I’m terrified of the ocean. But I love looking at coral and seeing pictures of enormous whales leaping out of the water. I guess it’s the idea of the ocean that I like: the great unknown, the danger, the adventure, and the crushing depths. It draws me in even though I’m terrified. But it got me through religion.
I became an atheist a few years ago after 22 years of trying to be a good Catholic. It’s the same story that a lot of “collapsed” Catholics have: too many questions and too much guilt for asking them.
A good friend of mine was a recovering Catholic as well. He got me into punk rock and taught me a lot about art (I’m a professional illustrator). We hated everything together and we still do. Sometimes we hate for no reason, other than the fact that it brings us closer. If it’s popular, chances are we make fun of it. We laugh at Michael Bay movies and cringe at Top 40 music on the radio. Unfortunately they don’t make a pistol that holds enough rounds for us to make the world into what we think it should be by the process of elimination.
He didn’t believe there was a God and at that time I did. We’d have discussions about religion, it’s origins, the human need to believe in something, and a lot of other ideas around the entire topic. I wouldn’t call it a debate because in a debate you need two people who are passionate about a topic, and my passion about religion was already waning at that time. I’d been living in Hollywood over the previous year and, even though the Bible said that God was everywhere, he sure as hell wasn’t in LA.
My friend and I drove from Denver to Encinitas, California for some surfing right after I’d decided to try being an atheist. Again, I hated the ocean. I’d seen people stabbed in the ankles by stingrays, stung by jelly fish, and exit the water bleeding with lost toenails. My sister almost drowned once off the coast of Puerto Rico when the rip tide sucked her out from that abandoned beach we found.
Still, I wanted to try surfing and welcomed the chance to get through my fear of the ocean. My thought on fear is that if I throw myself into a situation without remorse then maybe I’ll power my way through it and come out a little less afraid.
I sucked at surfing. But at least I managed to get out there and try it. Since I was a kid, I’ve been working out a few times a week and did okay paddling out through the surf. The waves were pretty big and I fell down a lot, but I was handling it.
It was the end of the day and I was more tired than I realized. Our plan was to head in. It was getting windy and the water started to seem really cold after the sun set. Even under the wetsuit you could tell that it was time to get in. It felt like the water was about done with us and I wasn’t about to argue.
I tried to hop the next wave in. I even managed to muscle my way on top of the board and even set both of my feet down. Suddenly, something in the wave gave me an extra boost and sent me toppling over the front of my board. My last visual before hitting the water was seeing a huge, upside-down wall of white water. I caught half a breath and was suddenly submerged.
I felt the board being taken from my hands and then the sharp tug of the leash around my ankle. My back was hitting rocks and sand was stuffing my fingernails. I couldn’t tell which way was up and realized that half of my last breath was filled with ocean water. My breath gave out and I almost panicked. My first reaction was to pray and ask God for help, something I’d trained myself to do over the years.
Then I hate a moment of clarity as I swirled around under the rolling wave, my body turning into a human sized roll of sushi with all the seaweed. It all made sense to me at that moment: people pray because they need hope and because they want to think that they have some unexplained power over their circumstances. But I was an atheist and I’d be damned if I’d give up that easily.
I applied logic (atheists love believing in things they can prove). I knew I had air in my lungs and, if I just waited, I’d eventually rise to the surface. People rarely die while surfing and I was attached to a giant, floating surfboard. I chose not to panic. And before I knew it I was breathing again, taking deep breathes and looking around for my friend. I found him and we paddled in together, then went and ate some burritos.
If I was religious and prayed at that moment, it’s likely that I would have given God credit for saving me. But an atheist doesn’t believe in God and neither did I. I was my own God. From then on, all I needed was to believe in my own abilities to live my life.
It was scary at first, giving up that idea of an invisible man in the sky. But in a way it’s also empowering. My life came into sharp focus because I could prove what I believed in: science, logic, and reality. It wasn’t so vague anymore. I was Christian because I was taught to be one in New England. And if I was born in India I’d be Hindu, and if I was born in ancient Egypt I’d be worshipping a man with a dog head. To me, it’s all created by man because man is the most dynamic animal on the planet and he has the ability to dream and wonder what happens to him when he dies.
I have nothing against people who believe but I have a low tolerance for people who try to argue with me about religion. You can’t prove that there’s a god. You can’t say that you KNOW there’s a god because you don’t. You believe it and you have faith, and that’s cool. You can only know something you can prove, and feeling God inside of you isn’t proof.
Thanks for reading.