The lost faith of an atheist

I was an atheist, brought up in a family of atheists, a pure/natural scientist through and through. Then I stopped being an atheist and became a Christian. This is not that unusual a trip, but it one that continues to baffle atheists. How can you move from no-belief to belief?

Firstly, scientists are facts-based people so: (i) I used to be an atheist and now I am a Christian. Fact. You can discuss as you will the change, its reasons, etc., but not the fact of the change. You can also sling mud at me, but saying I am plain daft won't stick. I've got too many science degrees for those to stick.

Why did I stop being an atheist? Like every Christian I have a tale to tell. My one is not so unusual, but its in the underlying structure of the tale that the person of John-the-was-atheist and God-in-Jesus begin to appear more clearly. So, what is this tale?

Back in the 80's I was a highly sucessful IT consultant based in London, earning more than I could spend. Happy in my non-belief (though that is not a term I'd have recognised then.) Life was going forward in a yuppie-ish Thatcher's-in government sort of way. I was a great coder and enjoying it. Bacon rolls, kit-kat bars, beer, burgers and fries were my life. And my waistband was beginning to go through that early male phase of expansion I've been fighting ever since.

I was sitting eating in my hotel room one night when a bombshell hit me. It was what Thomas Kuhn would call a paradigm collapse. The thought was: I am not in control of my life. You see, the next stage was wife down here with me, with two babies, kids to posh school, divorce, old age, etc. This was the drift of life for so many of my contemporaries in London consultancy. It was as if London was a non-real parallel world that was OK until that Matrix moment. (But this was way, way before that movie came out. OK?!)

On that hotel bed I was dumfounded. If I was not in charge of my life, then, who, or what, was. I had a foreboding that all was not as neat, clean and easy as my atheism stated. There were forces over and above me and my computer programs. Forces that pushed me along in a sociological kind of way, but also in a harmful and personal kind of way. I hit a wall and was off the boat and into the water.

You see, atheism has no answers to anything. It is a faith that revolves around denying the existence of questions. If the question is allowed to be asked, then atheism can only survive as long as eyes are shut, fingers are in ears and you are lah-lah-ing along. Stop, squint, pull a finger out, and suddenly there is more to the world than a simplistic atheist belief would allow for.

When asked the question: is there more than this? Atheism says 'no'. Ask atheism why and it has no answer. You see, to be an atheist is to disengage from human debate and to deny the biggest questions in life, the universe and everything. To put forward notions that are so simplistic as to be, well, plain stupid at times. To deny the entire history of mankind and the bases of social and national structures across the world since the year dot.

Once the atheist asks, truly, 'Is there a God?' his belief system is in collapse. For, if he were to allow that the default answer is not a 100% definitive 'No', then he is no longer an atheist. The only way to remain the atheist, from my readings on atheist thinking, is to decide that every smarter person who lives or has ever lived, and that, for the record includes a certain Charles Darwin, is clearly deluded, stupid or mad. Which is clearly not provable. It is a statement of faith.

Once my atheism wobbled, and I allowed the brain to engage with the bigger questions, atheism was gone. Its a bit like a wee boy who believes girls are smelly and you get warts from touching them, being kissed for the first time in a playground game around 14 years old. The world rocks and reels. What is thing 'a girl?' He cannot hold onto his girls-are-horrible stance. Because girls taste so much better than no-girls ...

As God says, come and taste that The LORD is good. If you are denying yourself God, you are denying the most taste-bud tingling experience in your whole world ever ever. Come out of the shadows of atheism and explore the meaning of life beyond little you.