When I Wished I Believed
By: Katy Widmer
Tags: Atheism, Religion, Faith

I remember the exact peak of my belief in God.

The one moment I felt truly connected to this supreme, invisible, silent being that — I had been taught — created me specifically and wanted only for my eternal happiness. I had just received Communion on the day of my Confirmation into the Catholic Church, and I remember crying as I looked towards the cross and felt the everlasting, unfailing and warm love of Jesus enter my heart.

Ten years later, my heart has gone dark and cold.

And I like it that way.

As most teenagers do, I experimented in college. Not with my sexuality, but with the idea of atheism. It began with one class in which I studied the Bible and other religious works as literature, and then with more classes on the philosophy of religion and eastern religions, until I found myself with a religion minor and without faith.

There wasn’t one moment where the clouds parted and I realized there was no heaven up there. It happened gradually. Logically. After reading historical accounts of the man Jesus of Nazareth — ones I had never come across in all my devout years — I thought, Maybe Jesus wasn’t God, but rather a misguided prophet. That would make more sense. So, I let go of Jesus.

For a while, I held on to the idea of God. A 20-year habit is hard to break. But I continued to study comparative religion and found undeniable similarities in creation stories and sacred myths. I battled against arguments for the existence of God with such solid logic and passion that my professors practically applauded. Finally, intellectual and cultural understanding of religion pushed the last shred of faith out of my mind. I felt free.

Though I feared sharing my lack of belief with my family and most of my friends, I knew I wasn’t alone. As I sat in my college’s library, reading books by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, I would receive knowing nods from passersby who also bore this hidden cross of non-belief. It was like a secret club we all belonged to, and the first rule was, of course, to not talk about it.

I like being a non-believer.

(That’s what you have to call it, by the way: a non-believer, or humanist. Somehow, the term “atheist” has become synonymous with “devil worshiper” in some circles, despite its obvious meaning as an a-theist, or one who lacks a belief in gods.)

I find it incredibly freeing to know there is no plan. Nothing is predetermined, there is no such thing as destiny, and I was not specifically created to accomplish one mission on this earth.

Unless there are other life forms out there in the incomprehensibly expansive universe, we’re alone out here. Which is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.

There are times, however, when I wished I still believed in God.

I wished I believed in God on the day I stood in my childhood church and put a ring on my new husband’s finger, so I wouldn’t have felt like a liar and a fraud on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life.

I wished I believed in God as I watched my grandfather struggle to breathe in his hospice bed, my uncle by his side for days, quietly crying as he finally admitted to himself that it was time to let go. I wish I believed so that I could empathize with my grandmother, who wouldn’t stop asking my father why God would let this happen.

I wished I believed in God as I felt my marriage fall apart, despite my best efforts to love as hard as I could, to be the best wife I could. I wish I could have believed that prayer would have magically fixed things, and that someone had the power to reverse all the damage and make us whole again. When I walked into the dark basement of the courthouse and handed over my divorce papers to an indifferent government worker, I wished I could ask God for strength, and to show me the way back to happiness.

Now, as I begin to pick up the pieces and figure out if they should even be arranged in the same manner or if I’m someone completely new, I wish I believed in God so I could have someone to blame and be angry with besides myself — someone to place my trust in, so I wouldn’t have to face the hard work ahead alone.

But despite these wishes, I am comfortable with my atheism.

Instead of a god, I place my trust in humanity. Instead of a god, I ask my family for strength. And I live with the kind of internal peace that can only come from living out the truth you’ve found within yourself: that I am solely responsible for the losses and victories in my life.

And I get to decide what happens next.