A life of unlearning.

I just finished reading this book. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do. It's the story of man who spends a lot of his life living a lie and conforming to a religion before finally having to face up to his reality in a very brutal and difficult way.

Like most books I read, I often find one page stands out more than any other. In this book, it was when the author spoke about spending his entire life unlearning all the things that were untrue in his life and the new things he found himself learning. I found it quite insightful and thought that there is probably something in this for us all.



"Looking at my life, I realised that I'd spent the last fourteen years of my life unlearning, unlearning everything I believed about myself. I had to unlearn in order to discover the truth. And this is what I discovered:

I am a good person. (embarrassingly simple but for years difficult to acknowledge).
I wasn't sick or in need of healing - there was a wholeness in me waiting to be discovered.
I wasn't broken or in need of fixing.
I wasn't an abomination to God - I was equal to every other human being who walks the planet and deserves the respect and rights that brings with it.
It wasn't homosexuality that had kept me bound but others' beliefs I embraced myself. I had learnt that homosexuality is not a curse but a blessing, a precious gift given to approximately somewhere between four to ten percent of the population - that I should celebrate.
I didn't need to change, just accept.
Being a homosexual didn't mean being tormented; as a gay man I could find peace and resolution.
As a homosexual I was not destined to a life of loneliness; reward and fulfillment come to everyone, gay or straight, who is being true to themselves.
I didn't need someone else or a relationship to make me happy; I could find happiness and completeness in myself.
Homosexuality is not an act, it's an identity.
Saying you know the 'truth' makes everyone who thinks differently to you wrong, and puts you in the dangerous position of never being open to learning anything new.
Forgiveness brings transformation and freedom.
God is unfathomable.
I had learnt that I am not a human being having a spiritual experience but a spirit having a human experience.
My great discovery is that my alienation was a precious gift of freedom. Inside the safety of the city walls it's easier not to risk embarking on a journey of self-discovery. However, when you are rejected and thrust beyond the city walls you are forced to find out who you are. What some outsiders discover on the other side is the courage to renounce self-contempt and the rules that others have made (I especially like this bit). At the moment a person questions the validity of the rules, the victim is no longer a victim.

Finally, in life's journey you are never off the path. Every detour, dead end, back alley, even road wrecks, looked at with insight are a possible part of a greater master plan."
- Anthony Venn-Brown -

A flier: Institute for Advanced Atheist Studies

Whilst running to a meeting recently (late of course), I ran by a man standing in the middle of Martin Place holding a sign that said 'God is a fairy and fairies aren't real'. I couldn't work out if he was calling God gay, or if he was saying he wasn't real. It took a couple of double takes to work it out. He was an evangelical Atheist. The first I had ever seen. By the looks on the faces around me, possibly the first they had seen as well. I politely grabbed the flier he was handing out and I must say it does ask some very interesting questions about God; whomever you think him to be. And whilst I'm not pushing any real personal agenda with this post, I think people who do have a religion or faith base, really ought to not shy away from the hard questions, but look at these with curiosity. Ask the hard stuff, because on things that make up the very core of who we are, I think I'd rather not die wondering...

In any case, here is what the flier said, verbatim.

If you believe in God or a deity, the most important thing you can do is to be honest with yourself. Ask the hard questions. Examine your beliefs. Be willing to confront contradictions and problems. You could start by thinking about these questions:
1. Why is it religion is an accident of birth? If a person is born to Catholic parents, they grow up Catholic. If born to Jewish parents, they grow up Jewish. If born to Muslim parents, they grow up Muslim. Religious belief is mostly a lottery of birth, and a lottery of time, circumstances, and place. Why aren't you Jewish or Hindu or Muslim?

2. Just as you are convinced that your God is the one true God, a believer in a different religion believes the same thing for their own religion or God. All the arguments you use, they use. So how can you possibly justify your beliefs, when they are incompatible with other religions which use the exact same arguments?

3. If you tell me that you believe in God because of divine revelation - as in, you have a personal relationship with God - why should I believe you any more than I believe the man in the psychiatric institution who believe he IS Jesus, or the man who sees fairies in his room? The people are just as serious and earnest as you.

4. If the bible is God's word - or at least divinely inspired - then why has it been so heavily edited over the centuries, and why have some books been included and others excluded? The fact is, the Bible is a multi-authored book. It may be the most published book in history, but it is also the most revised and heavily edited book in history. Are we saying editors know better than God's own words?

5. But what proof do we have that the bible is God's word, other than the various writers simply stating that? Heck, I could state that my words are God's work. Why should you believe me? Obviously, you shouldn't. Only believe things when you are presented with good reasons.

6. Why is the largest Christian Church controlled entirely by men? Why are women second-rate citizens in religion?

7. We've always - since the beginning of recorded history - been driven to understand the world around us. In the past, we needed God to help explain so much - from what happened to us when we die, to how the sun rose every day. But now, science has been able to explain nearly all the unanswered questions where we used to resort to God. In 2011 it's pretty clear that our attachment to God isn't rational - it's about emotion. We might not need the idea of God anymore, but we are scared of letting it go.

8. If you don't know how something works, if you don't know how to explain a phenomenon or, for instance, you don't know how the big bang happened - and no-one else knows, either - it's ok to say exactly that: we don't know. No need to lie about it, no need to be embarrassed by it. The bravest thing we can do is admit holes in our knowledge, and stop ourselves from latching on to the first convenient explanation. Of course we are driven to explain things, to seek answers - but the searching is the important bit. Resorting to "It is the work of God" is lazy, and doesn't help anyone.

9. It's often said that there are no atheists in a foxhole - meaning that when we face death we tend to grasp at the idea of God and eternal existence beyond our human life. But isn't fear of death the worst reason to believe in God? Humans are... human. We get scared, we don't want to die. God is a nice idea that helps make that fear go away. But is it better to be truthful to ourselves, or just go with whatever feels good? (side-note: I'm not sure I entirely agree with this point. I quite like the idea of the easy path here...)

10. Most of us grow up with a set of beliefs similar to our family and friends and teachers. But, eventually we start to find our own way. You might vote for a different political party to your parents, or you might disagree over the policy on refugees. My challenge is to go back and start from scratch. Don't start with belief in God, after which you proceed to build justifications against atheists and other nay-sayers. Be bold and brave: start by asking yourself, what reasons are there for me to believe in God, and work from there.