I couldn't sleep during my first night of Air Force basic training. After a day of traveling, getting my head shaved, being rushed everywhere, and a constant barrage of angry voices...I couldn't sleep.
It wasn't just the stress of the day that kept me awake. Nor was it only the thrumming thoughts of self-doubt about life choices that got me to that place. On top of all those things, I also had an itchy, wool blanket. It was dark green and wrinkled around the edges from countless other Airmen who had used it before me. On one side the letters U.S. were stamped in dark black, eight-inch tall letters. When we were learning to make our beds the right way, the training instructors always said the letters couldn't be showing because, "It doesn't belong to us, it belongs to you!"
As the years went by, that miserable, wool blanket became an analogy for my military career.
I grew up in New Hampshire, and cold rooms were a very real thing. Central heating was a luxury for the rich folks and very often our trusty wood stove would burn itself out in the middle of the night. New Hampshire, in February, in the night with no fire, is not a pleasant place. In our old farmhouse, the floors were achingly cold as if the earth itself had reached up through the floor to pull your soul out through your feet. On nights like that, unless it was my chore to go and relight the fire, there was no way I was getting out from under my blankets.
Military life, for me, was like sleeping in a cold room under that wool blanket. Not just any room, but a room where, nearby there was a soft bed, down comforter, and the love of my life becoming me over. I knew it was simple to cross the room and crawl into the bed where I belonged, but the room was so cold. Plus, I'd been indoctrinated to believe that the room was colder than it was and that I was doing my country a tremendous service by staying under the itchy blanket.
And so it went with the military for twenty-three years, one month and eighteen days. Then, just like on those February mornings when my father came in and ripped the blankets off to get me up for school, I was no longer eligible to stay in the Air Force and had to retire.
Leaving religion can feel a little like that. For years, you may hear stories of people who are free to experiment with life, study the things they enjoy, maybe have some frivolous sex once in a while, or drink entirely too much for years at a time. They do it with no guilt whatsoever! I remember hearing stories of people who kept their money and saved it and invested it and gave to charities when they chose rather than being guilted into dumping it into the offering plate. There are so many things about life without religion that seem fantastic and marvelous!
But it's a frightening transition. Maybe you feel like I did in the military, under that itchy wool blanket.
What is it that really frightens us about making life changes like that? For me, in my Air Force career, it was indoctrination. The Air Force spends millions every year on recruitment and retention. It's expensive to train new Airmen so there's a serious incentive to keep as many as possible. One of their tactics is to send Airmen to school every few years for leadership development. Although, most Airmen see it for what it is and call it "re-bluing", or a condensed reminder of how amazing it is to be in the military. And it isn't limited only to the classes Airmen take. Throughout the year, there are briefings and letters that go out explaining the financial benefits of staying and the honor that comes from serving the country.
Does that sound much different from going to church every Sunday? Do you think there's a big difference between the process of "re-bluing" in the Air Force, and going on a mens' retreat weekend?
To be fair, there are things about being in the Air Force that were highly beneficial. Financially it made a lot of sense. I also got to travel, met some fantastic people, and experienced a side of life that most never dream exists. Similarly, if you go on mens' retreats, or group Bible studies, and weekly services, there's a benefit to that too.
The problem comes when the pain of staying is too great, and the pain starts to come once the truth is realized. At one point, the pain of staying in the Air Force was so intense, that I nearly took my own life. I probably would have gotten out, but the indoctrination was so effective that I believed that life as a civilian would be intolerably difficult. It was the same sensation when I decided to leave religion for good.
Can you relate to that?
If so, what do you think is so frightening? I can imaging someone reading this and thinking, "Civilian life isn't that bad. It's good. You could have gotten out at any time and you would have been fine. The majority of people on earth do it literally every day and they thrive."
The only thing that prevents anyone from making any change, is the fear of the unknown. In the Air Force, we were told that the unknown thing was a life without service, a life without making enough money, and a life without all the cool friends we'd made. When churches entrap people, they do so by telling parishioners they'll burn for eternity or lose their standing with God. If you've become an atheist, perhaps that argument doesn't hold up anymore because you stopped believing in God, yet you can't seem to budge.
I was in that spot for a long time and wondered what held me back. Once I saw it, I knew I had to get myself gone.
It's this: within religion, individuals are never held fully accountable. In every corner of religious philosophy there this one lurking idea: it's God's will. Everything is part of the divine plan. Under that logic, no matter what you do, you can place accountability on God. I've known people who consistently made poor decisions and lived miserable lives who always said, "Well, I guess it's just God's will." Sometimes I would hear them say things like, "Satan made me do it," or "I succumbed to temptation," but there was always a deity to take the blame.
In the Old Testament, there's the practice of having a scapegoat. Under that law, the priests were required to make a blood sacrifice, but also place their hands on a goat and confess the sins of the people, then the goat was let loose into the desert. On one level it's a profound and poetic picture of forgiveness. On another level, it's a frightening demonstration of a civilization built on the idea of non-accountability.
Here's a fact for you: you are accountable for your own actions. The things we think, the actions we take, and the words we speak all have consequences. Whether or not there's a God in the way it has been defined is irrelevant.
When this realization started to sink into me, it was troubling at first. The idea that there was no Will of God or Satan to blame was unsettling. It meant I had to be accountable and there was years' worth of programming that needed to be undone which can be a lifetime process.
What really frightened me was understanding that it isn't just me who is accountable for my own life, but the fact that we as humans, individually and collectively, are standing on the bubbling edge of the yawning maw of unfolding eternity with the power to destroy worlds and create Hell on earth at the tip of our fingers and there's no unifying, guiding ideology to assist nor a deity looking over our shoulder to make sure we don't destroy the cosmos.
If that doesn't frighten you, at least a little bit, then you're not paying attention. I've been so frightened at times I wanted desperately to go back to church, get on my knees at the altar and beg to forget all the things I'd seen and learned.
Oh, wait...the is a blog about LEAVING religion, not one that frightens people back into the pew.
Here's a comforting thought I found once the reality of final personal accountability set in:
There's something about the universe (God, cosmos, nature, Gaia, the holograph) that tends to catch you. From my place on my journey away from the faith, it seems like the thing religious folks call God, but it's different. I can't tell you whether it's a function of the systems put in place by humans over countless generations, or if it's a simple, mathematical principle at work, but it's there. Something tends to catch you when you're about to fall. Something tends to show up to teach you a lesson when you need it. Is that thing a formula we've not yet discovered? Is that thing the larger human collective consciousness preserving one of its own? Is it a function of confirmation bias on a massive scale?
I have no way of knowing.
Here's what I DO know:
It's better to be accountable for my own actions rather than blaming God or Satan.
It's better to avoid churches and organizations claiming to have cornered the truth of reality.
It's far better to work up the courage to get out from under that cold, itchy blanket, make the trek across the cold room, and climb in the soft bed with the love of my life.
Be brave. It's time to become a full adult.