Sitting in Sunday School class, the “teacher” matter-of-factly says, “Catholics are going to hell.” I'm shocked, as are many of my fellow classmates. I pondered my friends, all fifth graders like myself, mentally ticking off a list, horrifically realizing that over half of them were destined to the fiery pit. I tried to imagine their horrific crime, each time coming up drastically short of a dastardly deed that could merit such punishment.
And the giant stirred.
Watching the congregation gently sway to the music, arms outstretched, eyes clamped shut, tears streaming down their cheeks, I watched as many softly spoke in tongues, glorious rapture glowing on their ecstatic faces.
I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I gazed over the crowd, sighing when I realized we were going to sing the same chorus yet again, for the umpteenth time. My eyes caught on a local businessman who was harboring property in the churches name. He didn't have to pay taxes on it that way. Once he was ready to build, the church would deed it back to him. Caught up in the music, he bellowed the words, praising his god extra loud.
The lady over there... the one with blaze red fingernails, multiple large rings clanging together as she clenched and unclenched her fists... was a daycare provider who routinely had sex with men on her washing machine when the children napped.
The pastor was in the middle of an affair with the local florist. It was an open secret, they didn't try to hide their love for one another, to the chagrin of the pastor's wife. He preached fidelity, compassion, and hell fire from the pulpit.
And the giant stirred.
I nearly had a stroke giving birth to my one and only child; preeclampsia. A very bad case of it, in fact. Short story: my body didn't appreciate being pregnant. My blood pressure went sky high, I urinated copious amounts of protein, the doctors had to do an emergency c-section to get the baby out of me. As I sat at Bible Study, the women told me I was sinning by allowing birth control in my marriage. “God will take care of you. You're subverting God's will by not allowing his will to go forward. You need to fill God's quiver with many arrows so we can populate the world with Godly men and women!”
But my doctor said it was a bad idea to have any more kids. I didn't want any more kids. I didn't want to go through another pregnancy.
The giant stirred.
After leaving Christianity, I became a metaphysical practitioner. After all, God was very real (in my opinion), and Christians simply had “him” pegged wrong. Then one day I received an e-mail called “Sheldan Nidle’s Update from the Galactic Federation of Light and the Spiritual Hierarchy.” In it, the “Galactic Federation” said:
“Your world is being transformed by a number of large solar flares that are adding a new boundary layer to the upper atmosphere. These new sections are being used to return the exosphere to a degree of normalcy, and the lower atmosphere, too, is seeing an increase in ozone. ...Similar changes are happening in Mother Earth's mantle. As more of these [tectonic] plates prepare to lock, the probability of larger earthquakes can increase...”
Solar flares repairing ozone. Tectonic plates “locking.”
Now, I don't claim to be an expert in science, but I've taken a few university level science classes and I knew that solar flares do not repair ozone and to lock the tectonic plates would not be a good thing.
The giant arose. In a big ugly way.
In one fell swoop everything fell into place, nearly 40 years of searching for god exploded in a moment of pure clarity. A million suspicions, a thousand hunches, a gazillion questions were answered in a moment.
God doesn't exist.
It was the only answer that made sense. All my life I'd searched for the one true way to god. I looked in every denomination I could think of, but each fell short of their claims. I studied world religions. I entered the wacky world of new age metaphysics but in that “anything goes” atmosphere, I found myself surrounded with more strange ideas than truths.
If god didn't exist, then nobody was right, each was merely superstition, often very complex superstitions, but superstition nonetheless.
The sleeping giant... my critical thinking skills... saved my sanity.
This is because in the world of religion, thinking skills are often eclipsed by what is called “faith.”
Don't have proof? No problem. In religions, faith is prized above all else. In fact, the person with the most faith is exalted. Reason is frowned upon. Sadly, asking questions, particularly the question “why,” is the fast track to social suicide.
Requiring publicly verifiable evidence for claims shouldn't be much to ask. Yet, in my experience, because there simply isn't any evidence for many of the claims of religion, asking for evidence will often result in a blank stare or a Bible verse.
The sad thing about the Bible, however, is that you can use it to justify any activity. The contradictory nature of that book absolutely supports any view point so each denomination, no matter how contradictory they are, usually finds itself on solid theological ground. In critical thinking terms, this makes it an unreliable source.
In my case, the realization that with just crude critical thinking skills, I could disentangle one of the most perplexing questions of my life, was simply amazing. Once I got over the shock of realizing that god doesn't exist, the immense relief that followed was downright refreshing.
Now that my sleeping giant's awake, does that mean I know everything for certain? Absolutely not. But that's OK. To me, the magic of life is the exploration of our glorious world, interaction with our fellow earthlings, and the knowledge that, knowing the millions of variables needed to produce even one life... how precious each person is.
In the coming weeks, I want to discuss some tools you can use to evaluate proof, study communication patterns, and ways to apply these tools to your life.
Beware, however. If you think it's uncomfortable when your giant stirs, just wait until you're mopping up the mess many years of sloppy thinking has created. For me, I've had to redefine my career (I was a metaphysical practitioner), my social network has suffered, I now hold unpopular views.
However, once you get over the shock of all that, life truly becomes liberated. After all, what is the value of truth? How do you evaluate the price of freedom? How do you quantify clarity?
These are precious gifts, all courtesy of the sleeping giant, aka critical thinking.