The Evolution of an Atheist

© David L. Johnson

My story began July 4th, 1946. I was born on grandmother’s couch in Enderlin ND. As unnoticed and mundane as the event may have been, I could not imagine the event escaping our pastor’s attention. No doubt, he was there that very morning, well wishing and praying for my happy productive future. Hence, my indoctrination began that very day. In a very short time I was having my head washed in the presents of nearly all my neighbors and family, being blessed in the name of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Lord. By the time I entered grade school, I had colored all the pages of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Samson, Jonah and the Whale, Noah’s Ark, Daniel and the Loins Den, Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus’ Birth, the Three Kings, the shepherds that stood by flocks at night, Jesus’ feeding the masses with a few small fishes and seven loaves of bread, and Jesus' Crucifixion and Ascension into Heaven. I was asked to pray each night at bedtime that "if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take". Why I could already recite a complete poem on command "Our father which art in Heaven, Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." I even knew a few songs like "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" or "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed".

Throughout my grade school years, I attended Bible school every Sunday morning, followed by church services. Each summer after school was dismissed for the year, I was forced to attend vacation Bible for nearly a month. There we went over the same stories time and again; Creation, David and his sling, Noah, the parting of the Red Sea, the Virgin Birth, Feeding the Masses. I was always a part of the Christmas programs at both the church and school, singing and acting out the parts of shepherds and Kings that had come to see the new born King of the Jews. And by the time I was in my early teens, I was confirmed into the First Lutheran Church.

Despite all that brainwashing however I managed to retain some doubt about what I was being taught. I was a outdoor individual and spent most my childhood down at the river catching frogs, turtles, and snakes. My best friend was probably Spotty, a boxer - pit bull cross. My friends and I raised pigeons and captured young owls that I would proudly display on a pad on the handle bars of my bike like a hood ornament as I rode through town. Even as a child, I felt a kinship with the earth and the creatures that shared my existence. And more than anything that kinship with the earth was what kept religion at bay. I never, for example, meet a talking snake and judging by the snakes I had captured, and there were many, I doubted if any snake ever did. From biology, what little I had, I learned that whales could swallow nothing larger than an apple to say nothing of a man. And need I mention Noah’s Art? Just having pigeons, I could not begin to imagine that clean up job.

It was Spotty that really caused me to rethink what I was being taught by my church however. To me, Spotty was always there. He went everywhere I did, even to school where he’d lay and wait for me on the play ground from morning until school was dismissed. One day, on one of those rare occasions that I left him at home, mother, having enough of dogs and kids, threw my siblings and Spotty out of the house. "Go outside and play a while" She instructed. Once outside, they had hardly reached the other side of our yard when this speeding car came along, swerved into the ditch, and ran over my dog, never stopping or slowing down, insight of all that were present

I remember father giving me the news. By the time I had returned home, Spotty was already buried in the back yard, a few steps away from the burn barrel. A round granite glacial erratic with Spotty painted on it in red marked the spot. I remember how much I hurt. So, seeking some consolation, I asked my mother "What happens to Spotty now?"

Her answer was "Nothing."

"Won’t Spotty be going to heaven?" I asked.

"Heaven is only for people." was her reply. :Dogs have no souls. They have no free will. Dogs do not know right from wrong. Only people do and only those that know right from wrong, have souls, and a free will, can enter heaven."

I wasn’t sure what was worse, losing my dog or being told that God had no room in his wide heaven for my dog or any of his other creations for that matter. Call it anthropomorphic if you will but I could not believe my dog did not know right from wrong when all I had to do was walk into the kitchen and by my dog’s behavior alone, I could tell if he had been in the garbage. If my dog did not experience guilt, or have some idea of wrong, why did his behavior differ every time he got into the garbage? As for a free will, we let Spotty out one evening only to have him not return. He got a whiff of a female in heat, I suspect, and we later found him over by Lisbon on a farm with his mate. "If he had no free will, how is it" I asked myself "that he was able to make the decision not to come home if coming home was instinct?"

