This post is not about a break-up or a political conversion. It is literally about how I lost my religion, more or less, and became an atheist. I thought about posting it yesterday but decided to spare the believers who care about me from witnessing me commit sacrilege on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we are supposed to beg for God's forgiveness in case he left us off the Book of Life this year. I don't think there is any evidence that atheists suffer from higher death rates than believers, so whatever the drawbacks to atheism, premature death does not appear to be one of them. But that doesn't mean that my mom won't worry. I can wait a day.

In September 2002, one year after 9/11, a good friend of mine asked me about my religious beliefs. I replied with a long letter which detailed, in a personal way, the changes I was experiencing. It's a long letter which probably won't appeal to most readers and may offend some, but it's honest, and the changes that occurred then remain with me today.

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N,

I'm now about to make you sorry that ever you asked me about my religious beliefs. My attempts to explain my newfound disdain for religion have been admittedly vague, and I welcome your challenges, as they force me to think more clearly and pointedly about the matter. I do worry though, that in honing my arguments, I will paint myself into a corner--the more I make the case, the harder it will be for me to later dismiss my current frame of mind as a temporary loss of faith. That said, I can't resist an intellectual challenge, and I don’t like to permit myself to think fuzzily, so in place of attending services on the Day of Atonement, here I am at the café, fasting (save for tea) and writing a polemic against God. As always, I welcome your criticism, though I don't mean for you to feel any obligation to respond to it (or even to read it if you don't want to).

In my previous e-mail to you, I tried to distinguish between two varieties of religious skepticism--doubt about the existence of God and doubt about the value of religious faith. These two kinds of doubt are often intertwined--either one may lead to the other--but they do represent distinct questions. Even if God doesn’t exist, religious faith may nonetheless be a valuable part of our social fabric.

So let's begin with the existence of God. I haven't believed in the existence of God in any scientific sense for many years, if I ever did. I'll explain what I mean by the equivocation "in any scientific sense" shortly, but the bottom line is that I don't believe that there is any rational reason whatsoever for believing in God. I'm not sure whether it's worthwhile to delve into this matter, as I can't possibly do justice to the arguments of those who feel that they have good reason for believing, but perhaps I'll put down a couple paragraphs that at least outline why I believe as I do.

I take it to be fairly obvious that no one will ever prove the existence of God, not unless he actually shows up in all his fiery glory (think of the money he could make on endorsements). The modern-day arguments for the existence of God which I have heard or read usually tend to be of the "there's no other explanation" variety, i.e. How could the world contain such beauty, order, intricacy, or mystery unless there were an intelligent creator behind it? Someone I knew once explained to me that he saw evidence for God every time he looked at the pretty mountains. The serious creationists offer a variation: animal species, including human beings, are far too complex or well-adapted to their surroundings to have evolved through natural selection; an intelligent designer must have played a part.

But in contrast with classic scientific explanation, these reflections do not really explain anything. Rather, they consist in a metaphysical shrug of the shoulders--"I can't explain it; therefore God". God is the non-explanation explanation. In addition to the vacuity of the explanation, the argument itself is specious. It simply doesn't follow from the fact that we cannot satisfactorily explain a mystery that God must be behind it. Case in point: once upon a time, people couldn't explain the existence or nature of the stars, so they invented various mystical explanations. They were wrong. We've come a long way since then, but we will never explain everything about the world. Without perfect knowledge, there will always be mysteries, but the fact that we don't have perfect knowledge does not entail that God exists, so the fact that there are many things that we cannot currently explain doesn't entail God's existence either.

Yet suppose that the argument is valid, that there is an intelligent creator. What does that have to do with the specific religions of the world? Why should the existence of a creator lead us to prefer Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Falon Gong? Maybe we're just the science project of some pre-adolescent deity--the sea-monkeys of the universe. Or maybe the Greeks got it right, and Saddam Hussein is the personal favorite of Ares, the war god, while Athena, goddess of wisdom, prefers the U.S. There's no reason whatsoever to believe in the God of Abraham unless you believe the what's written in Genesis, but there's no reason to believe what's written in Genesis unless you believe in the God of Abraham--totally circular.

There are those who feel that all religions are true in some way, with each representing a different manifestation of God, but that has always seemed silly to me, a copout. I won't, however, try to rebut this argument right now. Let's just say that I don't buy it.

Isn't it much more likely that human beings simply have a deep-seated need to believe in something greater than ourselves, that it's just too depressing to think that we live and die with no cosmic purpose and no one to look out for us, so we invent all these myths? Human beings certainly do seem to take great comfort in the idea of God. Moreover, isolated societies have come up with very different notions of divinity. If God is really sending us messages, they're getting pretty garbled on the way down. But if we're just inventing our gods, then it makes perfect sense that isolated societies would make up different myths.

