Dan Riley
GENERATION ATHEIST
To my mom and dad.
GUIDE
(BY INDIVIDUAL’S RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING)
Anglican: IV
Evangelicaclass="underline" VII, VIII
Greek Orthodox: XXIII
Non-denominationaclass="underline" VI, XVI
Seventh-day Adventist: XXIV
Unitarian Universalist: XVIII
Hindu: XXI
Muslim: XV
Jain: XIX
Jewish: XI
Wiccan: XII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many, many people have helped to make this book possible. I would first like to thank two women who have helped create this book from its beginning. Andrea Kimbrieclass="underline" thank you for putting so much time and energy into reading over the many drafts I sent your way throughout the past two years. You have always been a sounding board for this project and have helped me at every step along the way. Your editing and meticulousness have always impressed me. Heather Gaddis: you continuously amaze me with your diligence, competence, and work ethic. You were exposed to the first contents of the book, and I appreciate your coming along on this journey with me.
To Ben and Breck: thanks for using your creative talents to help me build a website I never could have constructed on my own. Nudge HQ has always been a bastion of imagination and luxury. To Kitchelclass="underline" your acts of generosity and friendship allowed for the initial stages of this book to take place, and your encouragement throughout this process made me believe that I could create this.
I’d like to thank my parents for giving me an education and a platform to discuss ideas openly, for always encouraging me to find both truth and decency in all things. I simply would not have been capable of making something like this book without your incredible dedication to our family. I will forever be grateful for the life you have given me.
To my brothers: thanks for the years of jokes, discussions, articles, videos, and other material related to the subjects of this book. My personal beliefs have been shaped by my relationship with both of you throughout my life. I look forward to more of the same in the years ahead.
To the people in this book: thank you for opening up your hearts and minds to me for this project. Creating this book has been a labor of love; it would not exist without you. I was continuously impressed with your honesty, courage, depth, intelligence, and humanity. I truly believe that your stories will help other young minds who are traveling down a similar path to your own.
Finally, I’d like to thank you. If this book has found its way into your hands, I hope that you will find its stories memorable and compelling.
INTRODUCTION
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that I like: “To know and not to do is not to know.” I, like so many other human beings, am curious by nature. I want to know. I like to ask questions. From the time I was young, the questions that fascinated me most were those of the most importance to human existence: what is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be human? How did we get here? Does a God exist to whom we owe our lives? How, at this time in human history, can there be so many different religions that offer competing and often mutually exclusive claims about these questions?
I have dedicated a large part of my life — obsessively, curiously, passionately — to pondering and researching these questions, both in a formalized academic setting and through independent research. I examined holy books, considered religious arguments, and became familiar with the discoveries and implications of modern science. Over time, I felt like I began to know. The answers I received were hard-won and often difficult to express publicly, for my conclusions, and the beliefs that came with them, put my views at the margins of my society.
For quite a while, like many of the people in this book, I felt ashamed for allowing dangerous ideas to win out in my brain. Part of me wanted to put my beliefs in a dark corner, hoping to wish my reason away, for the word that has become a part of my identity is, at least in my home country of the United States, often associated with distrust, secrecy, selfishness, meaninglessness, and arrogance. I am an atheist.
Atheist. Seeing that word can still make me uncomfortable, as though I’m glancing at something about which I should be afraid. Cultural conditioning is a powerful force. Atheism is a very simple word, though. It is the belief that, in this world that we share, there is no God or Gods. It does not, by definition, imply a particular political persuasion, ideology, or morality. It does imply that this is it — that this is the life we’ve been given, with no afterlife, no heaven, no hell.
For me, once acceptance overcame dissonance, I was faced with a single question: what to do? I decided to spend just under three years working to grow freethought, secular, atheistic college campus groups around the world while working in the outreach department at a non-profit think tank, the Center for Inquiry. Its official mission, a mission with which I still very strongly identify, is “to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.” During my time with CFI, I met amazing people and tried to help to build a small but growing movement. After getting to know many students personally, I began to learn about their lives. I found their personal journeys to atheism to be fascinating, emotional, and unique. I decided to create a book that documents their stories, including in it all their struggles and triumphs.
I want this book to put a human face on atheism — more specifically, a young human face. Over the course of many months, I interviewed 25 young atheists — individuals who, according to recent polling data, are part of a growing demographic within the United States and around the world. Most of the people who I interviewed I had met during my time with CFI. I recorded our conversations, had them transcribed, and then organized and crafted each of their life stories. I made edits and additions for grammatical and literary purposes, to allow for cohesion and smooth transitions, while ensuring that the spirit and accuracy of their statements were maintained.
This book asks and seeks to answer the following questions: how and why do young people become atheists in the world today? What books, people, scientific theories, or ideas have influenced their worldview? Do any — or most — young atheists receive backlash from their friends, family, or community? Do Generation Y atheists view their atheism as having a positive or negative influence on their lives? Has atheism influenced their social relationships? Are they confident in their belief that this world and everything within it was created without deistic intention or cosmic oversight? Do they wish they could go back and change the way they think?
Right now, I can walk into any bookstore and have no problem finding books that tell stories of people finding God, Jesus, or some other higher power. One might find, for example, 100 Stories: Finding God in Everyday Life, Finding God: A Treasury of Conversion Stories, Finding God in the Shadows: Stories from the Battlefield of Life, Bumping into God Again: 35 More Stories of Finding Grace in Unexpected Places, Our Lives As Torah: Finding God in Our Stories, Finding God in the Graffiti: Empowering Teenagers Through Stories, or, last, but certainly not least, Stories of the Supernaturaclass="underline" Finding God in Walmart and Other Unlikely Places. To date, I have yet to find one book that documents the personal journeys of people who have come to view life from the opposite perspective.