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Empathy for atheists--my spiritual journey
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As a Latter-day Saint, I have a soft spot in my heart for atheists. Indeed, once upon a time, I counted myself as one of them. When I was young, my interest in history led me to a search for truth. It occurred to me, as I studied the rise and fall of various empires, that human beings have have almost "gotten it right" on several occasions. It seemed that, when we almost had a just, equitable, and enlightened society within our reach, human frailties destroyed it. Greed, lust, immorality, pride, covetousness, and lust for power always took root at a critical moment. I surmised that, since human nature was the problem, it would probably take God to change a human's nature. I wasn't looking so much for religion as what I called "Truth with a capital T." I knew that truth itself would have the necessary transformative power.
My search led me to begin at home, with the Christian faiths that surrounded me. I was raised in a Christian home, so that's where I started. I began with a class called "New Testament as Literature." I enjoyed the class and it increased my familiarity with the New Testament. I followed up by reading further, interviewing various pastors, and talking to believers from different faiths while maintaining an open mind. I took time to listen carefully and read thoughtfully without making value judgments. I knew in time that facts would eventually lay out in a correct order.
One class I took was "Death and Dying." It was a sociology course that dealt with the various concepts, rituals, and traditions of various religions and cultures regarding the afterlife. That was very informative and further broadened my views. Most especially, it gave me the opportunity to speak with and ask question of the clergy of many faiths, including those outside traditional Christianity.
Nevertheless, in all my studying and searching, I never found that what I was seeking. In every case, religionists all insisted that faith was simply a blind trust. It all came down to believing a man who had some ancient book which could be interpreted "a dozen ways to Sunday." In particular, I felt that I could no more have confidence in any religion to fairly interpret the Bible. The plain words would say one thing and their doctrines taught another.
In particular, not one religion I encountered could say that God interacted with mankind anymore. He did interact and commune with the ancients, but not today. To me that sounded like a convenient bunch of mumbo-jumbo. If God was the same today, yesterday, and forever, how was it that he spoke to man anciently, but not in our time?
Another principle that perturbed me was the idea that God had created some souls for the sole purpose of condemning them to a fiery lake for eternity. After all, if God was fair and just, how could he choose one person over another in such an arbitrary manner. How is it that a good non-Christian who was honest, charitable, and upright all his days be worthy of eternal torment when compared to a murderer who confessed belief in Jesus on his way to the electric chair? I was told that "God's ways are not our ways." Even so, wouldn't it be safe to assume that his justice would appear more fair than our own?
I branched out my studies into Eastern religions. I found much that was appealing there, most especially the idea of an eternal progression through a series of lifetimes, becoming more and more perfected as we passed through the experiences gained in them. I also appreciated that there was no vengeful Deity who threatened to plunge souls into a burning lake of fire because they had never had a chance to hear about him while they lived.
I admired Eastern religions for the notion of personal responsibility they imparted. Salvation, or more correctly, deliverance from the Karmic cycle depended upon us. There also appeared the possibility of direct experience with the Divine which I found appealing. However, the stories of those who had found enlightenment in their texts were also of ancient origin. No one could tell me of a living person who had direct contact with the Infinite or could tell me with any surety how it could be done.
Some monks in Tibet, I learned, spend years in isolation, separating themselves from everything worldly, yet many of them could not obtain Nirvana. Some individuals, it was said, attained the state while doing something as simple as fishing. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was almost as arbitrary as Calvinism! I practiced meditation and reflection, doing my best to observe the precepts as much as I could in the Western world. I eventually concluded that Eastern religions were so culturally alien to the West that they would never enjoy widespread acceptance. It seemed to me that "Truth with a capital T" would fit into an Asian's life as easily as it would an American's. It wouldn't require me to read Arabic or Sanskrit to understand. I wouldn't have to shave my head or refuse a blood transfusion. I wouldn't have to abandon modern comforts and ride in a horse and buggy.
