topraisetoblesstopreach-deactiv asked: A little long, but I'd like to share my story/conversion from staunch atheism to Catholic:
As a young child I knew absolutely nothing about Jesus, about God, or about religion in general. I grew up in an atheistic/agnostic household where the name of God was never invoked, lest it were to precede a curse word. My very short exposure to anything having to do with God was when I would stay the night at my grandma’s apartment. She had a cabinet full of children’s books out of which I would often pick and read different books. My favorite story was “Daniel and the Lion’s Den” and my second favorite was about the baby Moses, followed by the Little Miss Piggy series.
As I grew older I became a little bit more aware of the presence and importance of religion to other people. I also imbibed much of my parents’ views and feelings toward religion. I was taught, albeit not directly or even intentionally, that religion was a crutch that weak people used to get through life. That church was a place that people went to be social with one another and to boost their confidence. It was something we clearly didn’t need, because we were strong, we were family. And nothing is stronger than a family sealed by the bonds of love. We would survive the hard times depending on nothing but each other. That’s what it meant to be a “My Last Name.”
I have very few memories of ever thinking about God’s existence as a child. They are all from back in Portland, so I must’ve been under 7. One of my earliest memories is asking God, if He existed, to clean my room for me overnight. Didn’t happen. I also remember lying in bed, closing my eyes, and trying to think what eternity would be like, what life after death would be like. I remember picturing darkness. A never-ending black hole. It gave me shivers. And I think that was the night, if there ever was a specific “time,” that I decided for myself that I didn’t believe in God.
By the time I reached the upper years of middle school, I was an adamant atheist. I had read the book (it’s still one of my favorites) The Sea Wolf by Jack London. There’s a character in the book, the antagonist, who is the perfect atheist. Intelligent, self-educated, and brutal. But he gave words to how I viewed the world in my head. I only now realize exactly Nietszchean he is. But, essentially, his world view consisted that the only meaning to life is to live. To survive. To be powerful, because only the powerful survive. The strong eat the weak and the weak die. There was no ultimate meaning to life. There was no value to life, except to your own. The weak grasp and hold onto anything they can to give their meager, weak lives some sort of meaning. The strong have no use for such things.
Bleak views for a 13-year old, but they were mine. I adopted them, developed them, and believed in them full-heartedly. Not that I enjoyed the fact they were true. Not at all. In fact, I deplored the fact that this was the state of reality. But, truth is truth and I wasn’t going to adopt some religious views just to satisfy my unsatisfaction with the way things were.
Despite these views, I was, for the most part, a good kid. I experimented with some not-so-good behaviors at one point or another. We, my friends and I, would steal wallets and other such smaller goods from stores. We messed around with smoking a little bit. I used to steal pot from my older brother and sell it to my friend’s brother, who was a drug dealer. But most of that didn’t last very long. I never felt guilty, per se, but I never really enjoyed doing that kind of stuff either.
Luckily my friend group shifted a bit when I entered high school. I was a part of the high school band (played the trumpet) and eventually my social life revolved around it. Most of the kids in the band were all those goodie-goodie types. Strangely enough, almost all were Christian, too. Of course, I didn’t believe what they did. But since they didn’t engage in “sinful” behavior, neither did I.
My world-view at this time did not change at the influence of my friends. On the contrary, I grew even more convicted that, essentially, “might was right.” My observances of my Christian friends did not lend to a positive light. What I mean by this is that their faith, it seemed to me at least, was only surface level. They didn’t know what they believed. To me, they were brainwashed. They hardly knew why they believed what they believed. They simply followed what they had been taught all their life. They hadn’t actually thought deeply at all about their faith.
So, I challenged them. I argued with them. I attempted to ruin what little faith that they had. And frankly, I won most of the arguments. Yet, for some reason, these friends of mine did not yield or give up on their faith. Each day they would come back and try again. Their perseverance astonished me. Their peace, especially, astonished me. Sure, they would get frustrated at times. But each day they would be back. United with one another (which was quite a feat itself, considering the three friends of whom I speak consisted of two Mormons and a Catholic).
About a year went by of this back and forth arguing. I did not yield. I couldn’t. But as time went by, I did begin to envy my friends. Not because I thought they were right, that they possessed the truth. On the contrary, I envied their ignorance. I envied their peace of mind that came with being so brainwashed that they could not see the truth of the state of the world. Frankly, my atheistic world-view depressed me. I mean really made me depressed. I think my freshman and sophomore year of high school were two of the most depressing of my life. I was not happy. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I ever contemplated suicide, but I certainly wasn’t in a good state to say the least.
Shortly thereafter a desire grew in me to believe in God. A sidewise desire wishing that I too had been born into a Christian household so that I could be free from the terrible truth I knew. This desire was killing me. I wished so badly for it to be true that God existed. But my intellect could not consent. There was nothing in any arguments that I read that could convince me. God was dead and I was left to face that bitter truth alone.
Words fail to convey what happened next. As many times as I’ve tried to explain it out loud (which is few) or tried writing it down (which is many) I can never quite put the right words to the experience.
In a night of despair at my pitiful state, I found myself doing something that I never would have imagined myself doing… Overwhelmed by the bleakness of my world-views, I decided that I would give God one chance and once chance only. I knelt down by the side of my bed, thinking to myself the entire time that I had gone absolutely crazy, that I was speaking to no one but my imagination.
But I desired to believe. I think it was the first time in my life that I was actually open to the possibility that God could exist. It was the first time that I laid aside my pride and was ready to believe, should there be good enough reason to do so.
So I knelt down and I prayed for the first time in my life. I told God that I was ready. I asked Him to reveal Himself to me; I told Him I wanted so badly to believe, but that I couldn’t. I poured out my heart before Him and I asked in all sincerity if He existed.
What happened next is beyond words. Truly ineffable. My body began to shake ever so slightly and I was filled with a joy that I had never before known. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest! In the course of a single moment I knew, without any doubt, that God existed and more, the He loved me! That God was love! Love beyond any love I had ever known!
A few moments later I was sitting on the floor next to my bed, out of breath and shaking uncontrollably. My palms were sweating. All that I could do was cry. So I cried. Out of joy, out of shock, out of sorrow… I don’t know. Probably a mixture of all three.
This experience left me convinced, beyond any measure of doubt, of God’s existence. Despite my skeptical nature (which, trust me, I’m a very skeptical person), I could in no way doubt what happened that night. But it also left me a little bit lost. My whole world was turned around. Everything I had believed was debunked in one night. Where was I supposed to go from there? God seemed to have overlooked that part.
Eventually I was led to the Catholic Church and here shortly, I will dedicate my life to God as a religious sister (aka nun). But that's a story for a different day.
Contribution #48
Many thanks to topraisetoblesstopreach for this addition to Belief and Knowledge. If you would like to reply to this via the site or refer to this contribution then please reference #48.
