Leaving Atheism for Good
I was born into a non-religious family. One afternoon shortly after the birth of my first brother, this all changed dramatically.
A door-to-door evangelist paid a visit to my mother. She inherited her beliefs and her stubbornness from her father, an ornery cowboy from Wyoming who hated religion.
But this afternoon, she welcomed the evangelist into our home and embraced his message of repentance and salvation, to her great surprise.
I was too young to remember, but my mother often told me how suddenly her life changed that day. Now, influenced by a few early photos of her that survived the decades, I picture her morphing from a 70’s flower child to a conservative Christian Baptist.
The only image reflected in my early memories of my mother is the latter one, because I was too young to have an impression of the flower child.
The person she was before she “got religion” has been lost to time, except for those photos and fragments of memories passed on verbally from those who knew her.
Transition
One transformation I remember is moving from the crime-ridden big city where I was born to rural Montana, where I grew up.
Though I’ve lived in many places across the USA and beyond, I now say Montana when people ask me where I’m from.
The nearest city from our farm was about an hour away. We did not go to church regularly because we were so remote, but my mom played recorded sermons every Sunday. Daily Bible reading and prayer were a mandatory part of my childhood education.
I was mostly home-schooled and isolated, so I grew up with my Mom’s view of the world. This view included a belief that the earth was created six thousand years ago and that it would soon end in an apocalyptic final act known as the Great Tribulation.
Even as a child, I very strongly believed in the concept of an objective reality–one that is not altered by our most fanciful desires for it to be otherwise.
Because of this belief, I felt a strong attraction to mathematics and science as I grew from a child into a young man. They offered me a way to understand and predict the world; to gain an objective, rational, and grounded foundation for perceiving and processing reality.
This attraction drove me to study the universe from secular perspectives. I debated with non-religious people, who rarely matched my characterizations of them.
The deeper I explored some subjects, particularly the age of the earth and the origin of species, the more I felt the foundations of my worldview slipping away. Without those, I couldn’t find a way to reconcile the teachings of my mother with the teachings of science.
After years of study, I cast aside the religion of my youth and decided that atheism was part of my journey to the one truth. I had no contempt for Christianity—none at all—but I couldn’t see how it could be true.
Atheism
As I explored my newfound atheism, I discovered that there is not a singular concept called “atheism.”
Atheism is a big tent that includes those who lack a belief in gods, as well as those who believe they cannot exist. Views differ on morality and even supernaturalism.
I didn’t fit with evangelical atheists. Even as an atheist, I believed my mother had a challenging life, and that she was genuinely better off–and better to those around her–with her religion.
I couldn’t side with the spiritual atheists, either, because in a world of atoms and energy, there was no possibility of a metaphysical component to reality.
I embraced naturalism and reductionism, and in my own way, I became a kind of orthodox atheist. I had no active desire to proselytize, but I believed that I had come closer to objective reality than any religion could take me.
Closer, but not all the way there.
Morality
Even as a self-styled “intellectual atheist,” there were always some things about my worldview that were undesirable or inexplicable. I couldn’t shake my feeling that the precise nature of reality would forever remain just out of my grasp.
For one, I was familiar with the easy and hard problems of morality.
The easy problem is essentially how you define right and wrong in a world without a higher power. This is the easy problem because there are many different ways to do it that often align with people’s sense of right and wrong (for example, utilitarianism).
However, the hard problem cannot be solved even in principle. Once you classify actions into the categories of “right” and “wrong,” possibly dependent on context, you have the much harder problem of providing everyone a rational reason to do “right” and to not do “wrong.”
This is known as the is-ought problem, a term introduced by Scottish philosopher David Hume.
Most atheists pat themselves on the back for solving the easy problem, unaware of the existence of the hard problem and its fundamentally intractable nature.
I acknowledged the hard problem and took what I believed to be the only intellectually defensible position: that in a naturalistic, reductionist worldview, the concepts of right and wrong reduce to what I want you to do, and what I want you to not do, respectively (amoralism).
Qualia
The hard problem of morality might have been a roadblock, but it can be avoided—albeit at great social cost. Some challenges I saw could not be overcome at any cost.
