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This
part is mainly for people who have grown up with religious faith but now find
themselves questioning its validity, or find that it just doesn’t work for them
any more.
It
can be hard to give up something that has been with you all or most of your
life, especially if that includes your formative childhood years. You may have been thinking or feeling a
certain way for a long time – changing that can be hard. You probably also have some positive feelings,
or at least some positive memories, about the faith you were brought up in.
If
you want to let go, but are having trouble, this section is for you. It provides specific advice for overcoming the
“inertia of faith” we considered briefly in the first chapter of this book.
Sometimes
your brain leads your heart, and sometimes your heart leads your brain. It’s probably easier when the heart
leads. Man has been called “the
rational animal,” but “the rationalizing animal” might be more accurate. We can talk ourselves into believing or
justifying just about anything, if our hearts are already committed to it.
You
may be in the opposite situation, though.
Your head may be telling you that you no longer believe what you used
to, that you have outgrown it, or that it just doesn’t work for you any
longer. But you may still have some
sentimental connection, or you may just have trouble feeling that it is OK to
change something that for a long time has been a big part of who you are.
So
how do you do that?
Here’s
where we steal a page from the believers.
They, too, struggle to hold onto their beliefs, or they want to help
people who are attracted to religious faith but are having trouble making the
leap. What they say is: pray for faith,
and God will give it to you.
That
may not sound applicable to a move in the opposite direction, but when you
understand the psychology of that advice, it can readily be applied the other
way. Some religious proponents put the
concept differently (the wonderful C.S. Lewis does this in one of his several
religious books): Act as if you believe and, by and by, you will find that you
do believe.
The
psychology behind this is pretty simple.
By acting as if you believe, you make a commitment – not a big
commitment all at once, but a series of small commitments. You can think or say whatever you like, but
there is no actual commitment until you do
something. Conversely, when you do act as if you believe in something
(even though you have doubts), you are
making a commitment to that belief.
When you act again, you reinforce that commitment. If you keep it up, you eventually end up
truly committed, and your beliefs will naturally fall in line.
Praying
for faith is one form of this (though a less effective one, because the
commitment is more tenuous). Praying to
God for faith presupposes either that God exists or that he at least might
exist, and that prayer either is or might be effective. While professing doubt, therefore, one is
acting as if one believes. Again, there
is an implicit (though weak) commitment here.
If you keep this up long enough, your prayers are sometimes “answered,”
and you end up with faith after all, because you have slowly built it up inside
yourself. Pretty clever, those
religious dudes!
But
guess what: it works the other way, too.
(In fact, it works with anything: you think you don’t love your
significant other enough? Just act as
if you do, and your love will increase by itself. Don’t like your job? Just
act as if you do, throw your heart into it, and you will find yourself liking
it a lot more, before long. Etc., etc.,
etc.)
If
you were raised in a religious faith, you don’t have to give it all up at
once. Just start acting as if you no
longer believe, and your commitment will gradually slide away. Stop going to church or synagogue or
mosque. Stop observing religious
holidays and traditions. Remove
religious artifacts from where you live.
Stop praying. At first it will
feel odd, but before long it will become second nature. Your faith will weaken, become irrelevant,
and finally disappear. If there is one
thing that a religious person will dislike most about this entire essay, this
paragraph is it – and the reason is, that it really works! You’re hearing this from someone who has
been there.
Try
it.
While
you are trying out this technique, keep alert to what you are doing. Don’t lie to yourself and try to pretend you
are not giving up something that was meaningful, if in fact that’s what you’re
doing. Don’t expect that this will be
entirely painless. Letting go – or admitting that you have already let go – is
frequently difficult.
The
whole text of this essay, of course, is intended to make this process easier
for you. I hope that if you have got
this far, you feel more comfortable by now that you are doing the right
thing. The truth is most likely on your
side, and whatever you are giving up can be replaced, or better than replaced,
with other things. Still, you might
need to remind yourself from time to time that what you are giving up also had
its negative side.
We
are trying not to bash religion or its adherents any more than necessary
here. But for all the good things that
one can say about religion, there are bad things as well. Part of the psychology of making any kind of
change in commitment is to focus on the bad parts of what you are leaving, and
on the good parts of what you are taking on.
When your old lover leaves you and you find someone new, this comes
naturally enough. It doesn’t mean that
you have to totally trash the old person, but you think more about his or her
faults and irritating habits than you used to, and you focus on ways in which
the new person is better than the old.
Leaving
your traditional faith is a similar process.
Only you can say what it is about your old religion that is most
off-putting. Sometimes those things
relate to the doctrine, structure, or history of the faith or denomination
itself. Sometimes they relate to a
particular minister or to the congregation you belonged to. Sometimes they have to do with the way
religion was used by your parents, or other family members, or friends. For all that is good about religion, there
are as many things that are hard to swallow, offensive, tedious, smug,
ungracious, or downright immoral.
