While I was in the store, I decided that there wasn’t any reason why I couldn’t give that guy a ride. I mean, I wasn’t going that way, but I wasn’t doing anything very important, either.

So, when I went back out, I asked him if he wanted a ride. He said, yes, and thanked me. Then he said, “Wow, someone just prayed over me…”

I cut him off (yes, I cut him off), and said, “Well, I don’t believe in god.”

He said that it didn’t matter whether or not I believed. I said that I believe in coincidence, and I happened to hear him say he needed a ride to Shelburne.

If I had my wits about me at the time, I should have added, while that guy was praying for you, I decided to actually I do something to help.

Now that I think about it, it kind of irritates me that the praying got any credit whatsoever in the situation. It’s not like god did a damn thing. If god wanted to work through someone, that Christian would have given the guy a ride, not the atheist.

I’m not trying to say that Christians don’t do anything other than pray, but it did remind me of this demotivational poster.

I have to say that I find the atheist way of helping – actually doing something – more useful.

Too bad god still got the credit.

This was the first Christmas that I was really able to enjoy a secular Christmas, since before I was a Christian.  Even though I left Christianity in October of last year, I was still dealing with a lot of the aftermath of that decision by the time Christmas came around.  Last year I survived Christmas, if barely.

This year was different.  I have been happily without god for over a year.  Everyone (mostly) knows about it.  And I had no qualms about keeping Christ out of my Christmas.

And, it was fantastic!

It was just like the Christmases I remember as a kid, back when the reason for the season was giving and spending time with family.  My mom always loved Christmas and it was never a religious holiday.  It was always a time to give to others, including strangers in need.

I missed out on that while I was a Christian.  Sure, I still gave to strangers in need, but it was always about bringing glory to God, not just because it felt good to do.  Christmas seemed more like an obligation.  It’s the church’s biggest ministry opportunity of the year, you know!  (As we were reminded every year.)

How fun!  Let’s turn Christmas into a chore!

My first Christmas as a Christian, I bought everyone Bibles and/or Christian books, even my non-Christian family.  I kid you not.  Yeah, I was a real barrel of fun in those days.

Christmas was usually spent trying to minimize the materialism and gift-giving and keep the focus on Jesus.  As you can imagine, my love for the holiday faded away over the years.

This year, however, I actually enjoyed Christmas.  My husband, three sons, and I got up at 6AM and opened presents and then ate cinnamon rolls (which I made the night before and baked that morning).  My mother and sister and their significant others came over a few hours later and we hung out and opened presents and ate cinnamon rolls, applesauce cake, blueberry muffins, and fruit salad.  Then, we just sat around and spent time together all day, while grazing on the appetizers I set out and watching “Micky’s Christmas Carol” and “The Christmas Toy”.  We ate dinner in mid-afternoon and then everyone took desserts home because they were stuffed.  (I made a lot of food.)

It was a fantastic way to spend the day!

There was no guilt, no praying, no trying to find a parking space at the Christmas Eve service, no trying to share Jesus with my non-Christian relatives – just food, family, and fun, my favorite things!

I saw many comments on facebook and elsewhere about the “reason for the season.”  I have found the reason; it’s just not the one they were talking about.

It says: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

Putting aside the irony that this was posted by someone who in the past has openly opposed social programs, it’s nice to see that even conservative Christians are thinking about this.

I almost shared it with my facebook friends, many of whom are Christians, just to help spread its message around.

But, then I stopped and thought about what else it’s saying: we are a Christian nation.

We are not a Christian nation. We are a nation where the majority religion happens to be Christianity.

For that matter, those folks who self-identify as Christians don’t even all share the same definition of Christianity. Many of them don’t even consider others of them Christians at all!

Then, there’s the fact that a lot of people are ChINOs – Christians in Name Only. If you ask them their religion, they say, “Christian.” If they need something or are nervous, anxious, worried, or scared, they’ll pray to get the emotional benefits of “putting it in God’s hands.” But, when it comes down to it, they have never thought critically about what they really do believe, and they don’t really believe in the particulars of the Bible.

But, even if there really are a majority of Americans who are in fact Christians, that does not change the fact that we are not a Christian nation. We are a nation of religious freedom. We are a nation of diverse beliefs. We are a nation where the thoughts, feelings and opinions of an atheist are just as “American” as anyone else’s.

Over the past year, she has gotten to see the “new” non-Christian Charity, and she was intrigued. I seemed so different than the person she remembered. (I use new in quotes there because this isn’t the new me, it’s the old me, from before I was a Christian. I found myself again, and I like to make that distinction, for whatever reason.)

We visited for a few hours yesterday, talked about relationships and religion, and had a really nice time catching up. When she was leaving, she said that she always thought I was so stuck up, so robotic, and she really likes the person I am now.

