidence would not blossom into a full-blown crisis until several years later, after I became a husband and a father. I repressed my feelings on the matter because I was a minister, and ministers are not supposed to have such feelings of doubt. My greatest sin was wearing a mask, hiding my true thoughts and feelings for the sake of appearances. I was seen by many as the model of what a husband, father, and minister of god should be. So, instead of addressing the issue, I acted like everything was fine and lived with the cognitive dissonance, like I did when I was six. And just like when I was six, the dissonance did not last forever. Eventually it overcame me.
Crisis of Faith #2: “I Should Have Avoided D.O.P.E. in College. It Nearly Killed Me.”
I returned to Lincoln Christian College in the year 2000 for a few reasons, among them being that I grew desperate for a bachelor’s degree, I already had earned credits at LCC, and they were offering what I called the “Get a Bachelor’s Degree Before You’re 30” program. I also needed to confront the demons of my past. They kicked me out of LCC. In spite of my success at South Suburban, I returned to Lincoln to prove to the world – and to myself – that I was not a failure.
I got a job as a full-time preaching minister at a small church in a small town. I’m from Chicago, so to say I experienced culture shock is an understatement; however, my biggest culture shock came not in rural Illinois, but on the campus of Lincoln Christian College. Though I worked in ministry during my time at South Suburban, I had been away from a dominantly Christian context for a while. I was not the same person I was when I left LCC.
Some things about me remained the same. Congruous with my rebellious nature, I continued where I left off in my pursuit to hold the unofficial title of “Student Who Used the Most Swear Words in Writing Assignments at Lincoln Christian College,” which is not as difficult as it sounds. Half the time I just quoted excerpts from The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, and that usually took care of my swear word quota for the writing assignment. Phillip Yancey helped a little as well. I wrote a reflection paper on his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? that I titled, “We’re All Bastards.” My teacher wanted to talk to me about the title, and I said to him, “Check out chapter 11. I’m just quoting Yancey. Take it up with him.”
My degree program was flexible, so I was allowed to design my own degree plan. My education focused on theology, philosophy and world religions. There was a mandatory class for any student planning to graduate from Lincoln: Dynamics of Personal Evangelism, or D.O.P.E. for short. This class was by far the single worst event of my educational life.
One of the more glaring problems with the class was the required textbook: Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg. I read it. I hated it. The reflection paper I had to write about the book was “interesting” to say the least. I went way beyond my quota for swear words – and I didn’t quote Brennan Manning once. If being a Christian meant being one of those “Contagious Christians,” then I didn’t want to be a Christian.
A problem I have with the book is the implied secrecy. To be a "contagious" Christian, one must focus on "strategic opportunities in relationships" and making friends for the sake of sharing the gospel with them. I know how Christians talk to each other. They talk about their non-religious friends as though they were projects, even if they do not view their non-religious friends as projects consciously. There is something not honest there. If these “contagious Christians” were not Christians, would they be making the effort to build these relationships? Probably not. And the emphasis on evangelistic strategies is a bit unsettling. International spies and undercover agents employ similar tactics the authors promote in the book. "Win their trust" so they will be vulnerable.
One strategy offered in the book is "barbecue first." In other words, invite your evangelism project – I mean, your "friend" – over for dinner, or to a party, and to just "hang out" without making a serious effort to share the gospel. Build trust - then work the gospel message into later conversations. Imagine this scenario:
Christian Bill invites his non-Christian friend Ray over for a barbecue. While Bill is outside tending to the grill, Ray is waiting patiently in Bill's living room. At that moment, Ray notices a book on the shelf. The title of the book is Becoming a Productive Proselyte. He opens the book to discover such evangelism strategies as, "Invite your irreligious friend over for dinner first. Win his trust so that you can present the gospel to him more effectively." Ray might react by thinking, "Bill is so nice to be concerned about my eternal soul." More likely Ray would think, "I thought Bill was being nice because he liked me! He's just trying to convert me!"
I might think that was a noble and ethical strategy... if my mind were influenced by D.O.P.E.