During
your transition away from faith, keep those things handy in your mind. Don’t stew over them, and don’t become
hateful. But if you start to waver, you
might want to remind yourself what made you decide to leave in the first place.
You
are not just leaving something that didn’t work for you – you are heading
toward something that is probably going to work much better. As helpful as it is to remember the negative
things you are leaving behind, it is even more helpful to remember the positive
things you are embracing. For example:
·
You are spiritually
free. You are not bound by doctrines
invented hundreds or thousands of years ago by strange people who lived in
strange lands and strange times. You
can go find the beliefs that work for you.
·
You can let go of ugly
notions like “sin” and “hell.” While
you can still embrace the concept of right and wrong, and you will still need
to take responsibility when you do wrong, this is no longer something that
involves God. When you act badly, you
are responsible for making things right if you can. If you hurt others, it is between you and them, and you should
fix it. But you don’t have to think
about divine displeasure or retribution.
(Frankly, we’re not that important!)
You also don’t have to worry whether you are “saved.” You were never lost.
·
You can let go of phony
absolutistic moral doctrines, and replace them with points of view and rules of
conduct that are much more intuitive, tolerant, and useful. You can be much more like Christ, for that
matter, and a lot less like certain people who claim to be his followers. (For instance, Jesus pretty much had nothing
to say about sex. Starting with “saint”
Paul, who appears to have been severely neurotic or worse,[1]
people who came after Jesus could hardly stop
talking about sex – and talking mostly perverse nonsense.)
·
You no longer have to
try to believe things that are almost literally unbelievable (such as: that a
good God is responsible for life as we know it, that Jesus rose from the dead
or had a mother who was a virgin, or that any human being or scripture is
infallible). Instead, you can embrace
the march of human knowledge without fear or reservation. You can belong to the future instead of the
past.
·
Although non-believers
do not form churches or similar communities, you are joining a loose but
heavily populated society of men and women who are leading the world forward in
understanding and wisdom. These are
people who, even if they cannot say for sure what the truth is, have the
courage to recognize what it is not. We are everywhere, which is why the
religious right has become so militant in recent years – they know their
dominance is slipping, and they are fighting to hold on. But if you seek out the non-believers, you
will often find that they are just the people you want to know.
That’s
just for starters. You probably have
your own reasons why the move from faith to secularity appeals to you (admit
it, you really like the idea of sleeping late instead of going to religious
services). Whatever your reasons,
whether they are serious or frivolous, hold those things in your heart and mind
until the transition is complete.
One
of the biggest obstacles for young people trying to break free of their
religious upbringing is the disapproval (actual or anticipated) of their
parents and other family and friends.
There
are two sides to this. First, the disapproval
of believers is almost certain to be there, even if overt criticism is
withheld. When you leave the fold, you
are the source of legitimate disappointment.
At best, you can hope people will be respectful and tolerant; at worst,
though this is rare, you will be cast out of the community or even out of the
family.
Second,
as a caring person yourself, you do not want to cause consternation to
others. Those of us who love and
respect our parents find it difficult to hurt them by setting aside everything
they tried to teach us, and adopting contrary beliefs and practices.
There
are three basic strategies for dealing with this problem, none of them perfect:
(a) Concede. Stay
with your old religion, and keep your reservations to yourself. This will be hard for you, and there is a
good chance that you will be sucked back in at some point. But it avoids confrontations and family
pain.
(b) Dissemble.
Pretend you are still practicing your faith, but don’t. This is hard to pull off unless you are
living away, and it is uncomfortable, because it involves either outright lying
or at least the systematic conveying of false impressions. Those things are not necessarily morally
wrong, if you are doing them for the good of someone else, but they are also
not exemplary, and they will wear on you over time. And in the end, the believers in the family will figure it out
anyway, because other people are not as dense as we like to think, and they
will perceive that your heart is elsewhere, even if you say nothing, or even if
you lie about it.
(c) Stand up. In
most cases, this is the best way to go.
You simply start living your life your own way, and if questioned, you
either say that you consider it a private matter that you don’t want to
discuss, or you declare honestly that you have had a change of heart.
To
the extent that your conversion away from traditional beliefs is gradual, you
will probably find yourself following each of these options in sequence. At first, when you are harboring doubts but
have not replaced those doubts with opposing convictions, you will probably,
for a time, continue your religious practice as you always have. This is appropriate and sensible. No point in throwing something overboard
that has been good for you, when you merely have questions about it.
Then,
as your doubts become stronger and the balance of your judgment swings to the
other side, your religious practice is likely to become less frequent,
certainly less devout, and perhaps absent altogether. But until you are truly convinced that you should leave the old
ways behind, you will find it easier, probably, to maintain a certain façade of
faithfulness, while internally you are more and more letting it all go.
Finally,
when you are confident that your choice is right, you do let it go, and you are
willing to say so, if asked.
