Several people have mailed me recently, sharing that they're questioning their own religious beliefs.
Reading their different stories, i'm prompted to share my own transition to atheism with them —
and whoever else is interested
taking into account both the emotional and the cognitive components of that switch.
So here are two videos, each addressing one of those aspects
and using psychological models as frameworks to contextualise the psychological events involved.
Sometimes we must face tremendous pain. The pain of not knowing, of aloneness, of finality.
When we run from that pain, it looms ever larger.
And, fighting fear with fear, we doom ourselves to war.
But when we embrace that pain, it fades to nothing.
And we can move forward, unafraid and curious.
In this video I'm using a seven-stage model of psychological transition,
put forward by Sugarman in her book Life Span Development,
to explore the emotional side of my transition from christian to atheist.
But first a word about an event that marked the beginning of my transition to atheism.
I was in a religious education class at my non-religious school.
We'd just swapped teachers. The first teacher was very religious.
He was later discovered taking pictures of some school boys naked round his house,
but let's don't dwell on that shall we.
His replacement was a cool customer, I'd say almost military in his demeanour
— and indeed in his safari jackets.
We had a few template, generic lessons, nothing mind-blowing
— just learning words like talmud and brahmin.
Then a lesson where the teacher — let's call him Mr Elliot; well that was his name —
showed a science video, which contradicted bits of the Bible, particularly Genesis.
For homework, he asked us to write an essay about our thoughts.
I went home and wrote the most pompous little piece of dogma you could imagine.
No arguments against the video. Just dismissing it out of hand.
And finishing off proudly with: 'I am a christian. My views will never change!'
Well. Mr Elliot marked it. I got it back.
And saw he'd commented: 'Yes, you've written what your beliefs are.
'But are you able to say why you believe them?"
That was all he'd written.
And I wanted him wiped from the face of the planet.
I think this would be a good point to introduce the model of psychological transition.
We start with stage one: immobilisation.
When I first read Mr Elliot's comment, I just felt total disorientation.
To me, age 12, god in the christian form I'd been indoctrinated with, was just reality.
I'd never questioned it. Now, for the first time, I was being asked for my reasons.
I didn't have a clue. All I came up with in my head was "It's true because it just is!"
And even I recognised how lame that sounded.
I felt exposed. I felt caught out, made a fool of.
Not by the people who'd indoctrinated me — no, by Mr Elliot.
Within days, I developed such a hatred and detestation for Mr Elliot it was untrue.
I'd watch him stand there in the background during assemblies
and find myself mentally seething, 'Who the Hell do you think you are??'
I was convinced he was laughing at me,
sneering at me and my beliefs — which, I should say, he never did.
That was total projection on my part.
But eventually I moved into minimisation, alleviating some of my stress with a bit of rationalising.
I rationalised that — all the adults I knew were christian so christianity was bound to be correct.
I was comforted by the idea I was part of the majority.
It's funny, that was probably the last time I ever felt part of a majority.
Anyway I told myself I'd simply get the answers from them.
Unfortunately when I asked,
I discovered my fellow christians couldn't come up with anything better than I had.
Which threw me back to stage one.
And I hovered round these stages for some time.
Well, that's what happens, you move forward, you slip back.
I did everything I could think of to try and find ways to back up my beliefs.
Reading the bible was one of my more counter-productive strategies,
because it only opened up a whole world of new contradictions I'd not even thought of.
Eventually, feeling quite drained, I slumped into stage three.
I began to recognise that the situation probably wasn't going to be rescued.
Outwardly I was living the same life, going to church.
I guess still wanting to hang on to it. But it all felt totally hollow.
Mechanical. And so did I.
Gradually I slipped into stage four.
I finally acknowledged there was no substantial foundation for the beliefs I'd been indoctrinated with.
I felt I'd been made to say and do the most ridiculous things in the name of that belief.
I'd been made to experience the most horrendous fantasies of eternal torture;
the most horrendous emotions of guilt, fear and shame over absolutely nothing.
The scale of it was very hard to accept. But finally I had accepted it.
I began to look around at different belief systems that might fill the emptiness left behind.
I looked at different religions, at the occult. But they all had the same problems.
I was in limbo. With a sense of no direction or identity.
And I began to question what 'identity' actually meant.
I started considering my options, testing new behaviours.
First off, announcing at age 14 that I didn't believe in god and was leaving the church.
Which immediately sparked a welter of scorn, contempt, threats, guilt trips, all manner of judgements.
It was a real eye-opener.
So next I had to develop new strategies to cope with that bullying.
I think for a while I felt so alienated I just blanked it out.
I didn't recognise these people anymore.
But, as it continued, I began to answer back
and pull apart the comments and arguments that were coming my way.
I toughened up.
I knew I was doing nothing wrong in thinking for myself,
and actually I just wasn't going to take anymore punishment for it.
Christian teachers at school who I'd previously been friendly with
began to exert their own quasi-parental disapproval.
So, socially, I learned to cut them absolutely dead.
Kept things strictly academic.
Shutting people out like that was quite isolating.
But if it was a choice between isolation,
or being with people who didn't want me to think,
there was no choice.
One of life's rules: people who don't want you to think are never your friend.
Anyway this part of the transition became substantially about building boundaries.
I'd had very few if any boundaries up to that point.
Which is probably why so many people felt so relaxed about walking all over me.
They never felt they were stepping over the line because there was no line.
But now I was drawing that line — and sticking to it hard.
And gradually relationships shifted back, albeit grudgingly, into some semblance of respect.
I'd been handed the meaning of my life as a child.
I now had to find my own meaning.
But I quickly discovered that life without religion wasn't the barren land I'd been told it would be.
I found meaning in searching out the truth of things;
in scientific enquiry; in argument against poor logic and reasoning, particularly supernatural dogmas.
I found meaning in psychological exploration;
in addressing the distortions that are sometimes forced on us in life, and finding ways to counteract them.
My morality, if anything, deepened.
I was doing things now not because I'd been instructed or coerced
but because I'd considered the underlying principles on a human level.
Whatever old meaning I'd lost was more than replaced by the new meaning I found.
Finally the transition was resolved.
I was at ease with myself. The issues that came up during the transition no longer dominated my life
And I moved on.
It'll be plain, to those who've listened,
that my transition to atheism wasn't some empty rebellion or a descent into self-indulgent immorality.
It wasn't someone coming along and corrupting my young brain with blasphemous ideas.
It was a child actively struggling to hold onto his religious illusions,
but eventually acknowledging that there was absolutely no foundation,
to believe what he'd been told.
I've had many great teachers in my life, teachers I've laughed and joked around with,
teachers I've confided in, teachers I've had crushes on.
I never had much to do with Mr Elliot.
But I'll always be grateful to him for challenging me,
with that simple, and actually very respectful comment,
considering the tumescence of my essay's pomposity.
I think of that comment as the surgical knife in the caesarean section of my intellectual life.
Some blood and guts along the way, birth pains, sure.
But finally freedom from the confinement that felt so snug and protective,
that I didn't realise how utterly immobilising and stultifying it actually was.
To anyone watching this, who finds themself in any of the stages of transition described here,
my very best wishes.
You're on your own journey — it won't be the same as mine —
but maybe there'll be some parallels.
Now there will undoubtedly be some who see this video
and try to distort the personal story I've shared
into a fantasy more consistent with the prejudices they hold against atheists.
And in the accompanying video — 'atheism as congruence' —
I'll explore how that kind of distortion can come about.