My wife and I had been planning a trip to go back and visit my family for over a year. I hadn’t been back in two years and had been slightly depressed and homesick for some time. What I remember of life in the States does still exist in some form, but this trip home pushed me to the limits of defending the greatness of that life.

So my family (with the exception of my dad) is Christian. I mean, really Christian…. damn-near-fundamentalist Christian. The thing to remember is that they’re polite and don’t necessarily want to impose their view on others. Especially not the wife of mine that they’re meeting for the first time. If you don’t ask them about their faith, they likely won’t tell you about it. But they will mention the word “God” in their every day speech. As most of you I’m sure have come across with other religious types. i.e. “God will help us through our troubles.” “… but I just know that God is looking out for us and that comforts me.” “I just praise God for…” And so on and so forth.

My wife is, for lack of a better word, “afraid” of Christianity. To her it is a dreadful monster which seeks to consume the world, and should be stopped. A point of view I sympathize with, but for different reasons.

In my mind’s eye, this trip home was a chance to spend time with my family: the secular, fun-loving, talkative, intelligent side of my family. The reality of what this trip would actually be for me, and especially for my wife, hit me when we walked through the door of my dad’s house.

My mother had passed away in 2003 and my dad had since remarried. His new wife belonged to a sect of Christianity that was partially Mormon… or maybe it was a sect of Mormonism that was partially Christian – I have no idea – all I know is she identifies herself as Christian even though other Christians identify her as a Mormon; she loves Jesus, but also holds the secular side of the holidays to be dear and a necessary part of even the religious celebration, and she reads the Mormon bible occasionally. It gets confusing.

Anyway, her twisted, hybrid belief system compelled her to decorate every inch of their home with Santa and Jesus a good month and a half prior to Christmas. I don’t mean a little picture here and there. I mean decorated trees and Nativity sets in every room… EVERY room. Try going to the bathroom while staring at statues of baby Jesus, Mary, and a bunch of Bedouins posing as wise men. Or try getting intimate with your Jewish wife in a room where angels, Santa Claus, Jesus, and a few other Biblical characters look on in still-portrait creepiness. Not fun.

Fair enough that this was only one stop on our cross-country trip. But this shock was a metaphor for the entire vacation. All the comforting words I had told my wife prior to this trip – that the States wasn’t as Christian as she thought it was, and my family’s faith is a private thing that they’ll never show you or talk about – those words now feel like the worst set of lies I could have ever told her.

Not only did my family talk about Christianity, and frequently, they also appeared to be trying at times to convert my wife… who is staunchly opposed to Christianity (but has never studied religion, science, or philosophy in anyway and was therefore somewhat helpless to their style of attacks). Many times she looked like she was being cornered and I’d have to jump in and pull her out. Other times they would just try to confuse her with questions they knew she couldn’t answer, but that they could answer with “God did it”… meaning, the “Christian” God did it. (such questions as “Where do you think intelligence comes from?” and “Why else would America support Israel other than Christianity’s ties with Judaism?” I happily answered that last one with a history lesson about Cold War alliances and the need to keep the Soviets out of the Middle East, as well as prop up and support the only regional democracy).

Additionally, she got to experience seeing a church on pretty much every street corner; crosses and Nativity scenes set up outside homes, churches, and other public buildings. She experienced walking through various book stores and seeing the illustrious, 5 aisle Christian section dwarfing the one section of one aisle on European Judaism as represented through Yiddish (completing misrepresenting what Judaism really is, especially as practiced inside Israel). And had an impossible time finding food that fit her semi-Kosher, vegetarian way of eating.

When did America, the melting pot of diversity and tolerance, become the front line of Christianity’s war against everything else? And what’s worse is that it comes in ways that almost no American, even the freethinkers among us, thinks about. For example, I was relaxing in the hot springs of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, with my family and just on top of the mountain ridge overlooking the springs was a gigantic cross lit up like a runway beacon. You couldn’t miss the thing from 20 miles out!

Despite what the Christians of Colorado think, there are lots of Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians in that area. You think a Jewish synagogue could get away with hoisting up an enormous menorah on a mountaintop overlooking an entire town where all could see? Do you think a mosque could set up shop and plant a minaret with loudspeakers booming out the call to prayer over Aspen five times a day? Don’t bet on it. The Christians would be up in arms without hesitation about the infringement on their beliefs.

I asked my brother-in-law about that cross, since he lives there, and his reply was that Christians had founded this town and as a result claim a special privilege on such matters. My response: It was Christians who basically explored and founded all of America, does the same rule apply? I thought I had a good point until I realized that the same rule pretty much does apply. Every location we visited was completely doused in Christianity with reckless abandon. The mere suggestion of it being any different gets a raised eyebrow as a response from anyone you talk to as well. Why is that?!

On the one hand I already know the answer… on the other, I wish I didn’t. Why is it we let ourselves be this stupid? I am not suggesting that America is stupid because it’s Christian (though the case could probably be made). What I’m suggesting is that we Americans are so stupid as to think the whole world should live as we do. That all inhabitants of America are Christian and there is no other way for them to be.