So perhaps rational justification for the existence of God isn't the way to go. To believe in God, one must simply have faith. In fact, I think that most religious people take this path. It's not my path, though, or if it is, I've been walking on the shoulder. To have faith is to blinker one's critical faculties, to admit that there are no reasons but to believe nonetheless. Why would people voluntarily hobble their rational thought processes? Not to find the truth. There are many ways to find the truth; stopping one's ears and refusing to listen to the voice of reason isn't one of them. I can only conclude that faith provides other benefits that make it all worthwhile.

What are those benefits? I suppose that they are different for everyone, but I expect that the top contenders include: security, the feeling that we will be protected in life and perhaps even in death; purpose, the feeling that our life has some teleological meaning, that we were put here for a reason; and justice, the feeling that ultimately the good guys will be rewarded and the bad guys will be punished, or if not, that there will be an awfully good reason for it. To keep it simple, let's just say that faith helps people to cope with their fears and torments.

Such advantages might be more than sufficient for some people to abandon critical reason without hesitation, but I, at least, can't bring myself to do it. I feel almost morally obligated to pursue the truth regardless of how unpleasant. It's arrogant to think that way, I suppose, but I don't mean to say that I am more intelligent than religious believers--many of whom are brilliant--simply more dogged in refusing to suspend my critical faculties. I actually admire hardcore atheists because I feel that they do a better job of standing by difficult convictions than I do.

Which brings me to my "non-scientific" belief in God. One thing the rabbi said last night in his sermon pretty well describes the way I used to feel. The rabbi asked rhetorically: What if the belief system of our Jewish ancestors was simply a grand delusion? His response: So what--why not carry on their delusion? His suggestion, as I understood him, was that Jewish metaphysics may not sit fit well with our rationalistic view of the world, but it provides something that this view lacks and that the delusion is worth it. In an attempt to have my cake and eat it too, I decided back in college, during a pensive Yom Kippur hike, that I would allow myself to be deluded. I continued to deny the existence of God from a scientific point of view, but allowed myself to act at times as if God existed. In other words, I prayed to him, atoned to him, and thanked him for his blessings--even though I didn't really believe that he existed. I indulged myself in a delusion for the sense of purpose, hope, and community it provided me, and I knew exactly what I was doing. If you asked me, I would happily admit to it. Sound a little twisted? Perhaps, but given my skepticism, it was the only way for me to approach Jewish faith, and for the most part, it worked for me.

And there's the rub. It doesn't work for me anymore. It's a tough act to sustain in the first place, and I always felt a bit hypocritical, but the real problem is that since 9/11, I've been wondering whether the self-delusion is such a good thing after all. Which brings me to the second question: What is the value of religion? The question really breaks into two parts: 1) Would the world be better off without religious belief? 2) Would I be better off without religious beliefs?

The first question is really impossible to answer satisfactorily. If you tried to count up all the acts of goodness performed in the name of religion and compare it to all the acts of evil, I believe that evil would win handily. Even with all the acts of religious charity that have ever been performed and the shorter list of acts of religious righteousness (e.g. Quaker opposition to American slavery), I just don't think it can compare to the incredible violence and persecution performed throughout history in the name of religion, not to mention the oppression of women, the suppression of intellectuals, the encouragement of elitism and slavery, and the utter waste of human resources. Without the horrors that the world's religions sanctioned, many of the righteous religious acts might not have even been necessary.

That said, who knows what the world would have been like without religion. Perhaps the perpetrators of evil would have found other excuses--the last century certainly witnessed many acts of horror performed in the names of ideology, nationality, and race. Moreover, religion has pervaded history so profoundly, that it's impossible to know the extent of its role. One could easily argue that in the absence of organized religion, civilization might never have developed at all.

Perhaps there could also be some middle ground available, moderate religions that inhibit fanaticism while retaining the core belief structures and traditions. I actually think that Western societies have, at least for the present, neutralized the ability of religion to engage in tyranny. Religions are allowed to flourish, but their power is heavily curtailed. European governments are no longer beholden to the Catholic Church, and the U.S. was perhaps the first nation to explicitly exclude religion from a role in government. It's not that we don't have fanatics, but our fanatics are marginalized. They have difficult time influencing government policy, they do not run our schools or our courts, and we have laws to protect against religious repression and intolerance.

In any case, I won't try to argue that the world would be better off without religion. That leaves me with the personal question, which is really the core of my dilemma. Would I be better off without religion or at least, without religious belief? Should I give up the delusion that I have until now permitted myself? In terms of pros and cons, there is a still a strong case to be made for faith. The benefits that I derive from my pseudo-faith, the sense of security and meaning for example, should not have changed since 9/11, and the disadvantages are limited. My faith could never be strong enough to cause me to do anyone harm on it's behalf (so you can rest easy)--I don't even keep kosher. I am somewhat troubled by the hypocrisy of knowingly accepting a delusion, but I have been able to deal with that for years. Furthermore, I haven't discovered in 9/11 and its aftermath any new reasons to doubt the existence of God, so my sense of hypocrisy shouldn't be any worse than it was before.