“Religion-lite” never appealed to me. Celebrities who call themselves Buddhist or claim to practice Kabbalah in their spare time just seemed to be following worldly fashion and fads. If a religion would be truly universal, a person from any culture would be able to embrace it regardless of one’s culture or nationality. I also knew that it would be transforming and affect every aspect of one's life, enriching it and making it more vital and vibrant.
Islam contained much in the way of truth and beauty, but it shared what I considered to be the fundamental flaw of Christianity. That was the teaching that their prophet was the last prophet. There would never be any more. Once again it all came down to a guy with an ancient book by a dead prophet, saying that there would never be anyone who would come from God again.
At length, I concluded that all religions were man made and that the search was over. I had learned a principle from Hinduism that said in essence, “Don’t go looking for the guru. When you are ready, the guru comes to you.” I resolved to wait and watch, but as far as I was concerned, there was no true religion. God had not talked to mankind in a very long time if indeed he ever had. I was officially agnostic.
In the months that followed that decision, I found that I became somewhat cynical. Everything I heard from different religions tended to rub me the wrong way. If an Evangelical tried to witness to me, I knew all the holes in his doctrine and would simply twist him into philosophical knots. I felt empowered by the ability to do this. Without realizing it, I was becoming hardened in my heart and pride was replacing my desire to follow truth. The frustration of looking for it so hard and not finding it can make one cynical. At length, I began to regard myself as an atheist.
However through all of this, I never felt any need or desire to go out and proselytize my lack of faith. I kept an open mind. However, I felt that anyone who came along with some new doctrine was going to have a hard time proving it to me. This is the pride that grows in the heart of those who have the temerity to proclaim that God cannot exist.
You see, I knew in my heart that it was truly impossible to declare with certainty that God didn’t exist. Logically, I knew that something we’d recognize as a deity could exist somewhere in the unknown universe around us. To be sure no such being would exist, I would have to be able to see everywhere simultaneously, and perceive all that existed. Was it possible that something could exist that was beyond my ability to detect? Yes, of course, but deep down inside, we desire certainty. We desire a concept that works. It becomes easy, after a point, to declare that our experience (in this case, not knowing God) is a universal condition. It absolves us from the search for truth or allows us to redirect it in to areas that are more under our control. Atheism is not certainty; it is denial of possibilities. It declares that acceptance of God's existence must be according to the conditions we establish. It denies our powerlessness to negotiate with anything that could be considered God, even if we were to admit the possibility of its existence. I have yet to meet a humble atheist, but I have met some very anxious ones.
No one likes to feel that moment of existential crisis--the moment when we cast off any hope of finding God--discovering ourselves adrift in a purposeless universe where life itself may be some strange anomaly. Many replace that sense of eternal panic with science or humanism, claiming that human reason will eventually provide the answers. It is a form of idolatry wherein we grant unto man's methods the trust that only God merits. Yet, science finds itself wholly incapable of changing man's nature. Despite out best intentions, scientific advances are used for both good and evil. That realization took me right back to square one: how do we change human nature and what do we change it to?
Dr. Carroll Quigley explained in his tome “Tragedy and Hope” that all government is force. In liberal democracies, we simply have established a system in which we consent to a limited use of governmental force to restrain human nature and establish rules for civil intercourse. History provides many examples of societies like ours, who nearly made it to a point where the various factions sought to use the power of government to impose their version of Utopia on the others. Dissent, disunity, division, and destruction has always been the result. Government, compromise, negotiation, laws, and even the application of ruthless force cannot force a nonexistent truth into existence and most certainly cannot permanently suppress the human longing for eternal significance and meaning.
It brings us back to human nature again. If Marxist Communism in Russia and China have been unable to change human nature in a century, who’s to think that any secular philosophy will be able to achieve its ends. Someone always has a “better” idea and the seeds of destruction will ultimately bring forth its fruit.