Each week I sat in my Dynamics of Personal Evangelism class, and as I listened to the teacher lecture I noticed that every time he made a point every student in the class would nod in agreement; that is, every student but me. I found myself grimacing every time he made a point. I got up and left the classroom the day he started using the “we’re the fishermen and the world is full of fish” metaphor.
I found myself in disagreement with the theology taught, the covert tactics encouraged, and the attitude nurtured. My experience revealed to me that D.O.P.E. leads to erroneous ideas, devious behavior and haughty dispositions; still, I faced a more pressing concern: I found myself not only disagreeing with the methodology taught in my Dynamics of Personal Evangelism class, but once again questioning the ideological foundation of Lincoln Christian College; namely, Christian theism itself.
Unbeknownst to me, I left Lincoln in 1995 as a believer and returned in 2000 as a skeptic. I came back to Lincoln to earn a degree in theology and I was a minister, but those doubts I had repressed for so long resurfaced when I became immersed once again in the Christian culture. The mask I wore that had fooled the world into thinking that I “had it all together” stifled me to the point where I was choking. I needed someone to talk to. Naturally, I turned to my wife.
Talking to my wife proved to be less than beneficial. At some point in our marriage she developed the habit of listening to Focus on the Family’s broadcast every day on Christian radio, and while I do not fault James Dobson for my wife’s lack of empathy when I tried to talk to her about my doubts, something about her had changed. Her listening to Focus on the Family devoutly was merely an indicator of this change, not necessarily a causal factor.
As my skepticism grew, so did my wife’s faith in god. I learned a lesson from my wife the day I attempted to communicate my thoughts to her. I saw fear in her eyes. She held on to her beliefs because she was afraid of being wrong, afraid that the truth might be something she would not want to accept, afraid that she might not understand the world and herself as well as she wants and thinks she does. For my wife, fear was her only god.
She wanted me to shut up. She did not want to hear doubt coming out of my mouth. She wanted me to be the good Christian husband. That was one of the many times I saw that my wife loved the mask, not the man hiding behind it. What can be learned from the experience of a marriage that was slowly falling apart? More than I can hope to write in this essay. However, I can explain how I progressed as a thinker and a learner because of experiences such as this: I became afraid. To quote Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only thing I feared is “fear itself.”
I am challenged to do my best, regardless of how difficult the responsibilities may be, to live up to the definition of free thinker as set forth by Bertrand Russell:
The expression "free thought" is often used as if it meant merely opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy. But this is only a symptom of free thought, frequent, but invariable. "Free thought" means thinking freely--as freely, at least, as is possible for a human being. The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things; the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker. A man is not to be denied this title because he happens, on some point, to agree with the theologians of his country. An Arab who, starting from the first principles of human reason, is able to deduce that the Koran was not created, but existed eternally in heaven, may be counted as a free thinker, provided he is willing to listen to counter arguments and subject his ratiocination to critical scrutiny... What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.
2
Thinking freely requires each of us to overcome our fear, our prejudices, our self-centeredness and our inflated egos; i.e., “the tyranny of our passions.” It requires humility and a desire to listen and learn from others. The pursuit of truth requires the courage to question and analyze ideas and "disrespect," as Salman Rushdie noted, "for power, for orthodoxy, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption and for stupidity." I long for these attributes, because I long for truth.
Logic is often referred to as the "slave of the passions." Too often a person's reasoning just so happens to lead her to the conclusion she wanted in the first place. The goal of anyone who wants to be an objective thinker / seeker of truth should be to do one's best to be free of the influence of one's passions and desires. Maybe this is impossible to accomplish perfectly, but one can at least learn to recognize her bias and attempt to move beyond what one wants to believe and what one prefers in order to examine the evidence and arguments with indifferent eyes, caring only about what is, regardless of what is. The Buddhists are right: desire leads to suffering.
