After I came back from Asia, I made a decision to come out as an atheist to my family. I was hoping that doing so would be made easier because my sister had already done so. She had had a fiery fallout with the Church based on gay rights, as the Church sees homosexuality as an aberration from God’s natural order.
When I came out, I simply said to my family, “I really just don’t think Greek Orthodoxy is true.” My mom was emotionally injured. My dad said, “How are you going to raise kids? Your mother and I were happy to raise you in a church community because it provided a way for you to become a good person. There’s no way that you can possibly teach your kids morals without religion.” I was floored by that statement.
There were more surprises, too. Over time, I learned that my family’s biggest concern regarding my transformation was not so much about my disbelief in God but rather about how I would meet Greek people and marry a Greek girl. That stunned me. I wondered, “Do Greek people only care about the social aspect of religion?” I began to think that, to many, religion isn’t about believing in God. It’s about community. I have a great deal of affection for that community and for my family, but I was appalled at how quickly my lack of faith had been overlooked and how immediately the attention and concern of my family jumped to cultural consequences. Regardless, I had made up my mind, and the doors of the Church closed behind me forever.
At first, I was rather emotional about losing my religion. I felt angry at having been lied to and was upset about the way that modern Christianity was behaving. I was also scared because in my heart I was worried that my religion might still be true and that, no matter how remote the odds, there was still a chance that I might end up in an eternity of unimaginable torment. Once I got over that, once I realized that that’s not going to happen, that that’s not real, I found true relief.
While I’ve never wavered in my atheism, I do understand its limitations as an idea. I think that most atheists, if pressed, will admit that, to some degree, they’re agnostic, as they’ll have to concede that there’s a lot that they don’t know. Because we believe it’s almost definitely true — that we’re as confident that there is no God as we are about our other firm beliefs about the world — a lot of us are pretty comfortable calling ourselves atheists. That’s my personal position, too.
The transition that has taken place within me has resulted in a positive evolution. While getting rid of my childhood mindset and belief system did invite some new concerns, I’m thrilled to have been freed from a religious thought process. I don’t want to believe a lie or convince myself of something just because it makes me feel good. I think that’s genuinely unintelligent. Insulating oneself in false beliefs — something humans have consistently done throughout history — can allow those beliefs to manifest in damaging ways.
XXIV.
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Greydon Square: A Rational Response
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
Raised in group homes, Greydon Square, born Eddie Collins, has lived a unique and often difficult life. Fascinated by religious concepts, particularly that of Armageddon, he became increasingly devout in his teenage years. He recognizes, looking back, that most of his life, from his youth to his time in the military, has been decided for him — when to eat and sleep, what to do, and what to think.
In his 20s, he fell in love. His girlfriend, a fervent Christian, encouraged his musical career, which was becoming, ironically, increasingly anti-religious. As Greydon began distancing himself from his faith, she suddenly died.
Using music as a release, he has released multiple full-length albums, including The Compton Effect, The C.P.T. Theorem, and, most recently, The Kardashev Scale. Learning, he found, gave him a jolt of dopamine. According to him, as long as he got his fix, then he “lived a great life.”
My life has been somewhat unique in the sense that growing up, I was a ward of the court, born into the system. The foster homes that I was raised in were mostly grounded in religion or had some sort of religious influence, either Seventh-day Adventist, L.A. Church of Christ, or Episcopalian. I was raised in this environment and leaned on religion. I didn’t really have any understanding of why my circumstances were the way that they were.
Many foster homes are run by old pastors or preachers who started them because they wanted to perpetuate their own views. All of the kids I knew in foster homes had gone through traumatic experiences and were particularly vulnerable. I didn’t know my mother or my father, and my sister and I were separated when I was fairly young. So I learned from my caretakers. What they taught me was religion.
I was programmed to believe in the basic tenets of Christianity: God, Jesus, the devil, and original sin. I became fascinated with the end of the world, Armageddon. My first rap name was “Apocalypse,” and a lot of my favorite movies and favorite fiction had to do with end of the world scenarios. Religion had the ultimate climactic story, and it was supposed to take place in real life. I felt pretty confident in my religious beliefs, and I never questioned if they were true.
In addition to its excitement, religion provided me with a sometimes-crippling crutch. While it did provide me with something to break from the monotony of gangs, fighting, chores, courts, social workers, attorneys, and visitations, I had real self-esteem issues and believed that God had intentionally made me unattractive. I thought that my placement in foster care had to do with predestination, a trial that I had to endure.
I ended up joining the military right after I turned 18. I was really shy and anti-social. On the weekends, I spent a lot of my time in the barracks making music, trying to perfect my craft. It was a way for me to hide. I knew that music would never shoot me or pull a knife on me, it would never reject me, no matter how good or bad I was at it.
The military was like one big group home. We had allowances. We had outings. Leaders made sure that everyone got along and did what they were supposed to do. Given my background, this environment was something that was very familiar to me. When I got out, I began to realize that most of my life had been lived for me as opposed to me having lived my life, thinking for myself, and deciding my own direction. The transition out of the military was much harder than the transition into it, which showed my dependency on a rigid, structured system.
After I left the armed forces, one particular person, my girlfriend, had a profound influence on me. We were together during what proved to be a pivotal period of my life. One day, we had a conversation about the origins of religion within black culture. I asked her, “Had our ancestors not been a product of the transatlantic slave trade, would we today as African Americans believe in the Judeo-Christian God?” I’ll never forget her reply. She said, “African Americans went through the experience of slavery as part of God’s plan. The reason that there is strife, poverty, and conflict in Africa is because He wanted to deliver certain chosen people into slavery 400 years ago.”