That felt really good to hear, well bad, but good. It’s hard to be reminded of the person I turned into when I was a Christian. I didn’t like that person. I hate that person, in many ways. But, it’s great to be reminded of how different I am today, of how far I have come since those early days, after I left Christianity, when I was confused, alone, and afraid of what life was going to be like.

Today, I am a much stronger person, with a better sense of who I am. I hate to think about the person I was back then, how I had lost myself and lost focus of what I wanted out of life, how my personality was pushed down and replaced with that of a Stepford wife, how I was afraid of my own thoughts because, sometimes, they were unkind, lustful, prideful, or otherwise sinful. But, occasionally, it is good to be reminded of that person, so I can fully appreciate who I am today.

I haven’t been able to stop crying since I woke up and realized that today was the day. I can only being to imagine how they feel, my friend and her husband, but I bet that doesn’t even begin to come close.

And this is where I stop and say, I cannot believe in a personal god when things like this happen. I just can’t.

I know for some, their belief gets them through hard times. That’s good. I don’t want to try to take that away from anyone, really. I don’t seek to de-convert. Everyone needs to do what they need to do to get through this crazy thing called life. And, as long as you are not harming others, you can believe what you want. That goes double if it keeps you afloat when nothing else will.

But that isn’t where I am. That isn’t what I need. In fact, I find trying to believe that there is a personal god who loves us unconditionally too painful to reconcile with tragedies like this.

I get that I am not supposed to understand, god is too big, he works in mysterious ways, and all that. I get that. And I didn’t say it was too hard to understand; I said it was too painful.

The idea that this all-loving god created me specifically for his purpose, and his purpose involves causing me great pain so I can become how he wants me to be is, frankly, a kind of love I don’t want.

When someone I love experiences something painful, I want them to learn and grow from the experience. I want that good to come out of the bad they are forced to go through. But, I wouldn’t conclude that I wanted them to go through the painful experience in the first place. The growth is a positive outcome of something negative that could not be helped. But, if it could be helped, I think it should be.

To say that this person I love wouldn’t be good enough without the painful experience and subsequent growth is just too cruel. That is not the way in which I love people. That is not the way in which I want to be loved. I love you just how you are, but I want you to suffer, so you can grow into a more lovable person. No, thank you.

I just can’t believe in a personal god who is directly involved in our lives. And to believe in any other god beyond that is seemingly pointless.

So, here I am, just grieving for my friends and their loss. Hoping that they can find some peace and gain some wisdom from this tragedy, but knowing that there is no higher power who allowed this to happen for a reason. There is no reason that anyone should lose a child.

Things just happen, and we just try to get through them the best we can, making the most out of this life we have, with all of it’s joy and pain. And that’s really enough for me.

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That isn’t true and that isn’t the image I want people to have of me.

Even though I don’t believe in “god,” or really anything woo-woo, I still appreciate the wonder and magical feelings about our existence and our interrelatedness with each other and the world around us. I can relate to people’s need for a mystical explanation for things, even though I myself don’t feel like I need one. I don’t want people to make assumptions about what I think, feel, or believe based on their negative preconceptions about atheists.

There’s always agnostic, which is pretty innocuous to anyone who isn’t strictly religious. But that implies a level of uncertainty in my beliefs that I don’t have. Not to mention the flack I would catch from other atheists.

I have been playing with the word non-theist. Obviously, I am a non-theist, since atheists are a subset of non-theists, but so are agnostics, humanists, materialists, and others. So, at least the word non-theist leaves open to discussion what the nature of my belief – or unbelief – is, rather than subjecting myself to the negative baggage carried by the word atheist.

But then, many people equate non-theist with atheist, without recognizing the nuance, so that leaves me back where I started.

I guess I just have to accept the fact that people are not comfortable with atheism. I need to get used to it, and work on ways of engaging people to change their minds, rather than trying to hide behind a different label.

I know other people’s grief is not about me, but man, I feel so excluded now that I don’t pray.

It was the Summersault tour, which was put together by the Canadian band Our Lady Peace, and featured The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, and others. My then-boyfriend, now-husband, and I saw the Montreal show.

I was just listening to the song “Judith,” by A Perfect Circle, a song that I had heard many times on the radio, but without the context that I now have, it carried no meaning for me.

Up until I was a Christian, I really didn’t know much about Christianity because my mom had such a traumatic experience with it. My childhood was virtually religion-free and, since I didn’t have any religious friends, nor did my mom, it just never came up.

Now that I have been a Christian, and left Christianity with some scarring of my own, this song has a lot more meaning.

According to Wikipedia, the song is about the lead singer’s mother, Judith, who had suffered a stroke and was left confined to a wheelchair.

