STEPPING THROUGH THE GATES OF ATHEISM: MY PERSONAL JOURNEY PART THE ONE- MCDOWELL

More often than not, I am riddled with queries about how I ‘became’ an atheist. As it is a long, involved tale, I am going to break it down into installments, for those of you interested.

Many years prior to my change-of-heart, I was a possessor of a baroque meritocracy, having dabbled in Wicca, the occult, and Kaballah (upon which I will expound later). Fact is, my mind was so open, I may very well have slipped on metaphorical gray matter and landed on my ass in a field of similes on more than one occasion. Short version: I believed just about everything I ever read. And I read a lot.

So approximately 2-5 years prior to my acceptance of the limited label of atheist, I distinctly recall saying: “Of course, the US is a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles.” A week (or a month?) later, it occurred to me that I should perhaps check that factoid, that maybe I was blowing smoke out of my ass.

Sure enough, after reading the three pivotal documents, I discovered that indeed, I was actually blowing smoke rings. Hey, I wasn’t married to the idea, I shrugged, went on with my life.

Fast forward in time: I had lost my girlfriend to a Christian cult (her ex-hubbie suicided, she went rushing back to them, despite their horrendous treatment of her during the divorce, another story), and my boss, a devout Christian who I trusted implicitly revealed to me that he’d been covertly plotting to get rid of me, fired me from my job of four years.

(At this point, I can hear the theists cry “Ah-HA! See! I knew you suffered at the hands of ‘false xtians’!” El toro poopoo: onwards).

So here I was: jobless, a six-year relationship gone down the tubes.

My close friend, who’d been born again, and I, began to have long, involved theological discussions via the phone. I was casting about, looking for some sort of anchor in my life, a beam of hope, some driftwood to cling to in the ocean of the world. I’d already had a pretty strong foundation in re: the bible. (Hell, at one point in my life many years prior I’d actually invited some Jehovah’s Witnesses in for a chat, and completely blew them away with my working knowledge of it. So much so, they never came back.) I even had some long discussions with him about the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, and he answered the questions so well, I stopped referring to it to this day (albeit, now I have a different slant on the whole thing).

I was all set. Praying, researching, I was prepared to give myself up.

The fateful moment occurred thusly: he offered to send me a bible (I asked for the KJV, because I love the language in it: yeah, I know, it’s not a great translation). He also offered to throw in a book, which he told me: “You’ll love this book. Since you’re so analytical, and like to dissect things, this one’s going to be a favorite.” (That’s not verbatim – a paraphrase).

This, then, was the pivotal work: McDowell’s ETDAV. When it arrived, I read it. Twice, in fact.

There were so many problems with it, most of which I couldn’t put my finger on. JM came out swinging on alternate POV’s, for one. He called Voltaire ‘an infidel’. The sections on Zen Buddhism (zeroing in not on the philosophy, which I was well-versed in, but Suzuki’s work), post-modernism, existentialism in short, JM bad-mouthed so many other world-views, I was sort of flabbergasted. I’d never even heard the term ad hominem, or petitio principii (I learned the latter from JM).

I began seeing the innate problems with the logic JM used. Even without having a degree, or any sort of educational background, I could tell there were holes in the logic. Big gaping ones. Having programmed computers over the last decade or so, I had some background in Boolean logic, so that helped tremendously.

My buddy, a Christian still, to this day regrets having sent that book. Had he but sent the KJV, you and I wouldn’t be having this natter.

So I began to do research. I looked at both sides of the coin. I began familiarizing myself with what I term the ‘Baskin-Robbins’ 1001 flavors of this club that I fancied joining.

And I started really reading Voltaire. My favorite Frenchman. That suave master of satire, whose pen and tongue even royalty feared. Short version: what a hoot!

That’s part the one. Next week’s installment: STEPPING THROUGH THE GATES OF ATHEISM: MY PERSONAL JOURNEY PART THE DEUS – HOLDING AND PAINE.