The next great memorable shocking negative event in my religious up bringing came from an unlikely source, the Bible itself. One of the requirements for confirmation was the reading of the inter Bible. Up until that point, all I knew were the stories that I was told over and over again and little quotes such as "God is Love" or that God is a "Just God". I believed one of the central themes of the Bible was "Love your neighbor as yourself" that "I should love my enemies", that "I should treat others as I would like them to treat me", and that killing was against Christian norms. Reading the Bible however was a real eye opener. I was astounded to find that God thought nothing about having whole nations smitten by the edges of swords, that he sent plagues to wipeout inter populations for something as shallow as taking a census, and that he would send bears to devour children for laughing at his profits bald head, just to name a few. God did not sound like "Love" to me. He seemed to have no tolerance for his enemies or anyone that challenged him, nor would I call his actions "Just".

But admittedly I was confused and I hung on. Having no other explanation for how everything began I thought there had to be something to this. The thought that maybe everything may have always existed did not even enter my mind. I was stuck on this "Everything needs a beginning and a creator mentality". Every picture needed a painter, every watch - a watch maker, every house - a carpenter, every car - a mechanic, every bridge - an engineer, and every nation - a guiding hand. The thought never occurred to me that "I do not know" was an acceptable answer. When asked where everything came from, I surely had no answer, as if I was suppose to know. But if religion with all its short comings answered anything, it was "In the Beginning". "So, because I had no other answer, that must be it" I found myself rationalizing. As for those Bible stories that even this child was able to figure out were largely myths, "Well" I apologized to myself for all the lose ended scriptures "Perhaps they were not actual historical events. Perhaps they were only stories with some moralistic message. Jesus after all talked in parables. If Jesus is God, doesn’t it follow that God told parables too?"

But that was the minor stuff. Without really understanding it, whether I agreed with the Bible or not, I had adopted it’s central philosophy. I believed the world was put here for man’s use however man saw fit. I believed that things were as they were because of this guiding hand that watched out over everything. I believed my purpose in life was work, to serve those who ruled over me. I believed in life after death, in the day of judgment, that in the end I would be rewarded if I just toughed it out. So what if I questioned the validity of Noah’s Ark as an actual event? I was hooked. Exactly what that meant and how it was to impact my life however was not to become clear to me for years later.

By the time the fifties rolled around, I was just beginning to come of age. God and country was everywhere. The two main community rallying points, other than the church in my hometown, were the American Legion and the VFW club. Every parade began standing for colors. Nearly every public event I attended ended in prayer. Everyday in public school began with the "Pledge Alliance to the Flag" which included "In God We Trust" and quite often a prayer. Nearly every movie had some nationalistic theme or a tribute to our veterans like "To Hell and Back" or "Midway". The comic books were full of super heroes fighting for "Truth, justice, and the American Way". The television focused on the family and how everything worked out the way God planned if you just kept your nose to the grind stone and obeyed the rules. Matt Dillion often found himself at odds with the popular conscience by defending the law and the bad guy. The singing cowboys always wore white hats and the bad guys always had black. Perry Mason always managed to save his client (who was always innocent) from the abuses of the system. The bad guy always got what was coming. The criminal was always found out. All was right with the world - at least by conservative standards.

But there were other standards. There were un-American Activities going on and the defenders of Capitalism and God was out to end it. One of the groups in their sights were the Weavers who dared sing songs such as "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream" which included the lyrics that the rulers of the world "all agreed to put an end to war" or "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" which has all the young men going to soldiers who went to graveyards which becomes flowers that the young girls pick who return their young men who start the whole cycle over again.