The pros and cons of religious faith is not really the issue, however. The problem is not that religious belief is bad for me but rather that since 9/11, religious faith has become increasingly distasteful to me. It's not unlike the feeling of learning that a role model or someone you have admired is a schmuck. I have been able to delude myself into believing what I don't truly believe, but I don't seem to be able to delude myself into respecting what I don't truly respect. 9/11 and its aftermath have tainted religion for me.

One answer, which you proposed, is to draw a distinction between right and wrong applications of religion. Religious fanatics may be terrible, but that need not condemn religious faith on the whole. One could go further and argue that the fanatics do not actually behave religiously at all; they only cloak themselves in the mantle of religion.

The latter claim, while appealing, certainly goes too far. While the West has developed a culture of widespread moderate religious faith, and we think of such moderation as normal, it is my understanding of history that our culture is an exception to the rule. Certainly, the births of modern Western religions (at least those whose births have been recorded) have been characterized by fanatical devotion. Christianity featured martyrs being eaten by lions rather than give up proselytizing. The first Muslims waged war on the infidels and forced them to choose between Allah and death. The early Reform Christians were as strict as, um, Calvinists. Mormonism, which is relatively speaking very young, is still pretty extreme.

Moreover, all the major religions glorify the extremists. Religious heroes and role models are always represented as devout. For example, most of the Catholic saints are martyrs, crusaders, ascetics, or at least true believers. Buddhism certainly reveres the ascetics. Judaism provides a great case in point: Abraham proved his piety and secured the future of all his descendents by his willingness to sacrifice his child. How horrible is that? (I do like Moses better--he seemed to have more difficulty following orders.) Likewise, the great rabbis were very wise, but they were also very pious.

In consequence, I maintain that extremism is so closely tied to the history and doctrines of the major religions that you cannot simply exclude it without completely redefining the nature of those religions. On the other hand, perhaps it's still possible embrace the moderate religious faith that is so popular among 21st century Americans, to say, "Well, religious faith may be a mixed bag, but I can at least respect the good bits." To extend my role model analogy, one might similarly say, "Well so-and-so may be a schmuck in his personal life, but he's still a great thinker," or statesman or athlete, whatever. The thing is, you can certainly say it and even believe it, but if you can't respect the whole person, it's not really admiration in the same sense.

But is my analogy a fair one? Religions are not individuals. Just as one shouldn't blame an entire nation or ethnicity for the actions of individual members, perhaps I should not condemn religious faith in general for the actions of history's extremists. I certainly cannot hold all Muslims responsible for Bin Laden's crime, so how can I presume to condemn the religion of Islam, let alone all the world's religions, for the crimes of fanatics?

Here's how: I do not blame all Germans for the crimes of the Holocaust, but I do blame the German nation, at least the German nation at the time. Hitler was not a marginalized extremist. He was a wildly popular leader of the nation; his actions represented the actions of Germany. Now despite Bin Laden's apparent popularity among Muslims, he hardly represents Islam in the way that Hitler represented Germany, but he is not so very different from the religious extremists who do represent Islam or those who represent the rest of the world's religions. Mohammed was a fanatical warrior. Peter and Paul gave their lives to spread the word of Jesus. (Jesus, of course, was also a martyr, but at least his sacrifice is represented as an act of altruism rather than devotion.) Joshua conducted an unprovoked war on the Canaanites so that the Jews could live in the "Promised Land". Abraham was willing to murder his own son.

If the majority of practicing Catholics wholly rejected Catholicism's history and heroes, not only the pogroms and crusades but also the proselytizers, the popes, the martyrs, and the apostles themselves; if they believed that the greatest Christians were not those who sacrificed everything for God but rather those who practiced their faith with tolerance and moderation, then Catholic faith would earn my respect. If most practicing Muslims disavowed not only Bin Laden and the Taliban, but also the whole notion of jihad, the strict religious codes, the repression of women, and one of their more violent and fanatical heroes, the prophet Mohammed, then Muslim faith would earn my respect. If most practicing Jews believed that the Hasidim were an embarrassment, that our great rabbis who lived out their lives in strict obedience to every law were not role models but rather misguided fanatics, and that Abraham, when commanded to sacrifice Isaac, should have told God to go fuck himself, then Jewish faith would earn my respect.

But such a Catholicism would not really be Catholicism, such an Islam would not really be Islam, and such a Judaism would not really be Judaism. They would also probably lose much of value in the bargain. Nonetheless, such as they are (and, I believe, such as religion will always be to a great degree), I cannot respect their doctrines, though those doctrines include many worthy principles. If I do not respect my religion's doctrines, I don't want to have faith in my religion's God, and the desire for faith was the only reason that I had any faith in the first place.

I will always be a Jew. It's an essential part of my identity, and there is much in the religion and the culture that I still value, though I am rejecting its theology. I'm sure that I will always celebrate the holidays, attend services every so often, and perhaps even continue to fast on Yom Kippur. I will try to marry someone Jewish and certainly intend to raise Jewish children. But I don't think that I want to have faith any more. If I atone next year on Yom Kippur, it won't be to God. After so many years of resistance, I think that I have finally become an atheist.

m