The internet has made the
debate between believers and atheists louder than ever. Millions of memes, podcasts,
videos, tweets and Facebook posts are uploaded daily, each contributing to this
debate. In my six years as a follower and
contributor to this discussion, I have
come to notice that it has been mainly preoccupied
with the question “Why?” Believers meet atheists and ask “Why don’t you believe
in God?” while atheist almost always asks
“Why do you believe in God?” The
consequence of this has been the constant repetition of the same arguments and
counterarguments, often leaving the
debaters bitter and more mystified by the philosophy and psychology of the
other side. I’m here to propose that in addition to the why question, we should base the religious
debate on another principle question that asks How? But first, we must
understand why the why question is at the core of the religious debate.
We are all born atheists.
Some people grow up that way; others get
indoctrinated into one religion or other. However, some folks in the latter
group manage to free themselves from their respective religious beliefs. Being one
of this fortunate group, I can attest to the relief of realizing
that religion is nothing but lies and
that all your past fears had been fictional. This relief is also accompanied by the horrific fact that you
once believed in such nonsense. A critical analysis of the impacts of religion on
society reveals its negativity, and the atheist is
left wondering why anyone in their
right minds could support blatant falsehoods.
Marx was accurate in
describing religion as an opiate. A more updated description would be to call
religion a narcotic. It is harmful to the brain, and though it may seem
a sedative, pain only makes one vulnerable and more gullible. You know how you
got drunk or high for the first time and you thought “Man! I’d like to feel
like this all day, every day”? It’s the same with religion. Once imbibed, one
is left living the same painful reality, but in a
sense of stupor. Like addicts, the religious troop to church every
Sunday for their weekly fix. The feeling
of euphoria that accompanies drugs also accompanies religious fervor, and it feels good. Therefore, when a
believer meets an atheist, the first
question in their mind is “An atheist? Why should anyone give up something this
awesome?”
And so the stage is set.
However, this is not the
only way to have this debate. I believe the how
question should be asked more often
in these discussions, and believers have
more to gain by this shift of attention. This
is because, while religious experiences may have a nuance of individuality,
they are all the similar, especially the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). As such, hearing how
one person became a Christian or Muslim, means that you have essentially heard the testimony of all individuals who profess that particular faith. On
the other hand, atheism requires free-thought, and each atheist reached the
conclusion that there is no God by following a unique intellectual path. If
similarities exist between two atheists, they are often because of having to
break away from similar fetters. As such,
it would be quite beneficial if a believer asked an atheist “How?” in addition to“Why?”
Here’s how I became an
atheist. My transformation began in 2004 during my final two years of primary school when I transferred
to a school that had a significant Muslim population, most of them refugees
from Somalia. It was then that I came into contact with kids who weren’t
Christians. Although it did not mean much back then,
having Muslim friends significantly expanded my worldview. It is because
of this exposure that I found schisms within Christianity so petty when I finally began to analyze them critically.
I continued with my Christian life, but as I proceeded to high school my mind
was baffled by the multiplicity of religions. If truth is singular, as Sonmi 541
aptly put it, my religious inclined mind was keen to find the one true religion.
After finding no singularity in any of the religions I researched, I proclaimed
all faiths legitimate. If my pubescent intellect
could not locate the singularity of truth,
it would create one by finding it in everything. In retrospect, granting
universal religious legitimacy was ridiculous. But I didn’t know better. I
still thought religious belief, of any kind, was necessary for any worldview to
make sense, and it was “so comfortable to be a minor."1 When I was 17, I began seeing the incompatibility of religious
belief with reality, and the information I gathered in the four years of high
school helped me break free of religious strings. I was no longer afraid of confronting
the truth, which by the way, had the pleasant and unpleasant in equal measure.
That’s a sketch of my path to atheism. I hope more atheists will take their
time to share how they became atheists because this will also make the reasons
why they did clearer.
P.S.
Although my atheism is the product of freethought, I was not entirely alone. My line of
thinking on religion was significantly shaped (Chronologically)
by Valerie Cuthbert whose historical novel The
Great Siege of Fort Jesus introduced me to the theme of conflict between
cultures. A theme I explored further through Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between. The third was Vita Brevis: A Letter to St Augustine by Jostein Gaarder, a novel that watered the seeds of humanism within me. The fourth and most significant influence was Rene Descartes who urged me to cast aside all my
opinions and beliefs, and only re-accept them after they pass rational analysis
in Discourse on the Method. Last but
not least was Immanuel Kant, whose article What
is Enlightenment? broke my last
religious link and gave me the courage to pursue my thoughts to their logical
conclusion.