Un-American or not, those songs resonated in my ears. World War II left everyone in our small town mourning the lost of someone, a brother, an uncle, a father, a husband, or a son. Korea was not far behind. And now, there was now the nuclear bomb, clearly the most awesome deterrent to war ever assembled. I remember as school children that we practiced the stop, drop, and put your hands over head routine just in case the threat of the bomb ever came our way. And then, one day, the threat did. Although the Cold War had been brewing for some time, one evening I found myself outside in the street with my mother. She was pointing up overhead, at this little blinking light crossing the night sky, being Sputnik, and proclaiming "That could just as easily be a bomb!" I was numb with fear. It was strikingly evident she was right and it did not take any Ph.D. to realize just exactly what that Soviet satellite over our house meant.

War, in my mind and the mind of my generation, had to end. Enough had died answering Dylan’s question "How many deaths will it take till they know that too many people have died?" as a result of man’s inhumanity (an oxymoron if there ever was one) to man. And now that "man’s been endowed with the mushroom shaped cloud (from The Merry Minuet)", in the clear night sky, it was clear that the whole human race, if not life on earth, was at stake if "someone will set the spark off - And we will all be blown away (from The Merry Minuet)". I found myself adsorbed in antiwar rhetoric from that day forward. By my high school days, I had all the records, The Merry Minuet, The Eve of Destruction, Blowing in the Wind, What Have They Done To The Rain, and The Universal Soldier to name a few.

And yet again I found myself at odds with the teaching of my church. By now I was into confirmation and it seemed that if the church should come out against any human behavior, it should be war. But I was wrong again. Forget all that "Love your enemy" stuff. Some wars, according to our minister, were "JUST" wars. Besides, the commandment "Thou shall not kill" really meant "Thou shall not commit murder" and defending one’s homeland does not fall into the category of murder. I guess killing each other over land and national interests was different than killing each other over personal possessions and interests such as money or sex although I have yet to figure out how.

As time went on, it became increasing evident that defending the Bible became a harder and harder task. As I matured, learning more and more about the world around me, it became clear that the church could bend meanings around to whatever suited it’s end. To try align itself with what science was finding to be the age of the earth, for example, a Biblical day could become a thousand years. Even agreeing at times that the stories, or verses in the Bible should not be taken literally, the church reverted right back to teaching the Bible as history and being literally correct at every opportunity available. "Well yes - but no!" was their point "You should not take scripture literaly - but always remember that God said it so it has to be right because God can not lie"

"Hmmm!": I thought. Toward the end of my trying to cling on to religion, I even thought to myself "If this thing (being God impersonalized by now) really created all that I see, me, and everything I exist in, he could certainly write a book that I could not understand - so why even try?." I mean - how do you argue with that logic? And yet, I settled for it rather than let go. Amazing!

Then the day came in 1965 when high school was over. And not long after that, at the tender immature age of not being able to decide legally whether I could handle drinking a beer, the selective service was knocking at my door. The draft was looking for young men and Vietnam was in full swing. Some of the largest battles of the war, Ia Drang Valley, were fought at the end of 1965 and everyday on the news, it looked more and more like I would soon, like it or not, be on my way into the military. The thought never even occurred to me to go to Canada.

Being on the ground, assaulting machine gun positions, however, did not sound like something I’d be to interested in. So I took the advice of my uncle and joined the Navy. In his words I’d, at least, always have a warm bed to go to in the Navy. In spite of thinking that war had to stop, I never considered the irony of not believing in war and yet joining the military. My thoughts were more that the military was just something that young men did. It was like a right of passage, like what boys did to earn the title of man. Besides, the only time that I ever say my father cry was when he (listed as 4F because of an accident he suffered as a child) was called a draft dodger at a VFW picnic. "When your time comes to serve your country, Son" he told me "Do it. Or you’ll regret it the rest of your life."

So in April of 1966 I found myself in Navy bootcamp. And again I found myself in something of a personal intellectual struggle with religion. Beyond my comprehension at the time, I found out that church was required in bootcamp. "Odd" I thought "I mean, how is it that a philosophy that instructs us to Love your enemy should be required learning in an organization whose business it is to kill the enemy?" To me, it really seemed like a paradox. But then who was I to try figure it out after resigning my faith to the "God could write a book that I certainly could not understand" mentally.

