ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

I am an atheist.  I have not believed in a divine supreme being since I was in high school. Frankly, I am not sure I ever believed in a god.

And, please, do not jump to the conclusion that I am a heathen with no proper religious education. I spent twelve years studying in Roman Catholic schools, including six years at a grammar school that was part of a minor seminary in Baltimore.  I studied religion every day and spent every morning at Mass.  I studied Latin as an altar boy. At university, in addition to studying History as a major, I minored in Philosophy, including religion, morals, and ethics.

Religion has always fascinated me.  I just do not understand why it has such a hold on people.  I could not accept the “leap of faith” the Catholic Church requires in order to believe in a magical person in the sky, much less a father, a son, and a holy ghost.  I believed it was okay to have questions with no provable answers.  Arguing a strong point of view was a good thing in my book.  It did not need to have a conclusion.

I also could not reconcile the acceptance of a belief in Jesus Christ with the way organized religion operated.  Churches accepted corporal and capital punishment vs. forgiveness and the turning of the other cheek.  This startled me.  My classmates and I were beaten daily by the School Sisters of Notre Dame in grammar school and then by the Xaverian Brothers in high school.  I served in the Marine Corps and in Vietnam and in my whole life I have never been struck in the face with as hard a blow as those I was given by Brother Benedict and Brother Francis for the infraction of talking out of turn in class.

Or, maybe I am a non-believer because I grew up in Baltimore. In 1960 Baltimore Attorney Madalyn Murray, on behalf of her son, William, filed a lawsuit (Murray v. Curlett) against the Baltimore City School system.  The schools forced Bible readings and/or reciting the Lord's Prayer before class each day.  A Maryland law specifically allowed these practices. The Murray's declared they were atheists and that by virtue of these forced recitations their Constitutional rights were being trampled.

In 1962, using Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court prohibited officially sponsored prayer in school.  Later, in 1963, after consolidating Ms. Murray’s case with Abington School District v. Schempp, a similar suit, the Supreme Court ruled mandatory Bible reading should be banned from public schools as well.  The Establishment Clause of the Constitution was upheld in an 8-1 decision. Justice Potter Stewart, as he was in Engel v. Vitale, was the lone dissenting vote.

I remember these cases well because I was in a Catholic prep school, Mt. St. Joseph College, at the time.  Our faculty prayed loudly every day that these suits would be found in favor of the almighty.  I also had a very close friend, a neighbor, who attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute where the Murray boy was a student.  Every day Neil would regale me with tales of the various ways they would torment the teenage atheist.  It got so bad I remember his mother had to keep him out of school for several weeks to protect him. The case got so much attention in the  media that I began to learn more about atheism and the Establishment Clause than I did about religion.

Even as a teenager I found it bizarre that people were threatened by the fact that someone asked them to keep their religious thought to themselves and that this even evoked violence from some. Where was the forgiveness in these actions? I certainly understood why parochial schools like mine would recite prayer everyday, but public schools?  I could not understand the purpose.  I can remember often asking Neil how he would feel if non-believers attacked him everyday?  I also suggested that if he and his family felt so strongly he should attend parochial school instead of public school.  

By 1964 Life magazine called Madalyn Murray the most hated woman in America. And, truthfully, she was anything but a sweetheart.  Later, after marrying Richard O'Hair she disowned her son William after he became a Baptist minister.  

In 1995 she disappeared along with two of her adult children in Austin, Texas. Their bodies were found in 2001 when a former employee admitted to the murders and led the police to their graves.  The killer found she was hiding close to $500,000 from her membership and killed her for it, cutting her body into small pieces.  Many thought it was a rightful end to someone like her.

But, atheists are just people.  They have jobs and they make America work.  They teach in our schools, work in our factories, play sports on the home team, wait on our tables, and fly our airplanes across the country.  Atheists are also ethical people who care about their fellow man.  Atheists care only for people, not a fictitious master being in the sky.  My Harvard Divinity School-trained Philosophy of Religion Professor once told me that an Episcopal Bishop once said to him:  “If there is a heaven and hell, based on what I've seen, there will be a lot of atheists in heaven and a lot of devout Christians in hell.”

It is not what you call yourself; it is how you lead your life.  I have been around many businessmen who prayed before meetings and made large financial commitments to their church, and then climbed their way to the top by stealing and lying.  
  

As for praying in schools, it is okay be me.  Pray in silence to your soul’s content.  The other night I sat with a friend at a restaurant. Before we dined, he bowed his head for a second or two.  I knew what he was doing, but he did not force me to join him. That is the way it should be.  Religion is a private matter, keep it to yourself.