peace and happiness through disbelief and questioning

Nicholas Croston

Nicholas Croston You've probably heard the regular story a million times before: A person falls down into the dumps and gutters, depending or drugs or alcohol or another vice which helps him escape mentally while destroying him physically. Then the chameleon-like revelatory moment occurs in one of its many colors.

The person is found by someone who takes him into a church, or stumbles into a church in some kind of stupor, or just willingly goes into one himself just to curse out the local god. Often there is a plea for forgiveness, and tears are optional. But they all end the same way: With the discovery of the holy light, the eternal divine love, and the peaceful happiness. The person says he was all alone in the dark before discovering JAY-ZUZ!

I'm certainly not mocking those who are genuine in telling this story. But this is not my story. My story, in fact, is the precise opposite. My story begins with an overt dependence on religion which caused me to be disturbed and depressed and generally unfulfilled and ends with me finding peace and happiness through disbelief and questioning.

I was raised in a Protestant Lutheran church, but it was my conversion to Islam which started to change things for me. Though I considered myself a good Christian who believed in the literal word of the Bible and did care about what God thought of me, church itself wasn't something I cared for.

The legendary atheist and comedian George Carlin nailed it when he called church "a place where people gather once a week to compare clothing." But when I became a Muslim, I was obsessive almost to the point of psychosis. Islam's rules are very minute and devout Muslims from my mosque were telling me they were ironclad. I reached my lowest point during my time as a Muslim, but ironically, Islam was able to save me from myself.

As devastating as my experience was, without Islam, I'm just another spiritual shell, calling myself a good Christian but only visiting church on Easter and Christmas, not really thinking about what's in the Bible, and never daring to challenge the very idea of a god's existence. Without Islam, I bolt from Wicker Park Grace after my first day there never to think of it again, assuming I even accept Nanette's invitation in the first place.

Surrendering the idea of a deity was a difficult thing to do. As my time with Islam started to approach its conclusion, I was very nervous about quitting the five-prayer-a-day ritual. This is extremely important to a Muslim. If the testimony of faith – that there is no god except God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God – is the backbone of faith in Islam, the prayer is the backbone of its practice.

Giving up my daily prayers wasn't a gradual phase-out; I did it cold turkey after realizing my prayers had not meant anything in a long time. My heart beat as if I was performing a tightrope walk over the Grand Canyon without a safety net as prayer time crept on by and I spent it watching football. A few months later, I introduced alcohol and pork back into my diet after my apostasy became complete.

The story of my apostasy from Islam is published on two websites, and it ends with a triumphant reassertion of my own individualism. What it doesn't say is that I was somewhat bewildered by the realization that, for the first time in my life, I had no comfort from my imagination. There were two things which I had taken on faith since I was a kid: The first was that the Buffalo Sabres would someday win the Stanley Cup. The second was that I was watched by a being of infinite love and power who would condemn the wicked. Without the latter, I took the only logical recourse I could think of and declared myself an atheist.

Upon my acceptance of born-just-fine-the-first-time atheism, I learned quickly that many atheists follow a dogmatic view of their very own. The majority of atheists I have met proudly claim atheism is free of all dogmas and doctrines and tout the virtue of free thought. Unfortunately, those same atheists also follow unbending doctrines of their own.

To be a good atheist, I am apparently expected to think of religion in a strictly evil context and regard the books of pop atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris as my guides to the unerring laws of the universe. It was sitting down and shutting up all over again, except with The God Delusion taking the place of the Quran as my divinely written guide to the universe.

When I actually sat down and read The God Delusion, I also learned that many atheists I've personally met are taking a page from followers of the Bible and Quran because they shout the truth of The God Delusion from the hilltops despite apparently having never read it themselves.

I've personally heard atheists use arguments which Richard Dawkins himself has debunked in the book he's written. (Though I am compelled to mention that I am almost finished reading Hitchens' God is Not Great and have so far found it to be very convincing.)

I knew nothing about Wicker Park Grace until October of 2006, but I had actually met Nanette Sawyer a few months before, probably in May or June that year. She certainly didn't leave me under the impression that she was a minister. She came off as more of a middle-aged hipster than anything, and I had assumed she was with the Arts Council.

I'm shocked that I was able to remember her name the following week. When I showed up at the wrong place for a meeting in October 2006 (the organization I was with at the time was switching meetings between two or three buildings) and didn't feel like walking back home after learning it was the wrong place, Nanette casually told me there would be a prayer service soon.

I went to the service. It was a small and intimate affair, and there was a very stimulating conversation afterward in which I felt comfortable enough to admit that I was an atheist who was coming off a very bad experience with Islam. It was the conversation which brought me back the following week out of curiosity.

Soon my curiosity was satiated, and I kept returning to Wicker Park Grace for the promise of being able to ask questions I've always wanted to ask about religion, scripture, and the varying nature of a potential god. My urge to question hasn't been fulfilled and probably never will be.

But after awhile, I realized that it was more than the opportunity to ask questions that I attend Wicker Park Grace. It was because I had found a home there, full of broken machina and wanderers who had also experienced the worst parts of religion.

Wicker Park Grace helped me reach an important realization: That I am an atheist because I have doubts about EVERYTHING. I've done my share of bad-mouthing religion as much as any other atheist, but it doesn't make me anti-religion. I simply refuse to adhere to the "everything can be explained" dogmatic view of pop atheism because I refuse to take my atheism for granted, closing off my mind to the idea that maybe I'm the one who is wrong about the existence of an ultimate being.

There are still mysteries in the universe which are unsolved and still phenomena which are passed off as the work of a delusional mind, and so I have a healthy and unwavering belief in the supernatural. My willingness to shun dogmatic pop atheism has left my mind open enough to seek different contexts for religious scriptures.

Wicker Park Grace has made me a better atheist. The people there don't take scriptures as answers, but as questions. It was at Wicker Park Grace that I learned to view the Bible in ways I hadn't considered before.

While I don't believe in a god, I've learned interesting ideas of how the Bible can be interpreted to be a potent force for humanism, with a god who is more just – and perhaps more importantly, more consistent – than straight-up literalism makes it out to be.

And at the same time, my atheism has only gotten more solid because I'm being guided in a way that lets me see the context of the events mentioned in the Bible. I've heard many arguments for the complete literalism of the Bible denounced by the very minister who leads Wicker Park Grace, in ways which have had far more weight than the standard atheistic peon of "they just don't make any sense!"

Now if only the Buffalo Sabres could win the freaking Stanley Cup.