So as time went along, one day our bootcamp my company was herded into this building where we were suppose to come up with what we’d be doing in the Navy for the next four years. I thought I already had that figured out. One of the guarantees the Navy gave me going in was my choice of duty. I wanted to be a deep sea diver, but, that was not to be. When I got to the person writing up my future, it turned out that "Yes! I could have my choice of duty all right, but I needed five choices just in case the choice I happen to ask for was already filled."

Well, I had not given four other choices any thought at all. All I wanted to do was dive. The tests that I had taken to see where my abilities lied indicated that sonar was a good bet for me. I had an ear for pitch. But that would put me on a submarine somewhere, according to the interviewer, and I’d probable be out the sea, under water, for long periods of time. That did not sound like anything I’d like, being an outdoors person, but OK, if that is where the Navy could use me, OK. That left three more choices, I do not remember even what the other two were, but one was a corpsman. "Well" I asked "What’s a corpsman?" The answer was a corpsman is something of a cross between a doctor and a nurse. It could be a jump start into a medical profession, could lead to a good civilian career, and help me through college doing part time orderly work. The duty was good, according to the interviewer, because I’d be around hospitals which always had the reputation of having the best food, the best beds, and easy duty. Otherwise I could find myself painting ships at the end of a rope or in a boiler room if nothing else worked out. That’s what happens to those who the Navy can’t find an opening in the person’s choice. The interviewer was sure if corpsman was one of my choices, painting ships or working in boiler rooms would not be in my future.

"So OK," I thought "if that is where the Navy could use me, corpsman did not sound to bad. Put it down as a choice." So he did - and it did not take me five minutes after getting outside to find out what an error that was. In fact, I think I heard something of laugh coming from my interviewer behind me as I walked outside.

"What were your choices" a couple of friends asked.

"Well, I put down deep sea salvage work, sonar, (those other two things that I can not remember), and corpsman."

"You put down a corpsman!" was their shocked response. "Do you know what a corpsman is?"

"Well, it’s a cross between a do----" I did not even get to finish my word.

"It’s a Marine Medic, you bonehead! You’re going in the Marine Corps and probably on the ground in the front lines of Vietnam"

How right they were. Not much more than a year later I found myself in a rice paddy just south of DaNang. It was the strangest experience of my life. I remember being trucked out to my unit past this chain link fence which a hundred or so villagers peered through with these glassed over eyes, like they were in some drug induced trance. Not a smile, not a wave, not so much as a recognition that we even existed did we receive, just this emotionless

sober expression. It was nothing like the World War II films, I was accustom to, where the locals would run out with banners waving and cheers of jubilation for their liberators. And in the days that followed, the same could be said for those in the fields. They just continued on with what they were doing whenever we passed as if we were not even there. The only ones that ever greeted us were the children, after whatever they could talk us out of or steal.

In the days that passed, it became clear that we had no idea who we were fighting. Often we’d walk through a village only to be shot at from the rear as we left. Bobbie traps were everywhere, at least during the day when we were moving around. At night, the traps seemed to suddenly disappear when the enemy did most his moving around. It was a strange sort of coincidence that, whether true or not, made it seem like the traps were set to get us. And the very people we were sent to protect were out there setting them.

Those mines and traps worked on your mind. It was inevitable that at some time, after losing a few good friends, someone would go off and people would get hurt. In many cases it was women and children whose only obvious crime was that they were afraid us. They would hide from us in their shallow bunkers inside their grass houses. When they would not come out, they were often blown to pieces by a grenade that was rolled in on top of them. It turned out, according to the marines in charge, that they were all communist sympathizers although I could never tell the difference between communist sympathizers and those that may have been just scared to death. All I knew is my guts hurt really bad every time a child was dragged out.

