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Break On Through To The Other Side

Letting go of God involves letting go of the stories that gave meaning and purpose to life. This can be a very dark time. When I think about this part of my deconversion, I imagine myself skirting the brink of a bottomless abyss like those swirling black holes in old sci-fi movies.

Black Hole Bob

…the person’s former faith has collapsed, but they do not yet have anything to replace it with. Unfortunately, most people are taught that only through religion can they hope to find happiness, meaning, purpose or fulfillment in life, and this belief often persists after all the other aspects of religious belief have gone, leading to a feeling of emptiness and hopelessness, of having hit rock bottom. Fear, undirected anger, and feelings of depression are common. Often a person feels overwhelmed and lost, adrift in the world without a framework to make sense of it all. (Into the Clear Air)

One day while I was flailing around for meaning in my life, I happened to be driving through northern Utah and southern Idaho on my way to a family reunion. The overcast skies and the long, scenic drive conspired to put me in a contemplative mood. I wondered why it mattered whether I lived or died since I would be dead in the end anyway. The universe didn’t care. It would go on its mindless way, heedless of my death.

Then I began to think about my daughters and my wife. My death would matter to them. I didn’t want them to be unhappy or to struggle without me. I wanted to help my family.

Then I thought about my ancestors, about all of the hard lives they eked out on this earth, about the flashes of joy and the dark tragedies in their lives. They survived and I owe my existence to their perseverance. I pondered on the countless generations of mankind who lived and died before me. A sense of deep history overcame me.

I imagined even further back to the time of my ape ancestors. I imagined the strength and tenderness of a maternal ancestor grooming her new baby, protecting it with her own life from the dangers lurking in the darkness. I imagined the strength and determination of my paternal ancestors whose lives punctuated by violence made me possible. I began to feel a sense of deep connection with all of my ancestors back to the beginning of life on earth.

Then I looked on the plants and animals around me and realized that I was surrounded by family, distant cousins trying to live according to the dictates of their own drives. I worried about the brutishness of their lives and wished I could lift them out of it. I was filled with compassion for all life.

I looked to the future. I saw obstacles and uncertainty. There was no God to help us. We could only succeed by our own wits, by taking responsibility into our own hands. Only we had the power to succor and bring equity. Only we could love each other.

I decided to live in the service of the grand experiment: life on earth. If I could ameliorate the suffering of other beings present and future, I would count my life meaningful. My heart burned within me with an intense love and connection with the world around me. I felt at peace; I had finally found a safe harbor to escape the storm. I felt an growing confidence that I was on the right path.

I had broken through to the other side.

Most people, by this stage, have learned that they are not alone, that their path is one that many travelers have walked before; that there are whole communities of freethinkers out there, glowing like galaxies through the dark veils of blind faith.… this stage is characterized by a peak as high as those valleys [of the previous stage] are deep, a joy as high and sublime as the horizon of dawn. The exhilaration of breaking through the layers of things that you believe because you have been taught to believe, of discovering for yourself what is true, and of finally knowing who you are and understanding your place in the cosmos, is something compared to which the sterile and antiquated dogmas of religion seem puny and absurd. Returning to them, at this stage, is like trying to return to life in a small, windowless room after one has seen the soaring, sunny vista that awaits just outside. (Ibid.)

Since that time, I’ve met a few believers who have had brushes with atheism. They come to the place of darkness and meaninglessness but never seem to make it through to the bright vistas on the other side. They’ve dipped their toes in the pool and decided that a world without God is not for them. Or perhaps they leapt in and began to drown like I had. While I found the other side of the pool to save me, they returned to the place from which they dove in.

They have to find their own way and happiness, but I wish I could share with them what I found.

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7 Comments

  1. Lincoln Cannon said,

    September 6, 2007 @ 1:52 pm

    Jonathan, much of what you wrote here resonates with me, although there is more to be said about God, beyond our youthful understandings. For example, you’ve found something in you, as well as persons around you and the world, that I call God.

  2. Jonathan Blake said,

    September 6, 2007 @ 8:23 pm

    I just read Does God Give Meaning to Life which relates well to this post.

    Lincoln,

    I understand what you mean, but I resist using the word God because it is guaranteed to give people the wrong idea. Talking about God is a sure way to miscommunicate, it seems.

  3. Lincoln Cannon said,

    September 7, 2007 @ 7:53 am

    Alma 18
    24 And Ammon began to speak unto him with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God?
    25 And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth.
    26 And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?
    27 And he said, Yea.
    28 And Ammon said: This is God.

    1 Corinthians 9
    19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
    20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
    21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
    22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
    23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

    Joseph Smith:
    “If a skilful mechanic, in taking a welding heat, uses borax, alum, etc., and succeeds in welding together iron or steel more perfectly than any other mechanic, is he not deserving of praise? And if by the principles of truth I succeed in uniting men of all denominations in the bonds of love, shall I not have attained a good object? If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.”

  4. Jonathan Blake said,

    September 7, 2007 @ 3:15 pm

    Lincoln,

    I do a little bit of that. I adapt what I say to the hearer. Sometimes I’ll even speak as if I believed something that I don’t (with a note) if I think it will help clarify something. But I use great care when invoking the word “God” because it’s so unstable. I try to be clear in what I say, and a hazy word which can both mean a flesh and bone man on Kolob to one person and the ground of all being (à la Brahman) to another doesn’t help clarity.

    I really enjoyed the Joseph Smith quote. I actually used part of it in my Awakening story. I hadn’t heard the rest. It’s interesting how ecumenical Joseph became later on. Have you read The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation in the April 2006 Sunstone? I could get behind that kind of Mormonism… perhaps. :)

  5. Lincoln Cannon said,

    September 7, 2007 @ 3:40 pm

    Yeah. I know the author, Don Bradley. In fact, he and a friend are planning to write a document for publication on the MTA site — something along the lines of how Mormonism can provide a foundational myth for Transhumanism.

  6. Sister Mary Lisa said,

    September 11, 2007 @ 12:47 pm

    I think this blogpost is one of your best. Very touching.

  7. Jonathan Blake said,

    September 11, 2007 @ 2:27 pm

    Thank you, SML. Sometimes the subject makes the writing easy because of its power in my life.

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