Blind acceptance of a worldview and adherence to Dr. Stark’s axiom are incompatible. My wife embraced the former; I held fast to the latter. I suffered in my ministry, in Lincoln, and in D.O.P.E. because I still wanted Christianity to be true. I couldn’t let it go. My second crisis of faith reached its climactic peak while I was killing time shooting baskets when, standing alone in Lincoln’s old gymnasium, I cried out in lamentation, “I’m an agnostic. I can’t believe this!” I didn’t appreciate the humor in my ironic choice of words at the time. I acknowledged my agnosticism the way a sick person acknowledges she has cancer.
What bothered me then bothers me still today: the ambiguity of our world; the Kantian antinomies; the apparent limits of our cognitive powers to perceive – much less comprehend – a cosmos that shouts of the glory of a creator and in the same breath whispers that nothing exists above or beyond mankind save for the cold, dark, indifferent emptiness of space.
At this point I was in the middle of my internship with a campus ministry in Springfield which, along with being a full-time preacher and full-time college student, kept me busy enough to ignore my marital problems, but served as a constant reminder of my philosophical problems. Christianity was not only my belief system, but my occupation and, in many ways, my social network. Removing the mask meant undergoing a complete change of lifestyle for which I was not prepared. As much as the mask choked me, I was not ready to remove it. So I kept my agnosticism to myself.
I decided I should give up doing ministry. At the end of 2002 I graduated from Lincoln Christian College with a bachelor’s degree in theology. Earning my degree marked the end of my time in ministry – or so I thought. Most graduates of LCC leave to pursue ministry, whereas I graduated from Lincoln and fled as fast as I could from ministry. I had no idea what I was going to do next. I was not moving towards anything, only running away from something: running forward but looking backward. I was bound to trip over something.
Crisis of Faith #3: “I Made a Deal with the Devil. Think He’s Bad? Meet My Ex-Wife.”
My wife and I moved back north, and soon bought a house in Chicago. I had to work four jobs so we could afford it. I worked at a bank, unloaded trucks for a retail store, worked for a cleaning service on weekends, and, in spite of the vow I made to myself never to return, I accepted a ministry position.
I feel like a prostitute whenever I explain to someone that I took the ministry job because “I needed the money.” It was true, though. My wife wanted that house, and in spite of my protests that we could not afford to buy a house, I eventually conceded. I took the job because, I rationalized, I had a degree in theology and previous ministry experience; I was a family man with a wife, a new house and a third child on the way: what else was I going to do for money?
I resented our house the way a slave resents the master’s whip. I resented my wife for making me buy the house. I soon gained an existential understanding of the phrase “breaking point.” I worked to the point of physical and mental exhaustion to care for my family, all the while feeling I was not doing it that well. Severe, debilitating depression took hold of me, accompanied by thoughts of hopelessness, helplessness, regret, fear, and suicide. The weaker I grew the more emotionally detached my wife became. Either I was going to get better or I was going to die, and she simply waited to see which would happen first. I experienced the collapse of my marriage, and I experience still the pain of having my children so far away from me.
After our separation I had to deal with financial woes, bills I could not pay, and debts that only grew larger. I was technically homeless for about a month. During that time the only place I had to sleep was in my van. I asked god for a sign, in spite of the fact that I had no clue what kind of sign I wanted or should have expected, or what this sign was supposed to tell me. I was six years old the last time I asked god for a sign. Since then I have not been the kind of person who asks for signs from god. Signs are ambiguous. A shooting star is a shooting star, as far as I'm concerned.
Pain, on the contrary, is not ambiguous. Suffering is clear and precise. Pain is a sign that something is not the way it ought to be. Agony is a sign that things could be better, but for whatever reason they are not. At the same time, pain is an indicator that I am alive. I learned that who I am in pain is who I am in reality, without the mask.
I have known how hitting rock bottom feels. I held the knife to my wrist, and to this day I do not know what kept me from going through with it. I have been knocked down, kicked and clawed, until only a blood-splattered shattered shell of who I am remained, lying face-down in the dirt. Maybe that's my sign.
To hell with shooting stars, jumping dolphins or anything else that can be ruled out as simple coincidence. I understand a kick in the throat. I understand cuts and bruises. I know scars, and wounds that somehow never seem to heal. In such wounds I have seen my reflection. I am alive. I am comfortable with the sight of my own blood, and I can survive. There's my damn sign, and that is good enough for me.