A realistic view of atheism is always pessimistic. Those who place their confidence in some secular philosophy that hopes to transform society or man’s nature are fooling themselves. The Obama-worshippers who think that “This time we’ll get it right” are simply following progressive concepts that led to fascism and war in the early 20th century. A true atheist is inevitably nihilistic, living in a world where there is no good, nor evil, no right, no wrong, no morality or immorality. If mankind is simply the sole definer of those things, then whoever has the most money and guns is the one who determines what is good and bad.
I remained in this state of professed atheism for about a year or so. Then I had a series of life events that changed all the expectations I had about life and my future. Life has a tendency to do that. Illness, an injury, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the failure of a business, and many other things can set us back on our heels and cause us to reconsider the meaning and purpose of life. Those experiences persuaded me that there was indeed something in the universe that could be called God. What it was, I did not know, but I felt that coming to a knowledge of that truth would be worth more than anything else this world had to offer.
While in this state, I made a systematic study of faith as a principle, not as a denominational or sectarian thing. I studied the lives of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. I read books by experts in Hinduism and Buddhism. I studied the transformations that took place in the lives of those who followed Jesus Christ. Most particularly, I was drawn to the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. There, I found the description of what I was looking for: a society of people who had literal contact with God.
Imagine a large company with a home office and no network or phone connectivity to the satellite offices scattered around the country or the world. That's what man's religions had done. In every case, they had devised a system that separated each satellite office from the "home office" in heaven. They all were acting separately, without coordination, without authorization, without power to consummate the business at hand, because they had severed the link. God no longer spoke to them because they were no longer listening. Their creeds and dogmas stood in the way of their listening.
When I encountered Mormonism, I was skeptical. I had been disappointed by every religion I had studied up that point. As a system of philosophy, it had interesting and consistent beliefs. It didn't have the medieval superstitions of hellfire. It didn't condemn the ignorant to die and burn simply because they never heard the message while they were alive. The concept of various kingdoms of glory was appealing, because it showed that Deity was kind, merciful, and fair. It was a system of internal consistency, even thought the outward claims of angels, gold plates, and God himself appearing seemed unlikely. The plan of salvation it taught enshrined agency as a sacred principle, but balanced it with a requirement to be obedient to principles (not men) and sacrifice.
What amazed me most is the promise of personal revelation. I can't express how amazed I was that someone would have the audacity to say that God still spoke to mankind and that he could speak to me. All of a sudden, there was one religion who didn't just have a dead prophet with an ancient book. This religion said, you can be your own prophet. They had confidence enough to say that God could be trusted to be consistent. He would tell me what he told Joseph Smith. The key was the Book of Mormon.
I began to read the Book with a healthy skepticism. I was honest with myself, however. I knew that, if God truly spoke to people who read this book in some manner, and if he would speak to me in a way that I could sense and know unmistakably, that it would require a commitment. One does not discover a law or principle without becoming accountable to the knowledge it brings. To understand the workings of gravity and then defy it would be disastrous. To understand gravity and how to use it is empowering.
I lack the ability to tell you exactly how I felt and what occurred exactly, because it is a spiritual experience. It was real, but it was spiritual. I went from a state of not knowing to knowing. In a matter of seconds, there was a series of associations that fell in a pattern like a million dominoes. It was like my brain was instantaneously rewired. There was a distinctive feeling. Some people call it the burning in the bosom, but that doesn't describe it adequately. The burning in the bosom has come many times since that moment, but the first time God's Spirit touched mine, it was a fantastic, unforgettable experience. I knew that it came from God and not from my own psyche. I perceived things clearly. There was no moment of being out-of-touch with my senses. If anything, I felt more fully integrated and aware than ever before in my life.
The series of associations first began with the sure knowledge that the Book of Mormon was of God. I knew it was of divine origin. It was made manifest to me as clearly as anything else I have ever known. From that knowledge, I realized that Joseph Smith truly brought the book forth and that he truly saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. From that realization, it was made known to me with remarkable power that God did exist and that Jesus Christ was the Savior and redeemer. Suddenly, I became a Christian. I can't begin to tell you how stunning that realization was to me. Before that moment, Jesus was just another ancient teacher like Buddha or Mohamet. I can testify that it was transformative. This was the power that could reshape mankind and change man's nature.
