My Faith to Non-Faith Journey- Part II

Part II.   If you didn't read part one you should.   But here is the the same prologue as the last one

I honestly have been back and forth on this particular blog entry even though it was specifically requested. I know religion discussions can get very emotional and isolating.  But after recently listening to the Ebony Exodus Project, I was re-inspired to share my story.  This is loosely based off of a talk I gave in 2014 to the Asheville Humanist Group.  I actually sang the songs that start each section. And just FYI  -- This is super long and written over several sessions.  Here is part II

International Travels 

Well I'd Like to visit the moon,
In a rocket ship high in the air.
Yes, I'd like to visit the moon,
But I don't think I'd like to live there.
While I'd like to look down on the Earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So Although I may like it, for one afternoon
I Don't want to live on the moon.  - 1978 Sesame Street - as sung by Ernie

At the time I went to Peace Corps I was pretty comfortable with my concept of God as a warm comforting presence i.e "The Purple Blanket."   In my going away gifts I got some meditation cards which I was looking forward to using and decided to continue my yoga as I set off to  Ovamboland in northern Namibia.  Remember my problem with "The Great Commission?"  Well the relationship between religion and Namibians was a perfect example.  There were two major religions in our region Lutheran and Roman Catholic.  The Catholic churches actually still said the mass in Latin.  While I could appreciate knowing and understanding what was going on -- thanks catholic school friends and 6 years of latin -- it was very clear that the traditional cultures were buried.  Even the word for Sunday in Oshiwambo was the same for tobacco; because that was the day the missionaries would given them tobacco if they went to church.  The clothing women wore the "Meme dresses," were still in the style given to them by colonizers related to prison clothing.  The Ovambo didn't seem to have taken back their dress in the same way of their sister tribe Ojihereo.  The Ovambo people had a saying "We are born to suffer," that seemed related to fatalism and giving up of both will and responsibility. This worked well with the religions of the missionaries and colonizers.    While I went to church a few times with my host family,  I stopped as soon as it was culturally appropriate to do so.

Peace Corps was also the first time I had long discussions about faith with an atheist. While I had an atheist friend in high school (I think), I never really spent long periods of time discussion religion in high school.  One fellow Peace Corps volunteer who had also lost her mother earlier in life spent an evening talking to me about her lack of faith.  She admitted it was something that she had tried to have many times, especially after her mother died, but she just could not believe.  Here was someone who was lovely, reasonable, and working just as hard as I was for a different people in a different culture who did not have the ability to believe in god.  Clearly she was a good person and in every other way very similar to me.  This definitely made me think.

After I completed my service I got to travel around the continent for a while.  At the time I completed my service I know I had done some good, but also felt very defeated.  The White Male Supremacy which was rampant through the Ovambo culture makes service hard for a Black American Woman.  Add in the fact that many Ovambo at that time didn't think there were any Black Americans (Colin Powell and Alisha Keys were White, Micheal Jackson was Angolan, and Whoopi Goldberg was South African so I was told) and  I was pretty exhausted after two years.  My travels were a great way to get out of my village and culture.  I was able to see how other countries and cultures were not still under the thumb of missionary and colonizing influences.   My time on the continent really showed the harm of Christianity.


Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama,
Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare -- Traditional Hindu Chant

Peace Corps Service had solidified in me a desire to practice medicine, but now I was off the school cycle.  I decided to get back on schedule and expand my skills with the America India Service Corps, now known as the Clinton Fellowship.  -- Aside,  I'm really glad I went when it was the original name. --  I took my MCAT worked for P&G for a summer before heading out for Kolkata, West Bengal.   Kolkata was surreal, and probably a topic for many more blog posts (some of which are still up).  I have never been in a culture where religion was so tied in to every part of life.  One would walk down the street see a shrine.  Say a small prayer of offering and keep going.  There were literally gods for everything (creation, destruction, study, wealth, love) still actively worshiped and incorporated into life.  I participated in the holidays and religious culture.  I did note that Mother Theresa's mission was right next to Kalighat one of the largest temples to Kali in India.   Through my Kathak dance classes (I was with the small children)  I learned how Classical Indian dance had to go underground during the time of British Empire because of its relationship to Hinduism.  I felt fortunate to be welcomed into this culture and honored these beliefs.