I quit the ministry and removed the mask for good. My wife married the mask. She divorced the man. I hated her for a long time. I don't hate her anymore (I think), although if she were to suddenly burst into flames and explode I don't think I would be all that broken up about it. In writing this autobiography I have thought about all the plans I have considered over the years, and all the confusion about what path I should take in life.
I had a hard time believing that life could get better. I kept getting knocked down, and each time, just as I got back to my feet, I would get knocked down again. I figured "one step forward, two steps back" was just how my life would always be. I don't believe that anymore.
Assuming I don't get hit by a bus or something in the near future, I will accomplish my goals. My life will not be a meaningless waste of time. I am not a naive wide-eyed idealist. I do not expect life to get easier. I do not expect people to stop being stupid, and I do not expect the universe to all of a sudden start making sense. But I have gone through the fires, and I know what I can do. Now here I am, at the beginning of a new life, writing this “learning autobiography” for a class that is part of a graduate program based on “self-directed learning.” My restlessness is now excitement. Now if the Cubs could win just ONE World Series before I get hit by that proverbial bus...
I thought about my family and friends, and the support they have given me. I paused to reflect on the fact that the experience I had called "marriage" damn near scarred me for life, yet I got married again a few days ago (as of this writing). For a long time I figured I would be single for the rest of my life, and I was okay with that because the last thing I wanted was to do that awful marriage thing again. But I have found someone I love with all my heart, with whom I am willing to share, plan and risk everything. I have found someone who accepts me, with whom I can be completely honest. I wear no masks.
An important lesson I have learned from my experiences is that I am a better thinker and a better learner when I am always open and honest with myself. To do this, I have learned that honesty must be one of my most valued virtues; therefore, I do not lie.
My close friend Clayton is a minister. I met him during my internship in Springfield. He was one of my students in the men’s discussion group. He officiated my wedding a few days ago. He asked me before the ceremony whether he could say a few personal words about me and Kim, and I said he could. Clayton referred to me as a teacher who became his mentor, who eventually became his friend. He said, “With Bud, what you see is what you get.” Those words meant a lot to me. His words humble me, because I know I was not always this way. For many years, my false pretenses were all one could see.
While Crisis #3 is in many ways Crisis #2 finally made public, they are in fact two distinct events. Crisis #2 was my private realization and acceptance of my intellectual struggles, whereas Crisis #3 is perhaps best understood as the struggles involved in “coming out of the closet.” Removing the mask meant being myself out in the world, such that “what you see is what you get.”
After leaving the church in Chicago in 2004 – an event which signifies my final farewell to ministry – I wrote an email to everyone in my email contact list. In an act of transparency I explained in my email that I no longer considered myself a Christian, for the label “Christian” has several connotations in our society with which I did not want to be associated; moreover, I explained, I was unsure of what I should believe. I did not want to believe that which is incorrect, and I did not know what was correct. This, by definition, made me an agnostic.
I received various reactions to my email. One Christian friend of mine remarked on his blog that he was saddened by the fact that I had “renounced my faith.” Another Christian friend told me that my being an agnostic was a cop out. Another Christian commented on how I put “head knowledge” above “heart knowledge,” whatever that means. She believed philosophy was an evil that caused me to turn my back on god. She quoted Colossians chapter 2, verse 8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” In the same vein, another Christian friend of mine told me that my reliance on reason instead of god is “making a deal with the devil.” He quoted 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 19: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight.”
I received positive and encouraging responses as well. I mention the negative reactions not to cast all Christians in a poor light, but to emphasize that I had to teach myself to not care what people think. I cannot allow my progress as a thinker to be hindered due to worry over what someone might think of me. To give in to such concerns is to don the mask once again.
