Moving away from those absolutes has also caused me to move away from atheist activism. While I do consider myself an atheist, I’ve come to find that many of the loudest voices in the movement are also tone-deaf regarding how their messages will be received by the faithful. Having been raised religious, I know firsthand that people who are perceived to be hostile or aggressive toward faith are immediately shut out, marginalized, and ignored. Not only is it ineffective, but it can further entrench someone in their beliefs and reinforce the “us vs. them” mentality.
Despite shrill voices on either side of the theistic line, I believe that the world is slowly changing for the better. Civil rights for racial and sexual minorities are better now than they ever have been. Violent crimes are at an all-time low. As far as I can tell, each generation in the last 200 years has generally been more progressive, more accepting, and more tolerant than the last. In addition, morally absolutist religions have seen their numbers steadily declining, the Mormon Church included. I have hope for the future and hope for humanity. The more interconnected we are, the more we will develop our empathy and the less we will see the world as a matter of us vs. them.
IV.
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Jason Balclass="underline" You’re Not in Australia Anymore
“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life, so that we are all connected: to each other, biologically, to the Earth, chemically, and to the rest of the universe, atomically.
That’s kinda cool. That makes me smile. And I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe. We are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
There are surely fewer greater cultural contrasts in the English-speaking world than that between Melbourne, Australia and rural Kansas. Jason Ball ventured from his relaxed hometown to the American heartland at age 17. What he experienced there would change the direction of his life.
Kansas was full of surprises. The Midwestern hospitality was very real and incredibly endearing. The religious lessons were also noteworthy and seemingly omnipresent. At the local youth group, he was taught that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that evolution is a myth, and that gay marriage should be opposed with strident intensity. He observed a society dominated by religion for the first time.
Jason then began an intellectual journey unmatched in his life after returning home from Kansas. Influenced by scientific books, Jason found his passion and his community, subsequently deciding to become an advocate for secularism.
I grew up in Australia, a relatively secular country. I don’t think religion was ever forced onto me. I was never even asked to consider it as a young child. The only time I thought about it was when I watched characters going to church on The Simpsons. I asked my mom, “How come we don’t go to church?” She said, “Well, you play football on Sundays and church is on Sundays, so what would you rather do?” I said, “That’s a pretty easy question.”
As I got older, I began to think that there was a God and that there was a heaven and hell. We had Christian religious instruction in my primary school, although no one took it all that seriously. I didn’t think I really needed to investigate whether or not it was true. To me, God was regarded much like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.
I felt indifference toward religion up until I was 17 when I went on student exchange to the United States. I was placed in Kansas, which is the buckle of the Bible Belt. I thought I knew what America was like because of TV and movies, one monolithic culture. What I learned was that that wasn’t the case. I lived with a Catholic family in a very small town. They didn’t interact with a lot of people from outside their community and, thus, they hadn’t had a lot of experience with other worldviews. They lived in a bubble where they thought that people only thought like they did; if others didn’t, they had a really negative view of them.
There was quite a lot of racism and homophobia, even though the people were incredibly nice. Interestingly, it was one of the most welcoming environments I’ve ever experienced, and I absolutely loved it there. I could see that their entrenched views were something that was ingrained in the culture. I could forgive them for that a bit. If these people were born in the Middle East, then they would probably be Islamic. If they were born in India, they would likely be Hindu.
Everyone my age went to youth group and church. I was more than happy to go along. I had an open mind, and I was really interested in what they said and did. I used the excuse of ignorance and curiosity to question my peers. I would get rides to youth group from a friend. I remember that she asked, “Are you religious?” I said, “I went to an Anglican school, so I’m an Anglican.“ Then she asked, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” Eyebrows raised, I said, “I don’t think so.”
I enjoyed going to religious gatherings because it was so fascinating. At the first youth group that I went to, the pastor got up and said, “The world is about 6,000 years old, and we know that as Christians.” I was pretty sure it was much older. Even my geography teacher suggested that fossils were planted to test humanity’s faith in God. That drove me to read a lot and get into debates about science and religion and whether God is real, whether the Bible is true. When I was in Kansas, in 2005, the state both introduced intelligent design into the biology curriculum and voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage. My experience there gave me a first-hand account of what can happen to a society when it truly takes religion seriously.
When I came back to Australia, I felt like the only person in my country who cared about secular values, defending science, and standing up against superstition. For one year in high school, I didn’t talk to any of my classmates about what was on my mind. I would go home in the evening and read on the internet; I was trying to figure out where I stood on certain issues. I openly read Christian books that my Christian friends were telling me to read.
Books that I read began to influence my own beliefs. The first book that began to shape my thinking about life on Earth was The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. At the time, all I cared about was whether evolution was true. Daniel Dennett’s book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea also helped to explain that subject. Nature, I learned, is cruel, and I concluded that evolution is not necessarily irreconcilable with God, but it does seem to be irreconcilable with a loving God who has a purpose for human beings.
After high school, when I went to university, I got in touch with a couple students who were starting a secular society. I was on the founding committee, and at the beginning, we had a small group of about 30 students. This group became quite influential in my life. In 2008, we learned that the Pope was coming to Australia, subsidized to the tune of $150 million dollars by the government. I realized that we needed to speak out, so my club and I organized a rally. We called it “Youth Against World Youth Day” and received some national media coverage. We highlighted the Pope’s backward views on a variety of issues from homosexuality to condom use to women’s rights, promoting the idea of secularism, emphasizing that our state shouldn’t be funding his visit.