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How I Recovered from Atheism

Atheism is a mind virus that grips our generation. I was infected for more than half of my life.

As a critical thinker, I have spent my whole life grappling with Religion, philosophy and atheism. At age eight the fear that God was not real struck me, causing me to run into my room and quickly begin writing out my thoughts on the existence of God. I wish I still had that sheet of loose leaf but my young mind came to the conclusion that if everything has to be created, there must be a Creator.

Years later I had a bad experience at my first confession. I carefully examined my heart and divulged every sin I committed to the priest. I was a rebellious child so I am sure it included smoking cigarettes, masturbation, messing around with girls, watching porn, being relentlessly mean to my younger brother, disobeying my parents, etc. The priest told me that I belong in a Juvenile Detention Facility. This traumatic instance, along with my parent’s divorce, caused me to re-examine my religious beliefs.

I started looking into atheism alongside other Religions like Hare Krishna and Buddhism. As my brain was still not fully developed I had a hard time actually grasping the concepts properly, but I tried out a bunch of religions for a few weeks in the best way that I could. I still have my Hare Krishna prayer beads.

Atheism had the strongest hold on me, it was as far away as I could get from my Father’s beliefs, and it was the most accessible for my Western mind. The YouTube channel “The Atheist Experience” became an obsession. Matt Dillahunty, an atheist debater, had a call in show where he–along with other hosts–would debate those who called in about religious topics. I quickly became acquainted with the common arguments and began parroting them to my family and friends.

Matt Dillahunty always stated: “I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible.” This became my mantra then and remains today. He also argues that “The most important question is whether or not God Exists”, I still believe this to be true. The reason it is the most important question is because if God does exists we really need to worship Him, and if he does not exist, we definitely should not waste our time. Of course, at that point in my life, I believed that God did not exist and tried to convince everyone I met that they should not waste their time.

I was (and still am) always willing to revise my opinion on anything. I am doxastically open, as another prominent atheist Peter Boghossian would say. And in all honesty, no one I spoke to gave me convincing evidence that God existed. No one gave me any convincing evidence for anything. The atheist arguments that I had learned online were impenetrable.

Despite being an “atheist”, I was obsessed with Religion. I had a notebook during my college years where I would write out atheist apologetic tactics (I still have the notebook). I read Peter Boghossian’s book, A Manual For Creating Atheists, which promoted Socratic reasoning and street epistemology; essentially using the Socratic method on random people you meet on the street to try to get them to revise their beliefs. Yes, I did that. And sometimes I had people revise their beliefs. I still believe the Socratic method is the best tool for debate and helping people come to better conclusions. Furthermore, I studied Medieval Chinese Religion during my Masters Degree and got into a PhD program for the same thing. When I studied abroad in Taiwan, I visited over 100 temples and prayed at each one (despite being an atheist–this is after I started to question my atheism, which I promise I will get to soon).

My Manchu professor Simon Wickhamsmith once said to me in regards to my ardent atheism: “You are just bashing your head against the wall of Religion and one day you will break through”. I like to imagine he also said, or it will kill you first (maybe he did, I do not remember). But these were extremely wise words and also gave me a hidden hope that one day I would break through.

And of course, I DID break through, or else I would not be writing this article. The method is simple. Of course it is, the first chapter in the Lotus Sutra on “expedient means” states that there is a simple method for everyone to come to knowing the Truth. That method may be different depending on who you are. I decided to take the long route of struggling for 20 years, but the pieces fell into place relatively quickly once I understood a few simple points:

  1. People can hold simultaneous contradictory beliefs as long as both beliefs provide a benefit to the believer. Religions as Repertoires is a concept that explains to the western mind how the popular culture in Medieval China could participate in religious activities of Buddhism, Daoism and Popular Religion simultaneously despite their contradictory nature because these activities benefited the individual spiritually or materially. I applied this to my situation and came to the conclusion that prayer benefits me spiritually and physically (i.e. helping with the severe anxiety I experienced due to university) while my materialistic/atheistic thinking benefited me in the material realm.

    I came to understand this mode of thought through the work of Robert Campany who is a historian of Medieval Chinese Religion. I doubt that he intended for people to come to Religion through his academic articles, but it was the first spark for me to begin breaking down the walls of atheism and materialism.