I remember talking about this a couple of times at the little pub we visited whenever we were in back at our base area. It did not take long to figure out that those most willing to blow these people up were often the most religious, or at least, the ones that talked of God the most. We were after all, according to them, fighting the ungodly, atheistic Communists. Why I even heard Billy Graham’s quote a couple of times that either communism must die, or Christianity must die. From some I even heard that Communism was the Antichrist. Therefore just about anything was justified if it meant winning, even if it meant killing a few innocent children.

Killing however was not my MOS (Marine language for job). Mine, being an 8404 (Marine language for medic), was taking care of the health of people, Marine or Vietnamese, comrade or foe. One day my Lieutenant came to me and informed me that I was going out on what he called a Medcap. "We are here to win the hearts and souls of these people" he said "and more than anyone, Doc (every corpsman is called Doc), that’s your job."

With that said, I was escorted to a small village about a mile from our base camp with as many bandages, pills, and vaccines as I could carry. I was soon surrounded by women carrying and dragging children with every medical condition imaginable from insect bites to bleeding stumps of what was once a limb lost to ordnance. The biggest problem however was malnutrition, something my bandages, pills, or vaccines could do nothing for. So I did what I could with what I had but often found myself tortured by the fact that I could not do more. I felt like a witch doctor, giving out aspirins for the sake of making the villagers think something was actually done for them, when in fact nothing was. I prayed for divine intervention on these people’s behalf, but nothing changed. They would return the next time, still infected, bleeding, and starving. This was my first real lesson in population ecology and a testimony to the power of prayer that remains with me to this day.

It was during one of these Medcaps that the value of religion was again called into question, this time, however, from a religion outside of my own. While treating a group of children, a group of Buddhist Monks, baldheaded and wrapped in what appeared to be an orange sheet, walked barefooted into the village. Instantly, the children were pulled away from me and brought to the Monks. The Monks then proceeded with this ritualized process, burning incense and praying, after which they helped themselves to whatever meager food supply these people had and left.
From where I sat it all seemed like a bunch of Hokas-Pokas, a magic stunt show that lured in the gullible and hopeful and robbed them of what little they had. More importantly, it cost the children what they needed the most, their food. As an outsider it was easy to view this as a side show for I had not been raised to believe in their religion. As such, the only real value of what I saw was the prestige it gave the priests who in turn gave back nothing but false hopes and promises. With that realization, I felt tremors in the foundations of my own belief structure. I could not just leave what I saw there there. The side show I’d witnessed moved like an ameba engulfing my own belief structure. I soon found myself making parallels between what I saw in that alien religion and my own. I began asking myself "Could the deception that I saw in this alien religion be true of my own religion also?" The thought was deeply troubling.

The real shock came in October of 1967 however, an event that was to change my life forever. We were coming out the canopy west of Quang Tri when our company was ambushed by a well concealed, unknown size enemy force. In a matter of three minutes, we had lost our inter second platoon, much of the third platoon, and a portion of our command group. As the forward corpsman, I found myself going back along the trail to aid whoever I could. It became clear however that where the help was really needed was in the rear where the second platoon was nothing but a pile of bleeding bodies.

In the training that I had received to that point, in the case of mass causalities, the people that are cared for first are the people who have the best chance of survival. Those are the ones whose bleeding can be stopped fast and are able to be moved. So it was those that I focused my attention on.

I did notice however this one marine upside down, stuck in the brush like a yard dart. He was missing both legs from the hips down. He laid there with his bare flesh exposed like a piece of meat in a grocery story oozing blood. I gave him up for dead only to have him pop up alive in my arms, later. "Where the Hell have you been?" he asked. It was a Marine I knew. The guilt I experienced was crushing. I had no idea that he would still be alive and the fact that I knew this person was even worse. He had been waiting for me. And I let him down.

He wanted to know how the others were doing. Clearly he had no idea just how bad things were. The others, being his comrades and friends, were largely dead - so I lied. I told him they were doing fine. And he would be too. Everything would be just fine. But I knew he wouldn’t be just fine. I was out of all my first aid material. My morphine was gone. He was on his own, bleeding uncontrollably, dying in my arms.

