The Atheist

"The notion that everyone would like Christianity to be true, and all atheists are brave men who have accepted the defeat of all their deepest desires, is simply impudent nonsense."~C.S. Lewis, Encounter with Light

I met a man once that changed the way I looked at things. He said he was an atheist. That may have been his chosen moniker, but he exercised this belief in such a zealous way, this one label was not enough to cover his explosive relationship to God and all things supernatural. To simply say he was an atheist would be like saying Che Guevarra had an active interest in Latin American politics.

When I was in my twenties, I thought I knew a lot about being a Christian. I had read the bible all the way through, I had read things like systematic theologies, Old and New Testament survey books, bible commentaries, and anything I could lay my hands on. I even led bible studies and taught Sunday School classes. I thought I had it all figured out. I was working in a senior center as a volunteer while I continued with one my many Joe-jobs to make a living in the meantime. All my time spent studying the bible, reading doctrinal books, and spending so much time in church made me think I knew everything about how the world around me operated. I was just waiting for an opportunity to share all of my incredible knowledge about how the world and all things spiritual could be explained so easily.

The Atheist was a remarkable man. Many of the rest of the residents were kind of out of it, but not this guy. He was sharp, sharp as a razor blade just out of the little cardboard package. He never allowed any of the staff to treat him with that sort of patronizing treatment you find so common in people dealing with the elderly. He expected, "Yes, Sir" and "No Sir" ,and he would not be put in arts and crafts classes. Instead he would give lectures and roundtables on things like nuclear war.

He was in his late 80's. He had almost transparent skin, with a shiny bald head shrouded by fine cotton-like hair, and a beard of the same white, but what was amazing about him was his eyes. They were bright blue with the darkest pupils. He carried himself like a gentleman, but there was also something about him that said he would not suffer fools gladly.

There were little apartments connected to the senior center by wings, like spokes in a wheel. He was in the assisted living, but he needed very little help. One day he invited me into his room and we spoke for a while. Even though I was bursting at the seams with spiritual wisdom, I knew a man like this was not going to change easily, certainly not because of anything I would say, I also knew he had been arguing against Christianity for years, he wasn't just some teenager in an anarchy shirt and greasy hair trying to be an atheist this week because it sounded rebellious and chicks might think he was dangerous. This guy was an Old-School-Bad-Ass-Infidel.

He gave me some books on apologetics, he said he didn't need them anymore. I'm not sure how we got on the subject, but he proceeded to tell me why he became an atheist.

"It happened when I was younger, about your age. I had been a salesman for a long time. I was having a rough time and could not make any sales. Every thing I did went wrong. My wife was sick, the baby was sick. No matter how hard I tried, nothing went right for me.

One day as I was sitting at the kitchen table thinking about my lot in life and how little God had done for me. When I stood up and cursed him.
'God! God! Do you hear me?! You are a fake and a fraud! Your Son was just a bastard and the Virgin Mary was a just a little whore!'
After that, everything got better. I started making sales, life became easier and I never looked back...'

I was speechless. I had never heard such a thing. Beyond the obvious blasphemy, it was so shocking that he just didn't give a shit...about anything spiritual! Even more than that, he was happy! Things went got better after he rejected God!

I didn't know what to think. "He should be miserable.. He should be convicted of his sin.. should be..can't be..shouldn't be..will be..can't be..", I couldn't put it all together. Then he turned his intellectual guns on me,
"So how do you believe there is God?", he said.

I should have been ready for this. I should have jumped in there with both barrels blazing, but I didn't. I realized that all of my religious education had been based on the assumption that everyone believed in God and would kowtow to my superior knowledge. Not this guy...

I finally stuttered out an answer,

I-I believe in God because I see him everywhere I go, in everything I see, in the world around me. Creation speaks to me that he is and he loves me. I believe in God because I know him in my heart as my friend.

He looked at me sort of pitifully, but with some measure of respect. He didn't berate me, but it became clear that our little visit was over. I thanked him for the books and shook his hand and left.

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbably: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable"~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I'm still not sure of what really happened there. I still think about it now. On one hand, his espoused atheism was just as fervent as my faith. He really wasn't a purely intellectual atheist, he had experienced a conversion to atheism, just as sincere and just as real as my own conversion to Christ. He didn't want God to exist, he didn't want God to have anything to do with him. I won't be so bold as to judge all atheists this way, I'm just saying that I have met one who wanted God to not exist. His desire to not believe in God was as strong as my desire to believe.

I still felt bad about how I had responded, for years I felt ashamed that I had not been more forceful and strong in my response. Several years later, a friend of my Dad said something that really helped me to put it all in better perspective,

"A.C., When you were in your twenties and thought you knew everything, at that moment, you knew more than you will ever know. From that point on, you started knowing less and less."

It took me a while, but I got it. Systematic theology is great for academics, but it doesn't always translate into real Christianity. You start to retain less and less of superfluous knowledge, and start keeping only the things that help you. When push came to shove, I fell back to something more basic, something more familiar, something like..."Jesus loves this I know, for the bible tells me so.", something like "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." Something simple to the ear, but substantial to the heart.

"The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."~Blaise Pascal

The other thing that occurred to me after this conversation was this: People who state strong beliefs aren't always all that they appear to be. Before our conversation, the Atheist stalked my world like a wolf who would overtake me and make me come face to face with the doubt all Christians experience from time to time; the doubt that all my beliefs could be wrong. He was so cock-sure, so intelligent, so passionate, but like so many people in this world, nothing is as it appears...

Thanks for reading,

AC  ¶ 1:23 AM