    This new understanding allowed me to break down the barrier I had up for the majority of my life. The barrier was simple, because I believe that science is true and logical, I am not allowed to believe anything spiritual. Because faith is “belief without [material] evidence”, and because the scientific method was important to me, I must not have faith in anything. Prayer helped me with my anxiety and panic attacks (which were a direct result of what I was learning in the university and, later, university politics), that was, in fact, material evidence. Matt Dillahunty may have called it a delusion, or argued that it still does not prove God exists (which, in a materialist/enlightenment lens, is true), but it still provided me a benefit, therefore, I was able to hold these simultaneous contradictory beliefs because I had accepted that it was NORMAL. It had been normal for thousands of years. It was only until the “Age of Enlightenment” that this mode of being began to be questioned. In our generation, it is considered deserving of ridicule.

  2. Losers in lab coats have stripped you of hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary belief in God. While we do not know for sure, I think it is safe to assume that homo-sapiens have believed in something greater than themselves (without material evidence) since the beginning. If it was not from the beginning, according to the stupid AI search results that I have neglected to get rid of on this computer’s browser, homo-sapiens have been kicking it for 300,000 years, so let’s split the difference and just say 100,000 years of belief to be safe. Why are you throwing away a belief in something greater than yourself because of a few 19th century scholars in ivory towers?

    Here is an important question you need to ask yourself. Are you worshipping science in the place of God? Do you blindly trust the experts without toiling over the facts like I toiled over religion my whole life? Do you simply place your faith in them that they will be correct because they have been correct a few times in the past? Have you ever tallied up the amount of times they have been wrong? I am not saying throw the baby out with the bath water. The scientific method is meant to destroy hypotheses, not prove them. But the average Scientism worshipper I meet today does not care about the scientific method. Did you take the covid “vaccine”?

    Okay, I am getting heated and not following the Socratic method. Sorry about that.

    Stop letting people tell you what is true. Do not give up your evolutionary lineage of belief to some loser from the 19th century. Do not give it up to Sam Harris either, who is a bigger loser than any of the Enlightenment thinkers (I do not think the Enlightment thinkers are losers, but Sam Harris is for sure). There are many reasons why we made it this far as a species, and religion is absolutely one of the main reasons.

  3. Tradition is important. Your ancestors are important. You will notice I kept talking about Eastern Religions in this article. I realized that I do not belong in an Eastern Religion as a Western Male. Other than the fact that Christ is King, the main reason I am a Catholic is because I was brought up Catholic, my ancestors were Catholic, the Catholicism is an intuitive and natural part of my soul. Think about your Traditions and hold on to them. Cultivating your Ancestral Tradition will bring you closer to God. Of course, I want you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but that is not what this article is about. First, examine yourself and understand the next step that you need to take to bring yourself closer to God.

    Tangent Alert: If you are a person from the West and you think you are Buddhist, I can almost guarantee that you do not understand Buddhism, you just understand a superficial level of it. Even after studying it for years in multiple languages I still do not understand it fully. If you are a liberal, look into the marks of the Buddha and who can attain Buddhahood. Look into why the Dharma is currently unattainable. If you understand these things and still remain Buddhist and liberal, congratulations! You have completed step one, you now hold simultaneous contradictory beliefs!!

  4. Start praying. If you trust the scientific method then pray to God for a deeper understanding of Him and of Religion. Pray sincerely and earnestly, do it every day for a few weeks. If nothing happens then shelf the hypothesis for now. Next, when you are in a difficult situation, begin praying sincerely for help from God, if nothing happens, shelf the hypothesis. Because it is difficult to measure sincerity AND because the existence of God is the most important question, I recommend you run these tests a few times. If, in the end, nothing happens for you, revise your hypothesis, change the test, keep following the scientific method and searching for God. If you die and you were unable to find God, you will have died a noble man who earnestly sought God his whole life. And that would be a life worth recounting in poem and song, Tolkien style.

I have wanted to write about this for a while, but today I had a spark of inspiration resulting in a relatively smooth transferral of thought to paper. It is the same way I write music, I struggle with a song for a few days, then the final product pours out of my soul without me having to try. I want to explore that phenomenon eventually.