While in India is also when I had the second time I felt like I heard god talk to me.  While I was in the states I had reconnected with a friend.  This friend happened to be the first person I had fallen in love with  and for a short time it seemed like we could be more than friends.  But he told me that he had no desire for this to be.  So I was pretty heartbroken for the first few months in Kolkata. I would literally schedule time in my day to cry for an hour or so, then go to the market, finish a project etc.   One time, early in my service, I was riding home in a taxi and making such a plan when out of the blue, it seemed I heard a voice saying,  "Why are you wasting time like this?"  "Don't you know you will find someone better who will better fit your life and your plans?"  This was so abrupt and not at all my current line of thinking that it shocked me.  I knew the statistics.  Black women are often considered the least desirable, and the least likely to get married.  Moreover I knew the statistics from my own family.  Out of 19 grand children (7men and 12women) at that time only one of the guys wasn't married (by choice) and only 2 of the women were.   But here was something telling me that I wouldn't be alone for ever and to stop wasting time crying over what wasn't.   That afternoon I didn't go home and cry but figured out what positive I received from that relationship.   I dated a bit in India and actually started planning my future wedding (positive thinking).  I became more comfortable with my bisexuality and in all left in a much better place than where I started.


Public Health School & Medical School

I am a girl,
I am a woman,
I am connected to earth and sky
I know the secrets they only dream of
Girl you are who you are so am I -  Kindred and the family soul 2003

By the time I left India and started public health school at Ohio State University, I was very comfortable with a very fuzzy, vague god idea.  At this point I did not really believe in the Christian God any more.   The Bible was too contradictory.  Moreover, if the God of the bible was true he didn't deserve to be worshiped.  The relationship between the Christian God and man is abusive to say the least.  There some small stories of cruelty: when God sends bears to eat children because they called Elisha bald, turning a woman into salt for grieving the loss of a city, demanding the devout to kill their children.  The two stories I found most egregious were Job and Pharaoh.   Why would you challenge someone you have already defeated to torture a man  just to prove he will still say he loves you?  That is literally abuse.  If that person was man he would be in jail for intimate partner violence.   My problem with Pharaoh is that God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" which ultimately lead to the death of the first borns and Pharaoh himself.  Now why would God do that unless he just wanted to kill some kids and keep the Jews in slavery longer?   I knew all of the debates about the New Testament from my studies with mom.  There are gospels that are not included in the New Testament.  Paul was always shown to be a bit of a misogynist.  Also historically there are so many Jesus like figures who are Virgin born or died and came back.   There was also the First Council of Nicea who decided Jesus was actually divine.  If that can be decided by council it probably isn't true.

So I was an Agnostic Theist.  I did not know there was a god, but I did believe there was one.  It was clear that we are all interconnected with each other and the universe and that seems very god like.  I started attending a Unitarian Universalist Church which was very accepting open and more about humanism than anything. Though my cousin really wanted me to be Quaker instead, "Because they still believe in Jesus."  I didn't have the heart to tell him not all Quakers do.  My boyfriend, later husband, was Athiest but he would come to UU church with me when I asked. We had lots of conversations.  In one conversation I remember saying that "god is a nice idea."  His question back to me was is god necessary?  Is there anything that I believe in that couldn't be explained by natural means?  This I thought about for a long time.  I didn't believe in ghost, miracles, auras, or prayer.   My concept of god was really just the fact that we are all connected.  Is supernatural needed for this concept?

You say you want a revolution
Well you know,
We all want to change the world.
You tell me that's it's evolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world.
But when you talk about distruction
Don't you know you have to count me out.
You know it's going to be Alright - Beatles, 1968

Changing your concept of religion can feel very isolating.  I became a evangelical(ish) Agnostic Theist.  I noted that technically everyone of every faith is agnostic.  Since being agnostic means you don't know.  If people of faith knew they could not have faith.  Since faith, by definition, means belief in that which is not known.  The short version was "I don't know and you don't know either."  This way I tried to point out our similarities and continue feeling connected to my (very) religious family and some friends.   Meanwhile I was going to Medical School and learning more about the vestiges of evolution that are still present in our development and the fact that if this was design it was poor.  Embryology is pretty much a study in evolution from fish to mammal.   I remember our anatomy teacher pointing out that there are only two blood vessels that feed the heart which he noted was "poor design" and probably the reason for so many heart attacks.   I was actually interviewed as an agnostic theist for an article and found it a bit hard to truly explain my position.

Though the local UU Church was not as vibrant and welcoming as my previous one, I found community in the Wright State Freethought Group.  This group was great for in depth conversations about science, religion, skepticism, and humanism.  Through our discussions I examined my belief in god more and more.  I realized that none of my beliefs required the supernatural.  "We are all connected: to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically," as Neil deGrasse Tyson stated.  I didn't need god to be or feel connected to the universe, because I already was atomically connected to the universe.   The atoms in my body came from a star that died.  It is true that a sun died for my existence.  The more I learned about what is true the less I needed the concept of god to explain it.  I came out to myself and to everyone at a Secular Student Alliance Conference.  There was supposed to be a lecture about from a Black Athiest group but the speaker didn't show up.  I figured I could moderate a discussion about diversity in atheism, and I introduced myself as a Black Athiest.