Then the conversation took what I thought was a strange turn. I knew this man believed in God so I was expecting a prayer or something when he muttered something about God. But what I got was questions like "Why did God allow this to happen to him?" He was a good Christian. How is it God did not intervene on his behalf? Why did God have it in for him? I was stunned. I did not know what to say so I didn’t say anything. I just held him, and rocked him, until he died. But the thoughts that were going through my mind sent cold shutters to my inter most core. Not only was this man dying, he was dying believing that God had abandoned him, that God did not care about him, that God felt he was not worth saving. I could not imagine anything more horrible. I could not think of a worse way to die. Never had I seen religion from this negative perspective. Never had I ever turned the "God loves, protects, and cares for us" coin over, until this very moment, to see what was on the other side. And here it was.

I do not remember much after that. All I know is the sun went down and the sun came up. I do not remember if it was a dream but it seemed real. I felt I left my body that evening and for whatever reason ended up in the past, overlooking the fires of Gettysberg, before the first shot was fired. I’m not even going to try figure out what that meant, if it meant anything, or if it was even real. All I know is when I awake, or returned, or regained my sanity, everything was different. The world had taken on a whole new meaning. I no longer believe that the world was put here for however man decides to use it. The purpose man assigns to the world is self driven, largely from his self centeredness. It does not come from God. All was not right with the world, the world and life in it needs help which can only come from careful research and knowledgeable decisions. There is no guiding divine hand watching out over us. Work is not a curse. Work may be something that I must endure as a result of social norms and pressures but I won’t go to Hell if I refuse to. And the rulers who rule over me were not ordained by God. And there is no life after death, thus if I suffer in the present, I suffer in the only existence that I will ever know. Religion for me is over. I have been to religion’s darkest pit and never want to go back again. The chains were broken. I was free.

I have since answered many of the questions posed by religion. Where did I come from? I do not know. That is an acceptable answer now and one that leaves the door open to go look should the opportunity ever present itself. Religion slams the door on such basic questions since it claims to already have the answers. I do not know what might be out there somewhere, I can not prove the negative. But then it is not for me to prove the negative. Anyone can make up a story and if left to me to prove them all false, that is all I would get done. I know now that it is the job those who believe they know what is out there to show the rest of us.

What I do know is the Bible is a book of mythology. I have read mythology before and know mythology when I see it. That is why there are mythological creatures such as unicorns in the Bible. That is why plagues are caused by destroying angels. That is why Jesus could see the four corners of the earth standing on a mountain. This is not some slip in the wording, slang, or misinterpretation. This is because the people that wrote the Bible actually believed those things. Other mythological writers wrote of unicorns and the authors of the Bible believed them. They had no idea that plagues were caused by microscopic organisms so they guessed at what killed thousands of people, just like the authors of other mythological books. The world had four corners because no one knew it was round. And that is why, people can’t make sense out of the Bible today in any form that everyone else will agree to. It can’t be done because it’s not true.

I’ll even take that one step further. The Bible has been around for centuries not because of the truth it represents but because someone with power has much to gain from having the masses incorporate it into their beliefs. What ruler does not want his subjects to submit to them? I suspect that had something to do with why church was required in bootcamp. In Biblical times, whoever had the most people under them had the biggest dynasties and armies. That is why the first order handed down by this mythological God is "Be fruitful and multiply". That’s why the Bible makes such a big deal out of what might seem like little or nothing, such as the length of a man’s hair. Men, as warriors, with short hair have nothing for their enemy to grab onto in battle and hence the man with short hair has an advantage over a man with long hair? As for work, the curse of original sin, rulers are the primary beneficiary of work, having temples erected in their names on the backs of slaves and peasants. That’s why work appears so early in the Bible, because rulers wanted those under them to work. The mystery of the Bible has been solved for those whose minds are open enough to see.