This
last step can still be difficult in some circumstances, though, and so we
should think about ways that you can make it easier for yourself and others.
First,
don’t “out” yourself until you are really ready. Doing so causes what may be unnecessary pain for everyone, and
also opens you up to efforts to keep you in the fold. The exception: if there is someone (and there probably is at
least one) whose love and judgment you trust, you might do yourself a favor by
revealing your doubts in confidence.
This essay presents a certain point of view, but there are other points
of view, and in the end, perhaps traditional religious beliefs are going to
work for you after all, and your problems can be allayed. By keeping it all to yourself until you have
made up your mind, you may be giving up that chance. A parent, a relative, a friend, a religious minister, or a lay
mentor of some kind might be worth confiding in.
Second,
don’t be aggressive. If you are making
a change, you’re presumably doing so because you think you’re right. You are entitled to that. But other people are entitled to their
beliefs, too. Treat them with respect –
because they deserve it, but also because if you do, they are more likely to
treat you with respect. In the end, if
you do this, you can always make the appeal: “Mom and Dad, I honor your
beliefs. All I’m asking is that you
honor mine, too.”
Third,
don’t be too defensive. If you are
dealing with people who are rational and who care about you, and you can have a
cool-headed discussion with them about why you are doing what you’re doing,
that’s great. But you do not owe
anybody a detailed explanation, even if they say you do. Your choice is your own, your reasons are
your own, and no one is going to see all of your reasons from exactly your
point of view. Making your case to
someone not disposed to accept it is usually a losing proposition. If you think that’s going to be your
situation, then don’t enter into that kind of discussion. Just say that your decision is not a rash
one and you have put a lot of thought into it, and you prefer not to go into
all the details. Or say, if you like,
that you are open to an exchange of ideas but not to mutual attempts at
persuasion. In any event, your decision
should not be up for a vote, so don’t let anyone put you in a position where
that seems to be the underlying assumption.
Fourth,
insist, if necessary, on your own independence. Your family and your religious community had years and years to teach
you their beliefs and their ways. They
had their turn, and now it is your turn.
Part of their bad feelings, in fact, will stem from their own sense of
failure with you. Please, do be
sympathetic with that. But most parents
and most ministers know and accept the reality that once you are grown up, you
not only are entitled to make your own decisions, but you are morally obligated
to make your own decisions. You have to
follow your own convictions and your own conscience, not someone else’s. If you make it clear that your choice is not
a whim, is not mere rebelliousness or laziness, but is based on an extended
period of serious reflection, people who care about you will usually accept
your decision, even if they do so sadly.
Fifth,
take responsibility for how you deal with your decision, but not with how other
people do. You should strive to make
the break as graciously, as considerately, as unobtrusively as you can. But if other people make a fuss about it,
that is their responsibility. You are not
obliged to call them to account for it, but neither should you take the blame
for it. They are eating the fruit of
the their own beliefs, if those beliefs turn you into persona non grata or into some kind of unspeakable sinner in their
eyes, and generate anger or rejection or other kinds of pain. It is their choice to reject your choice,
and if there is a fault in that, it is theirs.
You don’t need to feel guilty about it.
Finally,
make this transition as quickly as you can, and then try not to talk about it
with family or friends who disagree with you.
It is very hard for people who feel strongly about their own beliefs on
such deep matters to discuss them dispassionately. If you have left the faith of your childhood because you decided
that it was, let us suppose, false and hypocritical, it is going to be hard for
you to respect someone who stands up for that.
Conversely, if family members feel that you are a hell-bound sinner,
blinded by self-aggrandizement or by Satan, it’s hard for them to listen
without contempt to your point of view.
So it is generally best neither to proselytize to them nor to let them
proselytize you. Translation: just find
other things to talk about.
In sum, letting go might not
be completely pain-free, but it you are kind, firm, and diplomatic, it will
probably go better than you expect. And
once you burst through, you will find freedom and light on the other side.
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© 2006 by
C.S. Yanikoski, Harvard, Massachusetts
[1] Paul admitted
to having a horrendous weakness that he could not overcome (though no one is
sure what it was). He also changed
suddenly from persecuting Christians to being their most avid missionary, based
on the experience of being knocked off his horse, hearing God’s voice
chastising him, and being struck temporarily blind. Today, this sort of thing would qualify him for intensive
psychological care. He was never a
follower of Jesus during Jesus’s own lifetime, yet his re-interpretations and
extensions of Jesus’s teachings have been taken seriously, largely because of
the belief that his writings were somehow inspired by God (or, to be more
cynical, because of the large political base he established in the early church
through his creation of so many Christian communities). He was, in fact, a wise and inspiring moral
leader at times – but he had his bad moments, too, and unfortunately all of it
has been taken with equal fervor, with Jesus’s own teachings left behind
roughly in proportion. Paul is, beyond
comparison, the man who both made Christianity great and at the same time
ruined it. St. Peter was onto him, but
couldn’t stop him.