I realized that this was true.  While I did not know if there was a god still (agnostic), I no longer believed there was one (atheist).  I later came out to my parents as non-christian for the above reasons I figured out years ago. While my father questioned me, he ultimately understood (especially when we discussed the Job story). My mother (the good reverend) pretty much ignored it.  I didn't really discuss my beliefs with the rest of the family. My siblings knew I didn't go to church regularly.  Only my brother had great contention with this; my sisters were accepting.  Given the high religiosity of many of my cousins I didn't want to get into a session of "come back to Jesus," or start any prayer circles.  Mostly I didn't want to worry them or create more separation between us.  Church is such an integral part of the Black American community and culture, that leaving seems unthinkable.  I still appreciate a good choir, and miss the support that one feels in the church.  I also appreciate all the leadership skills I learned through church.  However I couldn't continue to state belief in something I did not just for the community.

My friends were still of all faiths and backgrounds and our house in medical school became a safe haven for a friend of mine who was muslim.  However it did make when the surgeons wanted to pray before surgery awkward, and it made me annoyed when they thanked god at the end of surgery and ignored the fact that I held a retractor for the last hour.  The hardest time I had was when I went to Swaziland my last year of medical school.  I did not realize the group we were going with were Christian . . . Very Christian. . . like showing "Passion of the Christ" in the mobile clinic Christian.  This was very difficult for me and my muslim friend.  The group did not want her to pray in an area where people of the community could see when in our mobile clinic, "they [the Swazi] might get confused."  --not condescending at all right? -  We were not to answer if people asked us about our faith directly.  The colleagues we traveled with were christian and soon started having conversations without us after the first night when an open discussion did not end up the way that they desired.  I ended up losing a friend on the trip because she could see my point of view and I made her "doubt too much."  This experience reaffirmed the type of international medicine I did NOT want to participate in.  No one should be required to pray or watch "Passion of the Christ" to get medical care.  They also participated in just giving things to communities rather than helping communities build for themselves.   It also helped me solidify my place with muslims as the most hated group of people in the US.


Then to Now

Somebody once told me
The world was going to roll me
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed
She was looking kind of dumb
with her finger and her thumb
in the shape of an L on her forehead
Well
The years start coming
And they don't stop comming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but you head gets dumb
So much to do so much to see
so what's wrong with taking the back streets
You'll never know if you don't go
You'll never shine if you don't glow  - Smash Mouth 1999

So that's the main part of the story. I am an agnostic atheist.  I am also a humanist, a freethinker, a scientist, a Black American Woman, a Brown Girl with Curly hair, a friend, a wife, a doctor and lots of other things.   I had an AMAZING wedding including multiple traditions that didn't mention god at all, and my family didn't seem to notice.  --Well my mother did complain later that she was not allowed to pray over us, but I didn't hear anything else -- I went to residency down south in North Carolina and joined a Humanist group.  Life proceeded as normal.  Though I didn't go to church I did find Sunday afternoon naps sacred and enjoyed them when my resident schedule allowed. It was not until my behavioral health fellowship that I realized it was easier to talk to colleagues about being a bisexual atheist than my family.  This seemed wrong.  I wrote a Facebook post about it which my friends responded with support and my family was silent.  I gave a talk about my faith to non-faith journey at the humanist group which became the basis of this blog.  Now living in California religion seems much less crucial than it did in North Carolina.  If "the family" is going to church I still go as a part of my culture.  I send positive thoughts and energy as well as asking if there are actual things to help when people ask for prayers.  When people say they are praying for me, I note the fact that they wish me well.  Though it's been a long journey I'm still the same me.

I can change my socks
And I can change my hat
And I can even change my mind
I can pretend to be anything
But I'm still the same me on the inside

I imagine I can fly like an eagle in the sky
I can dream I'm a big ole tiger
When I open my eyes
It's no surprise
I'm still the same me on the inside

Happy me, Fussy me
The me that gets tired and sleepy
Mommy and Daddy love me as I am
'Cause I'm still the same me on the inside

My imagination takes me anywhere       (My travels have taken me far)
From Africa to Australia                         (From Africa to Asia . . . Austria, Honduras etc. )
I'm an ancient king or a movie queen     (Dancing on the beach in Ghana to the clubs in Kolkata)
And I'm still the same me on the inside

I can wear a frown or a magical face
I can make believe I'm a lion
When I go out of bed and close my eyes
I'm still the same me on the inside

Scary me, hungry me,                           (These may be the same person)
The me that needs a nightlight
My best friend loves me as I am
'Cause I'm still the same me on the inside

The universe is a wonderful place         (This is 100% true)
And there's no thing I can't try
Happiness is when I do my best
Still the same me on the inside

Quiet me, Cranky me
The me that sings off-key
I'm growing me and I'm feeling free
Still the same me on the inside

Still the great me on the inside
Loving who I am on the inside
Loving who I am on the inside
I'm still the same me on the inside
YES!  -- Sweet Honey in the Rock 2000

Also this is just one of my favorite positive videos