These are the lyrics:

You’re such an inspiration
For the ways that I will
Never, ever choose to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your savior has abandoned you

Fuck your God, your Lord, your Christ
He did this, took all you had and
Left you this way, still you pray, never stray, never
Taste of the fruit, never thought to question “Why?”

It’s not like you killed someone
It’s not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed

He did it all for you…
He did it all for you…

Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your dogma has abandoned you

Pray to your Christ, to your God
Never taste of the fruit, never stray, never break, never
Choke on a lie even though he’s the one who
Did this to you, you never thought to question “Why?”

It’s not like you killed someone
It’s not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side
Talk to Jesus Christ as if he knows the reasons why

He did it all for you…
He did it all for you…
He did it all for you…

I can understand the frustration he must have felt at the idea that there is a loving god who nonetheless allowed this tragedy to happen to his mother.

I think we all have struggled with trying to reconcile that contradiction, whether we kept our faith in the end or not.

I still find it kind of strange that the message of that song didn’t even register in my mind back in 2000. I mean, the lyrics are pretty straight forward. But, then, I also did not understand the kind of faith he is talking about, either.

A lot can change in a decade.

In coaching, there are 9 guiding principles. The first is that people have something in common. When you are coaching, it is important that you come from a place where you are not judging your coachee. You arrive at that place by first acknowledging that we all share a common ground of being.

This principle has really resonated with me, especially as it applies to talking with people of a different religion.

As atheists, it is easy to convey an attitude of derision toward people who believe things that we find ridiculous. Some do so more than others, but even if we try to be nice, our language is often received as hostile by religious people.

I find that it is important for me to return to that common ground of being and remember that life is hard to make sense of sometimes, for all of us. Some of us need to believe in god in order to try and make sense of it. For others, including myself, life makes more sense without religion.

But, either way, we are all people trying to navigate our way through life, and when we remember that common place we all start from, it makes it easier to relate to each other on a meaningful level.

I am writing a paper this coming weekend about this guiding principle for one of my classes. It would be of tremendous help to me if you shared with me your thoughts about what you just read. You can comment here, or send me a private message using the “Contact” link above.

Some possible questions to answer for me: How do you identify your religious beliefs? Generally, how do you perceive or interact with people with different views than your own? Would it change the way you perceive or interact with others if you kept in mind that everyone has something in common? Or anything else you want to share.

Thanks for your help!

Sunday will be my first Easter since I stopped believing in Jesus.

It’s kind of weird to not have plans to go to church for Easter.  We went to church every Sunday, but Easter was always a big deal service designed to appeal to the seekers.  Our church always had a big variety show-style service with the band, choir, dancers, and skits.  The church even rented a bigger space to accommodate the increased crowd size and hold only one service, instead of the usual five services they have on regular Sundays.

As you may know, if you have ever read my craft blog, I love planning big meals, doing crafts, and decorating.  When I was a Christian, though, I believed that celebrating the secular trimmings of Christian holidays trivialized the meaning, so I stopped doing a lot of it.

Yes, as my husband pointed out to me the other night, I took all the fun out of being a Christian.

I can’t help that I took it seriously.  I fail to see much point in being a Christian, if you’re not going to take it seriously.  Maybe that was my problem.

But I digress.

This Easter, I have been enjoying the planning of a secular celebration, like those of my youth.  I can buy the kids big baskets and fill them with candy, without worrying about rotting their souls along with their teeth.  I can make decorations of bunnies and eggs, without guilt over participating in a pagan celebration.  And I don’t have to worry about how I am going to schedule the cooking around the church-going.

I find it freeing.  Which is ironic, since freedom is what I was seeking to find in Christ.

I think I did, for a time.  Being forgiven, being loved unconditionally, feels free.  Coming out from under the burden of the past mistakes is true freedom.

But, when most, if not all, of the guilt over past mistakes comes from Christianity in the first place, from this notion of how God wants us to behave, then it doesn’t take long for the freedom to turn into bondage.

Some might say I was just being legalistic, or that I need “a relationship, not religion.”  And, indeed, some have said just that.

To that, I say, show me a religion that has no standards of behavior and I’ll show you a religion that has no point.

If what is said in the Bible is just a friendly suggestion, it has no point.  At least, no more of a point than any other good book of religion or philosophy, and certainly not enough to call me into a life of service to its god.

For there to be a need for Jesus, and his death and resurrection, we first need to have sinned.  There needs to exist that separation from God.  For us to have sinned, there needs to be standards of behavior laid out by God that we violated.  So, for anyone to suggest that Christianity is only about grace and not about standards of behavior is a bit disingenuous.

That’s not to say that I have no standards of behavior.  I do.  Only, now, they are based on what behavior will yield the best results for me and the world around me, not some book that is thousands of years old and was written to a long ago, foreign culture.

And my new standards, which are in many ways like the old ones, allow for me to celebrate spring with my family, without all the guilt.