Because of Me, He’s an Atheist?

Filed Under people, questions, quotes, religion, spiritual practice

My husband informed me that before we met, he was agnostic. But due to what he’s learned from me about religion over the last 2+ years, he’s now an atheist. Wow. And I thought he’d influenced me to be an atheist.

I’m not sure what to think about this. Apparently, his attitude about God-belief used to be one of “whatever.” He didn’t see God as something that could be proved or disproved, and therefore chalked it up as irrelevant. For me, God was always very important. So losing my faith in God as I understood it in my mid-20s was life-changing for me. Trying to “make sense” of the world as a post-believer, means I haven’t let go of religion, or even notions of God.

The best explanation of this I’ve heard yet was provided by Hubert Dreyfus, in his first Berkeley lecture on existentialism. Here is my transcription of what he says about why Camus isn’t an existentialist, according to his definition:

Camus says he isn’t. He says he’s a pagan. I think that’s right. That is - I think, all the existentialists are within the Judeo-Christian tradition … they are in opposition to a culture that has as one of its fundamental beliefs that there is a supreme being that makes everything intelligible, that gives moral law … and thanks to the supreme being, we can find out what to do and everything will make sense, and not be contradictory and so forth, and the culture lived off that for a long time …. we can call that absolute - this absolute source of meaning, absolute authority. You can count on it to make sense of the world, and make sense of your life.

Now Camus certainly denies there is any such Absolute … he’s definitely against the whole Judeo-Christian tradition, but he thinks that the way you should fix it is just get over the problem of seeking an absolute. So, reduce your demands … why should we think that there’s going to be THAT kind of answer, why should we need that kind of answer? Can’t we just appreciate the little things? Lie on the beach in Algeria as at the end of The Stranger, appreciate all the way the world is, even though you’re going to die … but … that’s a kind of pre-Christian attitude, that’s why he says he’s a pagan ….

Our culture has gotten addicted - Nietzsche would say, we’re sort of absolute junkies; that is, we’ve gotten so used to understanding everything in terms of a supreme being and creation and so forth, that you can’t just get over it. Camus’ idea is you just get over it, you stop expecting the kind of answer that we thought we had for 2000 years. And that’s pre-Christian as I say ….

[The existentialists (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Sartre, Heidegger)] - they all think that though it turns out there isn’t any such absolute, we have become defined in terms of the need for it; because once we thought we had it, and it gave us this amazing world in which everything made sense, and we knew what to do and we knew that virtue was rewarded and vice was punished …. But when Nietzsce says God is dead … unlike Camus … he thinks it is the most disastrous and frightening and terrible thing you could possibly experience and discover - because he’s not a pre-Christian or pagan, he’s a post-Christian, he’s somebody writing after we got hooked on this absolute supreme being.

The most serious thing we have to deal with is that the supreme being kind of absolute doesn’t exist anymore.

So if you’ve read that far (which I hope you did), that pretty much sums up where I’m at, and it also explains why Nietzsche, and writers inspired by Nietzsche have been so instrumental for me.

In our time together, I’ve managed to impress upon my now-husband the centrality of religion to many people’s lives, and now he seems genuinely alarmed. His eyes are opening to the ways people call on their faith to justify their lives, to sort themselves out, make even small daily decisions, rule nations, and so on. Now he sees religious belief as a threatening state of mind, whereas in the past he saw it as a mostly harmless personal matter.

I’m not sure how to feel about this. Did I unwittingly draw him away from a more innocent, pre-Christian attitude while I’ve been busy coping with the tear in my own religious fabric? And another question I have is what is the next step? I’m asking this of myself - what is my next “step” in belief about the nature of things. Am I going to continue to try to “make sense of the world?”

The conscious part of me says there is nothing to make sense of: The purpose of life is to find and make meaning. This is what I’ve learned from the writings of people who have lived through the horrors of war (particularly the Holocaust). When I isolate my thoughts to that, I feel a tremendous amount of peace. But the unconscious part of me is still grounded in an absolute mindset, this belief that somewhere, there is an answer, and that if I purify myself enough and educate myself enough I might be able to glimpse it with a mythical clarity - even for a moment.

I don’t know. Whatever happens for me, I now feel a greater sense of responsibility - knowing that whatever path I walk, my husband will be with me.