The serious challenge concerns the nature of reality. In a naturalistic, reductionist worldview, reality is reduced to its most fundamental natural elements: quarks, leptons, photons, bosons, gluons, Higgs, perhaps gravitons.
These particles interact with each other according to the laws of physics. Electromagnetism governs charged particles, the strong nuclear force binds quarks together, the weak nuclear force enables radioactive decay, and gravity affects everything with mass or energy.
These laws predict many observable phenomena, such as the motion of planets, the behavior of light, the stability of atoms, the fusion in stars, the decay of radioactive elements, the formation of chemical bonds, and the release of energy in nuclear reactions.
Yet, there is one thing they do not predict. One thing they cannot predict. That is, each of us–or maybe just some of us–has a subjective inner life. There is such a thing as “me”, and I experience sensations–sometimes termed qualia in philosophy.
The laws of physics can predict many things, including, perhaps, even my current attempt to communicate about qualia in this very post. But they cannot predict nor even begin to explain the reality of qualia.
Now, some atheists adopt the perspective that a qualia like “joy” is a mere word that describes a physical process. In so doing, they try to “define away” the problem of qualia.
Yet, I felt that engaging in this rhetorical sleight of hand was disingenuous to the one thing I was and am more certain of than anything else: that I exist and that I experience.
So I acknowledged the reality of qualia and the fact that they lie wholly outside a naturalistic, reductionist worldview. In so doing, I accepted–as many theists do–that some aspects of reality were beyond my grasp.
To a mathematician, such an acceptance is demanded. Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem says that within any formal axiomatic system, there are true things which are nonetheless unprovable within that system. I had no choice but to accept this.
I left these unsolved puzzles to collect dust until many years later.
Ghosts
As an amoral atheist, my life did not look like the endless hedonist party some might imagine. Many practices from Christianity were dimly reflected in the way I lived, if not my philosophy or epistemology – like ghostly apparitions of a previous life.
I followed a traditional track that led to marriage and three children, without much deviation.
My mother died from cancer before the last of the three children was born. She was firmly in middle age, when none of her children were prepared for her death.
I and her other children urged her to seek medical treatment. But she lived a hard life, one of constant physical and emotional pain. To her mind, to live and spend more time with her children and grandchildren, or to die and be with her Savior, were nearly equal.
“Besides,” she told me once, “If God wills, He can heal me.” I remember thinking that He would not heal her, because for one, He did not exist. But I said nothing, out of love for her. I even felt a twinge of longing knowing that I would never have such faith in anything.
God did not heal her. Along with my brothers, I said a few words at her funeral. I remarked on her legendary stubbornness, but the focus of my remarks was on the one constant in her life: her deep faith in God, which was the foundation of her life.
When my mother died, I grieved for almost two years and shared my atheism with friends and family. When I was done, I had lost even more ties to the Christianity of my youth.
More, but not all. Not yet.
Lost
I went through trauma around 5 years after the birth of the last of the three children. It felt like being submerged beneath kilometers of ocean, with no way to breathe and no way to get out.
I couldn’t see it, but my atheism and the way my life philosophy affected my views, behavior, roles, and relationships gave birth to and nourished the trauma.
I did not recover from these dark days for many years. As this process ran its logical conclusion, the last of my connections to Christianity were severed. In the aftermath, I viscerally understood the implications of my naturalism and reductionism.
In a world where everything is matter and energy—and nothing but matter and energy—there is no right or wrong, no obligation or responsibility, no higher purpose and no meaning to anything. Everything reduces to the question: what do I want right now?
I followed this path straight into divorce and my own mid-life crisis.
Despite doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, I never felt more lost in my entire life. Waves tossed me here and there and every wind carried me about.
Even as the foundations of my behavior and values crumbled beneath me, the final cornerstone of my identity began to fracture: the intellectual superiority of my atheist worldview.
I had come to view science as the perfect pure absence of all religion—the objective grounding on which one could understand and manipulate the world. A superior foundation for all of life.
In my world, scientists were the equivalent of priests, while doctors acted as holy prophets. Accomplished and trained, they brought truth and healing to the masses.
