deconversion

A process that had begun with a deep desire for the truth ended at last with the solid conviction that religion is an utterly human-created construct, reflective of nothing but our hopes and fears set in the amber of our ignorance, propped up with the flimsiest of twigs and durable nonetheless. So I wasn’t to be a theologian after all. In fact, if there is such a thing as an atheologian, I am it.

Most stunning of all to me, standing there in the ruins of the temple, was the totality of the failure of Christian belief to stand up to examination. It wasn’t a question of a scale tipped slightly in the direction of disbelief, 51-49. There was nothing whatsoever remaining to support belief in the doctrines of Christianity, no close decisions, no stumpers, no fuzzy outcomes. I was dumbstruck to realize how thin a veneer covers the whole enterprise and how easily and completely that veneer is broken by the simple determination to consider the question a question.

I wanted an arduous process, but there wasn’t one to be had. I got the answer right very early on—then took thirty years checking my work.