As I continued seeking and struggling, I began to have a full-fledged falling out with religion and God. I discovered an Objectivist group on campus, though I found little satisfaction with their belief system. My second year of college was a difficult and formative time in my life. I lived on a floor in the dorms with a very religious RA and a bunch of his like-minded colleagues. He was a part of Cru, Campus Crusade for Christ. He was in charge of creating the decorative name tags that all students living in the dorms had on their doors. He used a crest of arms that had a phrase in Latin on it. One day while I was researching religion, I found out that the crest on my door had religious significance; it was a Christian Dominionist symbol. When I found out, I tore it off my door and decorated it with Darwin fish.
That was a really hard time in my life, particularly because I was concerned about how my changing worldview might impact my family. I was really worried about my atheism. Specifically, I was worried about upsetting my grandmother because of how close we are. She helped raise me while my parents were at work and when my mom went back to pharmacy school. I didn’t want her to find out that I had left religion because I didn’t want it to affect our relationship. I love her a lot. To this day, she still doesn’t know about my atheism.
Gradually, things began to get better in my life. I met a fellow student who was the first atheist I had ever met. We joined a small group on campus called the Freethinkers Alliance. I started going to their meetings. It was largely a philosophy club. I enjoyed it for the intellectual stimulation. I took on a leadership position on the board after attending for a year, and we built a successful group. At our apex, 50 people attended each of our meetings. We were very proud of that. The internet also really helped in that it pointed me toward books that would end up having a profound influence on me. I discovered Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Their writings helped me throw off religion and embrace science and philosophy.
Given the change that’s occurred within me, I can’t say that my values have changed much. I’ve always felt like I have a fairly strong moral compass, which, in reality, is probably the result of my secular upbringing. I sometimes jokingly say that my dad indoctrinated me in the ways of the Founding Fathers. He had me memorizing U.S. Presidents at the age of two, and he always encouraged me to seek the truth.
I remember first learning about the scientific method and evolution while I was in high school, still going to church. At the time, I didn’t really know what I believed. People at the churches I attended, particularly the right-wing church, would openly proclaim that they were anti-evolution. I’ve become more educated about evolution since then. It’s my personal belief that people shouldn’t ignore facts about the world, but rather that they should integrate them into it. I simply can’t reconcile evolution by natural selection and a belief in a personal, caring God.
Now that I have a firm naturalistic worldview, I feel very liberated. I have a large secular community now. Almost everyone knows that I’m an atheist. I feel like my self-confidence is actually a lot better now than it used to be. When I was religious, I had lingering questions. I wondered, “Am I doing something bad? Would God approve of this? Is God looking over my shoulder right now?” I really tried to fit in and didn’t want to rock the boat. The prescriptions that I was given from organized religion for being good are different from those that I now believe are necessary for truly being good. While I’m sure my worldview isn’t entirely consistent, it’s more consistent than it was. I feel a lot better, like I’m in control of my decisions, like I’m more of my own person.
VII.
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Rachael-Dawn Craig: Freedom from Fear
“Reason can wrestle with terrors — and overthrow them.”
Oregon megachurch minister Mary Manin Morrissey is credited with the following quote: “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” Rachael-Dawn Craig has had plenty of experience with both fear and faith, and as her story reveals, the two often merged. Raised with censored television, she saw what she believed to be faith healings, holy laughter, and an exorcism at Rock Church in Nova Scotia, Canada. Rachael recalls her childhood as one dominated by guilt and terror. She was scared of demons, taught to view any sexual impulse as a sign of impurity, and feared that by displaying a lack of religious devotion, she would allow her non-evangelical friends to burn in hell.
While she was quick to criticize science and defend her Christian faith during her early teens, Rachael’s curiosity eventually led her toward open religious skepticism. Because of her atheism, her mother kicked her and her brother out of their home when Rachael was 18, believing that they had become Satanic. She now, despite her upbringing, considers herself free from the fear of her childhood. As she says, “It’s nice not to be afraid all the time.”
My entire extended family is quite Christian, but the majority of my religious experiences come from my nuclear family when we were involved with an evangelical Southern U.S.-style church in Nova Scotia, Canada. My family — I have two siblings, a brother and a sister, along with a mother and father — moved to Nova Scotia when I was four years old. My parents were moderately religious before we started attending Rock Church.
My mom went to Bible college. My dad’s a mechanic and had gone to trade school. I think they liked that the church community took them in. There were different programs at the church in which my brother, sister, and I could participate. My father really liked the idea that he was going to be a part of miracles and believed that good things were going to come his way because of his participation in the church. It had a lot of Pentecostal elements to it, and my parents probably found that interesting and exciting.
The worship sessions were like rock shows. There was a lot of drama. My parents’ friends all went to this church as well; it was not long after we starting going there that we were going to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night.
Church was quite intense. Speaking in tongues was a part of every sermon. Toward the end of each sermon, people would begin shaking and passing out. I was a child when I witnessed these things, and they had a significant impact on me. I thought I was seeing magic, seeing miracles. I went to lots of faith healings where people appeared to be healed by faith. The whole church would scream “Hallelujah!” and get really excited. I once witnessed an exorcism where a lot people were surrounding a woman, pushing her down, and rebuking her, calling the devil out of her. I also saw holy laughter, during which the entire congregation would erupt in dramatic laughing, spreading throughout the 2,000-person church.