Comments

7 Responses to “Because of Me, He’s an Atheist?”

hotei on March 16th, 2008 9:52 pm

Hafidha –

What a lovely post. I have had similar experiences. About 12 years ago, I began the practice of consciously becoming prechristian when I became a zen buddhist. My response to theists of all stripes was universal: they were concerned with a question fundamentally different from that of the Buddha’s. My concern was the cessation of suffering, not sources or salvation.

Then, 9/11 happened. Buddhists that I deeply respected couldn’t spend enough time hugging Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Buddhists seemed nearly obsessed with the apparent unity of all “spiritual” teaching. I was appalled. Where was the tradition that taught me that dreams are a lie and to abandon all human thought? Where was the sense of lightness around god-talk? It was gone.

Our teachers were redubbed “spiritual leaders”. We started to have interfaith chants for peace. Alas, I am a bit adrift.

The issue is, at one point to those of us who have stared down religion’s darkest chasms call a spade a spade. I think the contemporary atheist movement is beginning to do that, but they need to learn the beauty of religious poetics at the same time.

The world is not simple. Thank you for highlighting the responsibility and love involved in bowing to our mutual complexity.
hafidha sofia on March 17th, 2008 12:46 am

hotei - you wrote, “I think the contemporary atheist movement is beginning to do that, but they need to learn the beauty of religious poetics at the same time.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Just today, we watched a Christopher Hitchens/Al Sharpton debate. The moderator definitely sympathized with Sharpton. I just remember thinking: what we need is to be exposed to more atheists like Jose Saramago (my favorite writer). A person who is old and wise and writes compassionately about our lives as humans. I don’t know … “callous intellectualism” is okay for some things, but not all. You can be rational and poetic, too. Many people don’t seem to believe it, though, and becoming embroiled in the “darkest chasms” as you say is almost inevitable. I sometimes resent this pull towards this predetermined agenda.

I wonder if a pre-Christian state is really possible if one chooses to be really engaged in the daily society life. The problem my husband has with UUism (if pressed for honesty, he’ll equate it to methadone) is he sees it as enabling those who have realized god is dead, but are addicted to the perks of having faith and having religion.

I don’t know how to respond to that; it is essentially the reason I became a UU. *sigh*
hotei on March 18th, 2008 5:35 am

Right. I would say I had some institutional addiction that fueled my Buddhist practice. It took becoming a father to confront those hooks and barbs. Committee meeting or holding my daughter? Eventually, I had to choose. I chose family: secular, labor intensive, messy, real. At a retreat in my mid-twenties my teacher said, “The 10,000 foot golden Buddha is plain and ordinary. Become plain and ordinary.” How right she was!

I think we will saunter back to the temple in good time, but it will be with a new awareness. We will be the quiet Buddhists saying “no” to certain things, laughing at some religious absurdities, and learning how impermanence works.

One thing that really turned me toward honesty in this area was my mother’s death. People were so quick to say, “Oh! You’re a Buddhist; so, you believe in reincarnation, right?”

I wanted, and sometimes did, respond, “I practice Buddhism so I am aware of the suffering born from missing my mom, grasping after her memory.” Watching that pain ebb and flow is living the way of ordinary Buddhas.
hafidha sofia on March 18th, 2008 10:20 am

hotei: you’ve given me a lot to think about. a lot.
Comrade Kevin on March 19th, 2008 7:00 am

We must all hang together, else we will all hang separately.
chickpea on March 23rd, 2008 9:36 pm

This was a great post! I found my way here from Siditty’s blog, and I’m definitely glad I stopped by!

Being raised Muslim, now identifying as agnostic, I have to say that I owe many thanks to my boyfriend for my development (he’s a Soviet born Atheist). This is not to say that if it weren’t for him, I’d still be Muslim, rather, if it weren’t for him, it probably would have taken me a lot longer to come to the same conclusions that I’ve come to and be honest with myself about my views on Islam and religion in general.

Like you, I’ve also shown my boyfriend how important religion can be to people, which has sparked alarm for both of us.

Once again, you have a great blog! I’ll be adding you to my RSS feed!
hafidha sofia on March 24th, 2008 5:12 am

chickpea - thanks for stopping by; I’d seen your comments at Siditty’s, but had no idea of your story. I read some of your posts (including the Coming Clean/Aftermath series) and could very much relate. Except that my parents were less resistant than yours. It’s amazing - seven or so years ago when I went through similar transitions, I couldn’t find any folks like me online. But with the advent of blogging, people are emerging from all over. Let’s keep in touch; I’ve added your blog to my list, too! Enjoy NY for me (my hometown)!