I am driven by a sense of wonder. When I look up at the sky I am overwhelmed by curiosity. If the universe is, as the dictionary says, "all existing things ... regarded as a whole," then by definition there is only one such thing ("uni-" is built right into the word). But when scientists and philosophers talk about different space-time domains being "two universes," what they generally mean is that those regions are:
1. very, very large;
2. "causally isolated" from each other (meaning that an event in one does not have an effect in another); and,
3. mutually unknowable by direct observation (since observing something means causally interacting with it).
I like to think about "alternate dimensions" and "parallel universes" because I'm a sci-fi geek and I like to play RPGs. But more than this, I think about how little we know about the world. When one becomes an atheist, she tends to adopt a naturalistic worldview. Most people who start to doubt god's existence and subsequently discard a belief in god usually discard any notion of the supernatural as well. A person's doubts tend to lead her towards looking at "this world" as all there is.
I am the opposite. The doubts I have about god and the questions I have about religion stem from the central question of epistemology: "How much can (and do) we really know?" I start to wonder: if the universe is "infinite," then perhaps an infinite number of possible timelines have occurred - or are occurring. If there is a reality - "spiritual" or otherwise - that exists currently beyond our physical senses, what is it like? People have watched "The Matrix" and wondered whether we are trapped in an illusion, perhaps deceived by Descartes’ malignant demon, incapable of seeing the real world. I wonder that and more. What if we are "trapped" by the limits of our understanding and perception of what we think is a large universe that's really just a small part of something much larger, reminiscent of the final scene of the movie Men in Black?
Maybe this sounds crazy, but when I think about it I am humbled by the enormity of the universe as I am reminded that I am this very small creature trying to understand something much bigger than myself. As usual, song lyrics come to mind:
“Three and a half pounds of brain try to figure out - What this world is all about - And is there an eternity - Is there an eternity?”
~ Chris Rice, Big Enough
My curiosity and wonder are not reserved for the “cosmic questions” only. I find myself fascinated with ideas in general, and over the years I have developed a passion for listening. Some view listening as a passive activity, but becoming a successful listener actually requires much discipline and even training. Listening requires focus, concentration and alertness.
To listen is to interpret what is being said; to analyze and critique the material; to interact with the what is being said as one allows the ideas and arguments to ruminate in her head; to allow these ideas to clash with the ideas and arguments to which the listener currently adheres; to put oneself inside the speaker's frame of reference to see the world the way the speaker sees the world and comprehend her paradigm. In short, to listen is to think.
The Prayer of St. Francis (which I have admired for many years) sets the standard towards which every thinker should aspire: "Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand." I have learned that, to develop as a thinker and a learner, I must not only silence the words in my mouth, I must silence the words in my mind. The former is obviously true: in order to listen, one must keep quiet and let the other person speak. The latter is what is often lacking.
Too often when one person is speaking, the other is thinking of what she is going to say next, and not really listening (or at best only listening selectively). Instead of giving the speaker her full attention, she is busy formulating her next "witty" response, waiting for her moment to speak. This approach to discussion is rarely productive. A person can listen only if she silences those words in her mind. A thinker should put aside her vanity for the sake of understanding. Fun fact: “Listen” is an anagram for “silent.”
Who am I as a thinker and a learner? The experiences of my life have led to my becoming an intellectual who strives to apply critical self-analysis and reflection, open-minded objectivity, the willingness to subject my beliefs to scrutiny, the suspension of judgment until sufficient evidence is discovered, the desire to know truth and eliminate nonsense and ignorance – all of which are intrinsic to good philosophy.
The best man at my wedding is one of my best friends, and an atheist. The officiator of my wedding is also one of my best friends, and a Christian minister. I met both of them when they were students of mine in my men’s discussion group during my college internship. My hope is, as each of them is the Aristotle to my Plato, that I have been the teacher my Socrates would expect me to be.