In my early adult years, I struggled to understand why some secular scientists and doctors adopted blank-slateism or accepted evolutionary psychology for all species except humans.
Yet, in my mind, the vast majority of scientists and doctors were rational and objective—in this age, as they had been in every age. They understood the world was made of matter and energy, and so I expected them to be guardians of the truth.
With these views, what I began to witness in the 21st century defied all reason.
I watched as highly educated and decorated scientists changed their positions on all topics related to COVID, ranging from the effectiveness of masking to the plausibility of the lab leak hypothesis.
I saw thousands of health care professionals strongarm amnesty for BLM protests during COVID spikes, even while local governments arrested people for going to church.
I witnessed mainstream scientific publications insist that humans are not sexually dimorphic, that sex is not binary, and that a woman is “someone who says they are a woman.”
Scientific papers and mainstream science articles discussed alternate ways of knowing and demanded that mathematics be reconstructed for the age of postcolonialism.
Instead of seeing the brave guardians of truth standing up to this madness, I watched in horror as famous scientists everywhere debased themselves and all of science with them.
I was slowly forced to process what studies had already told me—that even people who believe they are too smart to be affected by biases are affected by them; in fact, they are especially affected by them.
If so many smart people can be wrong about so many topics—in the 21st century, and with everyone having access to all human knowledge—then anyone can be wrong about anything.
Even me.
Exodus
Over the years, I sometimes wondered if I had been wrong about atheism.
“God,” I would sometimes say, “If you exist, show me. I am open to being wrong.” I never expected anything to happen.
But in 2022, after living decades as an atheist, I felt humbled and even ashamed.
I had witnessed my atheism tear my life apart.
I had cut out the last remaining traces of my Christianity, only to lose all meaning and purpose.
I had watched many of my intellectual heroes debase themselves so thoroughly it broke me.
I had no answers anymore, only questions.
I remember having a vivid dream that year—the kind of dream that is so intense, you can touch it, taste it, smell it. I dreamt that, located in a fantastical realm between worlds, I knew with certainty that God existed. I felt at peace, only to wake up an atheist.
I shrugged off that dream, knowing it was a natural reaction to my state of mind.
Weeks later, at an Airbnb in London, I perked up when I overheard my (at the time) non-Christian partner singing sweetly and softly the lyrics to a Christian song:
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Saviour
Somehow, the lyrics resonated with me. I too wanted to walk upon the waters; I wanted the faith necessary to go deeper than my feet, made of ordinary matter, would dare carry me.
After that evening, I became open to exploring religion, not as a means of understanding objective truth, but as a way of finding meaning and purpose. Of orienting myself to those around me and to the universe itself.
In early 2023, I began attending The Junction Church, with much trepidation and disbelief. Despite being an atheist my first visit to this church, I was welcomed with warmth and hospitality, without reservation or judgment.
I was awestruck by the abundance of meaning and purpose all around me. Even if I could not participate in it, the richness of the experience was palpable.
I wanted to have what they had; however, rigid borders still prevented my feet from wandering.
Evolution
Decades after rejecting Christianity for intellectual reasons, I was humbled.
I no longer saw atheism as a haven of bliss but as a path to personal and perhaps even civilizational destruction. I was even receptive to the idea of religion being part of my life, though I didn’t know how.
Deep down, I still saw Christianity as a fiction, and I did not see how it could be otherwise. I could not share my mother’s belief in a young earth or her rejection of natural selection.
My beliefs seemed incompatible with my understanding of Christianity. “One can be a scientist or a Christian,” I thought, “But not both.”
Yet, as I continued to attend church, I began developing a new appreciation for how some ways of teaching and practicing Christianity can shape our behavior positively.
I found incredibly strong relationships between people who admitted they were deeply flawed, both in my siblings and in the church I attended. Christians who believed in and were committed to a common purpose far higher than, “What do I want right now?”.
I saw many Christians stand bravely for basic self-evident facts, such the existence of exactly two sexes and the reality of physiological differences between them.
These experiences warmed me to Christianity, and before long, I found myself praying, “God, I believe; help my unbelief.” In other words, I wanted to reconcile my understanding of Christianity with my understanding of the world around me.