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How I Recovered from Atheism

Atheism is a mind virus that grips our generation. I was infected for more than half of my life.

As a critical thinker, I have spent my whole life grappling with Religion, philosophy and atheism. At age eight the fear that God was not real struck me, causing me to run into my room and quickly begin writing out my thoughts on the existence of God. I wish I still had that sheet of loose leaf but my young mind came to the conclusion that if everything has to be created, there must be a Creator.

Years later I had a bad experience at my first confession. I carefully examined my heart and divulged every sin I committed to the priest. I was a rebellious child so I am sure it included smoking cigarettes, masturbation, messing around with girls, watching porn, being relentlessly mean to my younger brother, disobeying my parents, etc. The priest told me that I belong in a Juvenile Detention Facility. This traumatic instance, along with my parent’s divorce, caused me to re-examine my religious beliefs.

I started looking into atheism alongside other Religions like Hare Krishna and Buddhism. As my brain was still not fully developed I had a hard time actually grasping the concepts properly, but I tried out a bunch of religions for a few weeks in the best way that I could. I still have my Hare Krishna prayer beads.

Atheism had the strongest hold on me, it was as far away as I could get from my Father’s beliefs, and it was the most accessible for my Western mind. The YouTube channel “The Atheist Experience” became an obsession. Matt Dillahunty, an atheist debater, had a call in show where he–along with other hosts–would debate those who called in about religious topics. I quickly became acquainted with the common arguments and began parroting them to my family and friends.

Matt Dillahunty always stated: “I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible.” This became my mantra then and remains today. He also argues that “The most important question is whether or not God Exists”, I still believe this to be true. The reason it is the most important question is because if God does exists we really need to worship Him, and if he does not exist, we definitely should not waste our time. Of course, at that point in my life, I believed that God did not exist and tried to convince everyone I met that they should not waste their time.

I was (and still am) always willing to revise my opinion on anything. I am doxastically open, as another prominent atheist Peter Boghossian would say. And in all honesty, no one I spoke to gave me convincing evidence that God existed. No one gave me any convincing evidence for anything. The atheist arguments that I had learned online were impenetrable.

Despite being an “atheist”, I was obsessed with Religion. I had a notebook during my college years where I would write out atheist apologetic tactics (I still have the notebook). I read Peter Boghossian’s book, A Manual For Creating Atheists, which promoted Socratic reasoning and street epistemology; essentially using the Socratic method on random people you meet on the street to try to get them to revise their beliefs. Yes, I did that. And sometimes I had people revise their beliefs. I still believe the Socratic method is the best tool for debate and helping people come to better conclusions. Furthermore, I studied Medieval Chinese Religion during my Masters Degree and got into a PhD program for the same thing. When I studied abroad in Taiwan, I visited over 100 temples and prayed at each one (despite being an atheist–this is after I started to question my atheism, which I promise I will get to soon).

My Manchu professor Simon Wickhamsmith once said to me in regards to my ardent atheism: “You are just bashing your head against the wall of Religion and one day you will break through”. I like to imagine he also said, or it will kill you first (maybe he did, I do not remember). But these were extremely wise words and also gave me a hidden hope that one day I would break through.

And of course, I DID break through, or else I would not be writing this article. The method is simple. Of course it is, the first chapter in the Lotus Sutra on “expedient means” states that there is a simple method for everyone to come to knowing the Truth. That method may be different depending on who you are. I decided to take the long route of struggling for 20 years, but the pieces fell into place relatively quickly once I understood a few simple points:

  1. People can hold simultaneous contradictory beliefs as long as both beliefs provide a benefit to the believer. Religions as Repertoires is a concept that explains to the western mind how the popular culture in Medieval China could participate in religious activities of Buddhism, Daoism and Popular Religion simultaneously despite their contradictory nature because these activities benefited the individual spiritually or materially. I applied this to my situation and came to the conclusion that prayer benefits me spiritually and physically (i.e. helping with the severe anxiety I experienced due to university) while my materialistic/atheistic thinking benefited me in the material realm.

    I came to understand this mode of thought through the work of Robert Campany who is a historian of Medieval Chinese Religion. I doubt that he intended for people to come to Religion through his academic articles, but it was the first spark for me to begin breaking down the walls of atheism and materialism.