I am thankful that I have friends who are intelligent and approach issues from diverse perspectives. I value the challenges each of them offers in conversation. Likewise, I look forward to the challenges of graduate school. I live each day with a passion to carry out Dr. Stark’s axiom and teach it to others.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2011
I said to myself after my first marriage collapsed that "I will never get married again unless I am damn sure I'm marrying the right person." I am a living testimony to the fact that determination is no guarantee of success, and love has a way of blinding even the most critical of eyes. When I wrote this essay two years ago, I was convinced that Kim was the one; more accurately, she had convinced me. I had no idea of the unresolved issues and problems she had deep down. My second marriage - while leaving its share of scars on my psyche - is, in the end, not much more significant than breaking up with one's girlfriend (although it was a lot more expensive). Kim didn't break me, although she did break my previous confidence that my being married is a good idea.
I was also convinced two years ago that I would have a master's degree in philosophy by this time, and right now I'd be considering which school I would attend to pursue my Ph.D. Life, it seems, had other plans for me. After only one semester of graduate school, I had to drop out to take care of Kim, who had been fired from her job due to excessive tardiness. She and I separated not long after, and I went full-time at the bank where I worked. At the time I couldn't think about "the future." All I could focus on was getting divorced. I was too dumbfounded by all that had happened, and too incensed by the burning feelings of injustice.
Once the intensity of my emotions receded and level-headedness returned, and once the divorce was finalized, my attention turned once again to what I should do with my life. I grew increasingly discontent at the bank. I've worked on-and-off in a bank since 1996. I had had enough of that. It was another nowhere-to-go job, my boss was a raging idiot, and I was the typical overworked and underpaid worker bee. So... I quit.
I decided to return to school. This time I decided to go for a second bachelor's degree. I chose English for the purpose of also acquiring my teaching certification so I could become (naturally) a teacher. If I learned anything from my second marriage, it's that I'm not immune to being over-idealistic. Just as I saw Kim as "the one," I saw a career as a philosophy professor as "the dream." And yes, it was my dream, and it had been my dream for many years. After both my marriage and my dream came crashing down, I realized that I don't have just one dream. I realized that I could be happy doing a number of things. I just needed a plan. Instead of waiting for "THE" plan for my life (perhaps this way of thinking is due to my previous religious indoctrination?), I needed to just pick a path and simply go down that path. So I chose the path of becoming a high school English teacher.
I was all set. I was enrolled and registered for classes. I was days away from the start of the semester, ready for the next chapter of my life. My first day of school was going to be a Monday. Then I get a phone call the Thursday prior from the martial arts school where I train. They offered me a position there which I couldn't pass up - or so I thought. I had to withdraw from school at the last minute, because I couldn't do both. The thought of being a martial arts instructor at one of the country's top-rated academies sounded great. It still sounds great, but this job has come with more than its share of frustrations, and I can't say for certain whether this is the path I will follow for the long-term. If it isn't, then I will simply find another path.
With everything that has happened to me in the past two years, the most emotionally significant event that has occurred is my coming to terms with the fact that I am an atheist. When I wrote this paper two years ago, I didn't consider myself an atheist. I was content with the agnostic label. However, if my theist friends truly understood what my being an atheist means, they would know it means I am both open-minded and a skeptic, and those two qualities are not contradictory. In fact, one can't function properly without the other. If my religious friends knew what my being an atheist means, they would know that it's not an arrogant defiance, or an attempt to act smarter than them. They would see that my atheism is merely a declaration that I don't know as much as I thought I did. If they really knew what my being an atheist means, they would understand that all I want and all I care about is the truth, and I won't settle for anything less. To this day I don't know what Dr. Stark believed. He taught me that it doesn't really matter. What matters is the pursuit of truth.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009:
The best way to conclude my learning autobiography is to offer the following excerpt from Brennan Manning’s book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, a quote which has been one of my favorites for many years, and sums up my attitude as a thinker and a learner:
If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. Of course, the open mind does not accept everything indiscriminately - Marxism and capitalism, Christianity and atheism, love and lust, Moet Chandon and vinegar. It does not absorb all propositions equally like a sponge; nor is it as soft.3
Footnotes:
1. Carl Rogers, A Way of Being (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980) pp. 77-78
2. Bertrand Russell, "The Value of Free Thought" Bertrand Russell on God and Religion (ed. Al Seckel, Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986), pp. 239-40.
3. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2000), p. 65.
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