That’s why churches are pretentious enough to build gargantuan monuments to their faith in every public space available to them, and then legally fight against the construction of such monuments to other faiths.

That is why Christian missionaries (some of my cousins included) go to all the far-off places and try to spread their way of living, by forceful conversion if necessary.

That’s why creationists fight to have their version of the story included in textbooks, despite the fact that such beliefs don’t qualify as science. “Teaching the controversy” is a valid idea, but only if the controversy is also a “scientific controversy.” When the basis of your argument is “God did it,” there is no science there. Period.

The most basic principle anyone can live by was best written by author Daniel Quinn in his novel “The Story of B.” As he simply stated, “there is no one right way to live.”

Let me repeat that in bigger, bolder font: THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO LIVE.

Once you truly grasp the majesty of such a profound, yet simple idea, it hits you that Christianity is largely at fault for being a defunct socialization tool. To teach everyone to be the same, and to believe the same thing, eliminates the diversity that makes human existence meaningful as well as destroying what made America great in the first place. While it may have been valid hundreds of years ago when people relied on family and tribe for protection and employment, in today’s society it is no longer necessary for such a purpose.

The way for us to survive now is to move forward. To understand that diversification is more meaningful and progressive than blind-folded cultism. Our society has moved so far towards the individual that only a vast ecological meltdown and economic collapse could push us back to the collectivism of a past age (… or the election of Barack Obama if you listen to FoxNews). The only problem is that our drive for individualism simultaneously made many individuals feel as if their way was the best way because it worked for them. When given the chance, people like to tell others how they themselves live and that they should try it. This is wrong!

Let me simply end by repeating to you what Daniel Quinn said so eloquently once more: There is no one right way to live. Not for anything or anyone. We must evolve beyond thinking that there is. We must understand each other not as one member of a large collective, but rather that each of us represents a species unto ourselves. We are unique and majestic in our individual selves and no one can know the temptations, experiences, emotions, and opportunities that we, as individuals, have had in our lifetimes, or those we will have in the future. To try and dictate to someone else how they should live is a dangerous idea which only breeds ignorance and violence. Who are you to tell me how I should live?

What did the note say?

In the hand-writing my brother describes as “undeveloped,” it read: “Reveal yourself to me” followed by my initials.

I had come to Israel to study history. Middle Eastern History, to be more precise. It was a two-year MA program at Tel Aviv University coupled with a chance to live in the region I was studying, and for far cheaper than any similar program in my home country, the United States.

Before leaving, I had been given a Bible by one of my cousins, who happened to work as “missionary support” in Durango, Mexico (why Christian missionaries are necessary in a country that is 95% Catholic, I will never know). During my first year of graduate studies I would spend time every night going through this little book, cover to cover, searching for meaning, for answers, for anything. But more on that later. Let’s back up.

My family is religious. With the exception of my father (who has never attended Church and thinks religion is unnecessary), my sister, all of my cousins, and occasionally my brother (when he cares enough to throw his two cents in on a subject he apparently neglects) all maintain a fundamentalist, literal interpretation of the Bible and believe the “Word of God” to be infallible, but difficult to understand without a life-time of studying and living it.

Now, understand that I was the kid forced to attend Church service and who crawled under the pews of the sanctuary during the sermon to play with G.I. Joes and build forts out of the Bibles and hymn-books. Who, when asked after getting baptized at age 10 (on Mother’s Day) what it now meant to be a Christian, responded with, “Now I get to eat the white crackers and drink the grape juice.” Repeatedly. Never understanding what it really meant until years later… much to the chagrin of my devout mother. I was one of a small group of kids who felt the same way. We all attended the same Church growing up. My friends and I never cared much for what was said in Sunday school, we only cared about being with each other and playing outside, or with whatever toys we could find.

While none of us put more than a moment’s thought into what being a Christian really meant, we all decided that we were in some way superior to those kids who did not attend church, or, to push it slightly further, who did not attend our church.

I still recall a conversation between one of my church-going friends and another class-mate, who did not attend church at all, about the benefit of being Christian. It was 4th grade and we were on a field trip across town (we walked… that’s how small the town was). While walking back to our school at the end of the trip, my friend and I cornered the other class-mate and continued to verbally mock him for not being able to “ride the rollercoasters in heaven,” and how we would look down on him while he was being burned eternally in hell and smile while eating our ice cream cones. Kids can be cruel, it’s true. Although, all the better for him, it had no impact. He was fine with not being Christian, not because he didn’t want to be, but because he was a sports fanatic (even by 4th grade standards) who would never give up Sunday afternoon NFL football games for a religious sermon.