I became acutely aware that God knew me, that Jesus knew me. It was personal and intimate. I felt a powerful feeling of love unlike anything I had ever experienced. The knowledge of my own personal shortcomings came to me very powerfully and my first reaction was to recoil, feeling unworthy. Yet there was a gentle encouragement, an acceptance, and an invitation. I became instantly aware of the path to that acceptance. It involved leaving behind certain habits and behaviors and moving forward, not looking back. It involved making a promise and making a covenant by baptism. I knew the place to go to receive that was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Let me state here, that this experience all happened WITHOUT missionaries or having ever attended a meeting of the LDS Church. I had not been taught anything about a "burning in the bosom" or given any previous instruction on how the Spirit would speak to me. The Book of Mormon has this power. God has established it for that very purpose. It is the conduit for revelation to anyone who seeks God with an open mind, willing to follow him.
After this experience, I contacted missionaries and received all of the missionary discussions in two evenings. I went to New York state to visit Joseph Smith's home and the hill where the Prophet first received the Book of Mormon. For several days, it was as if the heavens were opened to me. I saw and heard and knew things by the Spirit of God that I had never considered. I was baptized two weeks after the first time I opened the pages of the Book of Mormon. Life as a latter-day saint has been rewarding. Life brings everyone problems, trials and difficulties. The Lord has guided me thorugh them and I feel blessed to have enjoyed his companionionship through it all. I am blessed to have been able to have served a mission, to have been married in the temple, and to have my children sealed to me. I have witnessed real miracles. I know for myself that God lives. I know his power and authority rest upon the leaders of the Church. I know that God's kingdom is on earth today. This Church is still connected to the "home office." Like the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible, the saints of God enjoy personal revelation and communion with God. Jesus Christ is not absent from his kingdom. There are those among us who are literal witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I also want to reiterate that I came to this knowledge, having gone through the sectarian churches of men, Eastern religions, agnosticism, and a brief period of atheism. As profound as my ignorance of God was then, so much more profound is the knowledge I have obtained directly from the Spirit of God. It is not blind faith. I have seen this from every side and all the various perspectives. I know how it feels to question, doubt, seek, and give up in discouragement and disappointment. I also know that God extends this knowledge and witness to each of us, if we will but prepare our hearts to receive it. It takes persistence and patience. It takes a commitment to follow what will come without reservation. I know that it is totally worth it.
Like I said at the beginning. I know what is in the heart of a sectarian, an agnostic, and an atheist. I have been there. I have empathy for you. However, I don't have sympathy for you when you attack the Church. Atheism doesn't countenance that sort of hostility and would claim to be above it. The hostility that some have displayed recently, claiming that they're atheists is a smokescreen. These folks are exMormons who, for whatever reason, harbor ill will, resentment, and bitterness towards their former faith. In my time as an atheist, I never sought out other religions or targeted them for destruction. Someone committed to humanistic reason and rationality can never defend their actions.
I was not raised in this religion. I evaluated it critically. I have read all the various critiques and objections our detractors have advanced and evaluated them against my personal experiences in the Church. I've found all of them to be baseless in reason and mostly serve the interests of someone whose income or power is threatened by the Church. I understand that many people intentionally misrepresent and distort its teachings to support their own agendas. Their motives are what they are, based in fear, ignorance, resentment, or just plain malevolence.
Its for that reason that I created S.P.A.M. (The Society for the Prevention of Anti-Mormonism), to provide correct information and to testify that a true path to this knowledge exists. The Book of Mormon is the key to that knowledge. If you're sincere, you're looking for truth, not proof. When you find truth, it gives you all the proof you'll ever need. If you're looking for a reason to reject it, you'll always find it. It all depends on what you're looking for.
Visit the Society for the Prevention of Anti-Mormonism web site at http://www.spamlds.org.
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