Though still incomplete, this process began to happen more quickly than I imagined.
In mere months, I found ways to reconcile the formal and the informal, the objective and subjective, the what and the why.
In mid 2023, I turned my back on atheism and surrendered to the King of Kings. This decision has had a far-ranging effects on my life, opening new doors to spiritual growth and understanding.
I now attend a Presbyterian church in Annapolis, Maryland. There, I strive to learn more about why I am here and how I should live. To deal with the sin in my own life, and in so doing, to improve my relationships with God, family, friends, and the world at large.
Reflection
Generally speaking and from my own knowledge of the topic, I don’t think people turn to Christianity for intellectual reasons.
Those great debates on atheism versus theism, or the historicity of Jesus, as enjoyable as they are, don’t generally end with atheists admitting defeat and converting to Christianity.
That’s certainly not how it worked in my life.
I came to Christianity because following a life of atheism left my life in shambles, without meaning and purpose, and humbled me. Something was missing in my life–the God-shaped hole that demands to be filled with something, be that sex and drugs, conspiracy theories, or woke imitations of religion.
I now believe that humanity was designed for religion. In the future, our descendants will be more religious, not less. Scientists will write about how the pill and susceptibility to various behavior-altering ideologies led to a rapid, episodic event that reshaped humanity’s future.
They will say this is part of God’s divine plan, manifestly encoded in the very fabric of the unfolding universe since eons past—even as they decry the tendency of ancient scientists to constantly turn to the fictional goddesses Fortuna and Tyche to “explain” everything they didn’t understand.
I don’t believe in the kind of God who needs me (as though He needed anything). I understand and I am grateful that I get to play the smallest of roles in the greatest story ever told–the glory of God, as manifest in humanity’s redemptive arc from creation until the end of all things.
My job is not to conquer the infidels, to burn the heretics, to heap hatred, scorn and judgment upon others. Many have done so in the name of Christianity over the past two thousand years, and their sins are not my sins.
My job is to be a witness for what God has done in my own life. I am to be a light put upon a stand, so that those who feel the God-shaped hole (the working of the Holy Spirit, as it is often called) can find healing, forgiveness, and justification in Christ alone.
My job is to love, even when that’s not an easy thing to do. To love people, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with my God.
Being a Christian gives me a moral framework for evaluating decisions in my personal and professional life, new ways of thinking about the world, and a strength I have never felt in my entire life as an atheist.
It’s worth pondering this strength for a moment.
In a real sense, everyone has a god—because ‘god’ is whatever you place at the top of your value pyramid. When you are god, the suffering you will endure for yourself is limited.
But when you come to the certainty that there exists something infinitely higher than you, then suddenly, there is something you would die for. Something you would live for. This purpose and meaning gives you a strength that is inaccessible to others.
A strength to cast mountains into the sea. A strength to walk on waters in the midst of a storm.
As the Psalmist wrote:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Being a Christian has altered my life trajectory, the decisions I am making and will make. These decisions will ripple into the future, setting the universe on a different course.
If I leave you with nothing else, let it be that your ideology or religion matters more than you know. It will certainly affect what you do in this life—regardless of the hereafter.
Not every ideology or religion is the same. Some end in personal and civilizational ruin, while others end in triumph, even in the midst of pain and suffering.
To quote a wise (if fictional) man, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
To my atheist friends: I am always open to sharing an intellectual defense of my newfound Christian worldview. It will not convince you of Christianity, because that’s not something that happens on an intellectual level.
But it may convince you that the naturalistic, reductionistic worldview is more deeply flawed than Christianity could ever be. This realization can open you to new perspectives on the world around you.
To my family and my new Christian friends: thank you for your tireless counsel and your endless prayers. If a godless heathen like me can see the light, there’s hope for everyone.
Now, may the God who called me from darkness to light also work in you, dear reader. May He grant you eyes to see beyond the material world, courage to follow where His Spirit leads, and strength to walk upon waters where your feet could never wander alone.
As you navigate your own journey between worlds, may the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and the wisdom of the ancient faith guide your steps. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.