These part and parcel memories of my childhood religious experiences soon waned to even less than the measley bits they already were. Throughout my adolescence, my neglect of religion continued to get deeper. While still attending Church with my family every Sunday, I only did so in order to not worry my mother, or to get punished with mowing the lawn or cleaning the dishes after dinner for not going. She already believed me to be somewhat less “holy” than my brother and sister. Being a more respectable young adult, I may not have physically crawled under the pews anymore, but my mind wasn’t far off. Only this time, instead of G.I. Joes and “holy-book citadels,” it was the finely dressed young females of my congregation that my mind “sinfully” turned to. Behavior may change, but mentality doesn’t. I didn’t care about religion.

Leaving home for college at 18 did nothing to spark my interest in religion either, outside of the occasional “drunk-frat-party-obnoxious-argument-over-theology” that many college kids experience at that age. But what did I know? The one thing these arguments taught me was that my knowledge of religion was lacking at best. It wasn’t until college that I realized that I really did not pay attention whatsoever to any religious sermon or Sunday school lesson ever taught to me. I vaguely recalled a few of the Bible’s stories, but knew no specific details. It wasn’t until graduate school in Israel that I realized how deeply ingrained Christianity was in everything I did.

I can occasionally conjure up the sour feelings I would have in my gut whenever I would hear somebody bad-mouthing Christianity, or disputing Jesus as an actual historical figure. The outrage I would feel whenever somebody talked gloriously about Islam. And even the deep-seated hatred and anger of the Jews for being so stubborn and not accepting Jesus Christ as their savior when they had the chance. Now imagine somebody with these feelings suddenly thrust unprepared into the Jewish world of Israel, surrounded by religions not his own.

I once read that religious belief is something so engraved into our minds that it takes a significant mental shock to make the effects wear off long enough to see through the fallacy of our world views. Israel, then, was my metaphorical “shock therapy.”

I’m not proud to admit that the first year I lived in Israel I harbored very negative feelings for the citizens around me in that small country. So much so that I feel morbidly disgusted with myself, even more so having ended up marrying one of them (who I could not be happier with). I felt hatred, disgust, anger, nausea, and frustration each time I left my apartment. Then it happened…

I met my future wife at the very start of my second year of graduate school and everything changed. I will step back a moment and state that my interest in religion had grown exponentially before then due to my academic study of history, and of Islam, and my immersion in a culture I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with. Everything I had read on Christianity by that time was an apologia for its mis-handlings, or a creationist perspective of how the world works. I had refused to read anything inflammatory or critical of the beliefs I “supposedly” held since childhood.

I will even say that I based all of my then-religious beliefs on a website called “All About the Journey,” by Randall Niles. My brother-in-law had suggested it to me as it helped him formulate his beliefs (he had no exposure whatsoever to Christianity until marrying my sister. Shortly thereafter he became more devout than her – love does strange things indeed!). Randall Niles was a highly educated lawyer who had studied at some of the best universities in the world. He had a mid-life conversion after he came to sudden revelation while attending a youth sports camp.

His revelation?

1. He told the kids to drink water because it helps keep you from dehydrating;
2. His dad had told him to suck on oranges because too much water would give him cramps;
3. His dad was told to take salt tablets for the aforementioned avoidance of athletic cramps;
4. Erego, science is fickle and changing, whereas religion remains constant. Therefore it’s true.

How low have our educational standards dropped to make a man educated at Oxford and Georgetown (in law, no less) able to make such a nonsensical leap of logic? At the time of reading it, I was convinced, but still felt a strange jab of common sense poking its head through my mind’s doggy-door and whispering “false conclusion.” But the white-noise of my religious indoctrination was too loud for me to hear it.

Only when browsing through a Steimatzsky’s bookstore (Israel’s version of Barnes and Noble) and stumbling across Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion” did I finally, and coincidentally, flip to the exact page that directly disputed almost every conclusion that Mr. Niles made on his website, and with sharp British wit to boot. I had picked up the book with mild curiosity to see what a written work with such a blunt title would say. I had no idea who Richard Dawkins was or what he was known for writing. I was stunned! One could say I felt the divine hand guiding me to this book, but today I think of any supernatural power guiding anything as a malignant fairytale.

Thus began my journey into atheism.

I started this blog over a year ago and wrote a number of short essays on atheism and my beliefs, but realized rather quickly that my writing on the subject was sub-par at best, and at worst, damaging to the cause for which I now found myself apart of. I was too immature in my thinking to make any meaningful contribution. To say that I have matured now would also be a mistake. I am but one year older and, maybe, 20 books and 100 internet articles/blogs smarter. I have, to date, held no serious debates with any of my religious family members on this newly acquired world view, nor have I fully articulated what I’m trying to do with this world view.

I am not a philosopher. I have no academic training in the physical sciences. I have never read Darwin’s works. I don’t speak multiple languages. I never officially studied religion at any university. I am merely a curious person with a desire to express the feelings that have flooded the chamber of my consciousness lately. I am not far off from the average person except that I have attempted in the little spare time that I have to study and challenge religion.

That is why I am the “Average Atheist.”