    This new understanding allowed me to break down the barrier I had up for the majority of my life. The barrier was simple, because I believe that science is true and logical, I am not allowed to believe anything spiritual. Because faith is “belief without [material] evidence”, and because the scientific method was important to me, I must not have faith in anything. Prayer helped me with my anxiety and panic attacks (which were a direct result of what I was learning in the university and, later, university politics), that was, in fact, material evidence. Matt Dillahunty may have called it a delusion, or argued that it still does not prove God exists (which, in a materialist/enlightenment lens, is true), but it still provided me a benefit, therefore, I was able to hold these simultaneous contradictory beliefs because I had accepted that it was NORMAL. It had been normal for thousands of years. It was only until the “Age of Enlightenment” that this mode of being began to be questioned. In our generation, it is considered deserving of ridicule.

  2. Losers in lab coats have stripped you of hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary belief in God. While we do not know for sure, I think it is safe to assume that homo-sapiens have believed in something greater than themselves (without material evidence) since the beginning. If it was not from the beginning, according to the stupid AI search results that I have neglected to get rid of on this computer’s browser, homo-sapiens have been kicking it for 300,000 years, so let’s split the difference and just say 100,000 years of belief to be safe. Why are you throwing away a belief in something greater than yourself because of a few 19th century scholars in ivory towers?

    Here is an important question you need to ask yourself. Are you worshipping science in the place of God? Do you blindly trust the experts without toiling over the facts like I toiled over religion my whole life? Do you simply place your faith in them that they will be correct because they have been correct a few times in the past? Have you ever tallied up the amount of times they have been wrong? I am not saying throw the baby out with the bath water. The scientific method is meant to destroy hypotheses, not prove them. But the average Scientism worshipper I meet today does not care about the scientific method. Did you take the covid “vaccine”?

    Okay, I am getting heated and not following the Socratic method. Sorry about that.

    Stop letting people tell you what is true. Do not give up your evolutionary lineage of belief to some loser from the 19th century. Do not give it up to Sam Harris either, who is a bigger loser than any of the Enlightenment thinkers (I do not think the Enlightment thinkers are losers, but Sam Harris is for sure). There are many reasons why we made it this far as a species, and religion is absolutely one of the main reasons.

  3. Tradition is important. Your ancestors are important. You will notice I kept talking about Eastern Religions in this article. I realized that I do not belong in an Eastern Religion as a Western Male. Other than the fact that Christ is King, the main reason I am a Catholic is because I was brought up Catholic, my ancestors were Catholic, the Catholicism is an intuitive and natural part of my soul. Think about your Traditions and hold on to them. Cultivating your Ancestral Tradition will bring you closer to God. Of course, I want you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but that is not what this article is about. First, examine yourself and understand the next step that you need to take to bring yourself closer to God.

    Tangent Alert: If you are a person from the West and you think you are Buddhist, I can almost guarantee that you do not understand Buddhism, you just understand a superficial level of it. Even after studying it for years in multiple languages I still do not understand it fully. If you are a liberal, look into the marks of the Buddha and who can attain Buddhahood. Look into why the Dharma is currently unattainable. If you understand these things and still remain Buddhist and liberal, congratulations! You have completed step one, you now hold simultaneous contradictory beliefs!!

  4. Start praying. If you trust the scientific method then pray to God for a deeper understanding of Him and of Religion. Pray sincerely and earnestly, do it every day for a few weeks. If nothing happens then shelf the hypothesis for now. Next, when you are in a difficult situation, begin praying sincerely for help from God, if nothing happens, shelf the hypothesis. Because it is difficult to measure sincerity AND because the existence of God is the most important question, I recommend you run these tests a few times. If, in the end, nothing happens for you, revise your hypothesis, change the test, keep following the scientific method and searching for God. If you die and you were unable to find God, you will have died a noble man who earnestly sought God his whole life. And that would be a life worth recounting in poem and song, Tolkien style.

I have wanted to write about this for a while, but today I had a spark of inspiration resulting in a relatively smooth transferral of thought to paper. It is the same way I write music, I struggle with a song for a few days, then the final product pours out of my soul without me having to try. I want to explore that phenomenon eventually.

Tags: