By the time I arrived in Jordan I decided to test the benefit of at least one Bedouin tradition, growing a beard. In the hot, dry desert air it was like having a radiator on my face, so I kept it while I was there. Once I got to Cancun, I found that it was quite stifling in the humidity, but I decided to keep it as a symbol of my struggle. When I walked out of that room on July 16, 2007 my struggle was over, my cognitive dissonance had come to a close, I was finally at peace, so I shaved off my beard.

Since it would have cost more to change my flight than it would have to stick around, I decided to take advantage of the two weeks I still had in Cancun to check out some of the archaeological sites in the Yucatan, relax on the beach, and check out the bar and club scene.

As I left that tropical paradise to return to the real world, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do with my life. I still wanted to make a difference in the world and thought that the best way to do that would be to get into politics. I did some research on a how a few governors and senators got to where they are and as expected I found that most either went through law or business. The route for lawyers was pretty quick, but for businessmen was much slower and more gradual. Since I left my entire life behind as a result of my integrity, I figured that law probably wasn’t the way to go, at least not if I wanted to make any money.

When I got back to Michigan I had four positions that I had to resign, student dean in the residence halls, president of the Chaplains Club, Deputy Commander for Cadets of the local Civil Air Patrol unit, and sabbath school teacher at a local church. I then finished up my final assignments from the summer’s course work, sold a bunch of stuff, packed up and made the 2200 mile trek back to Oregon.

Three weeks after I returned to the Northwest I had a job offer for an entry level management position with the company I still work for. I’m also happy to say that I am still more or less on track with my career. It’s perfect for now, but at some point I still would like to go into politics and/or be a professional writer. This is knowing full well the fact that it is virtually impossible for an atheist to get elected. That’s something that will hopefully change soon.

Let’s return to July 16, 2007 to look at another aspect of the rest of my story. Since I had little exposure to the theories of natural selection and abiogenesis, I still felt a need for a god of the gaps. Initially I identified myself as a post-Christian theist, but after a few weeks I settled on the more conventional identifier of deist.

While I thought that all of the world’s religions were false, it seemed like there might be some value in where they agreed, regardless of the source, whether it be through rare moments of divine inspiration or human reasoning.  About all there is to find is some version of the Golden Rule and the possibility of an afterlife. I did not think that divine inspiration was likely, after all the Golden Rule is perfectly rational and I thought the concept of an afterlife was probably based on wishful thinking.

I did still pray on occasion. I sometimes found myself slipping into that old habit when I would go to bed completely exhausted or drunk. There was also one occasion involving peer-pressure.

In early 2008 I realized that my picture of “God” was nothing more than a god of the gaps. I wondered why I felt the need to define the unknown as a divine being. Finally I accepted the very humbling position of not needing to have an answer for everything. I had become an agnostic.

I tried to find some articles on agnostic ethics and just generally how agnostics view the world around them. What I found was http://atheism.about.com, a collection of articles for atheists and agnostics. On this site I found some good articles on humanism as well as some basic information that cleared up some of the misconceptions I had about abiogenesis and natural selection.

In the archives I found an article that addressed the difference between atheist and agnostic. The two answer different questions. If you lack a belief in a god or gods then you are an atheist. If you are unsure of the existence a god or gods then you are an agnostic. I certainty didn’t know for sure if there was any higher power out there, but I sure didn’t believe in one either.

This was a horrifying thought. I had grown up equating atheists with communists, but found that this fallacy was simply McCarthy era propaganda. I also thought that atheists made an arrogant claim that they KNEW that there was no god, a claim that is made by only a negligible few. By early spring 2008 I had accepted that I was an atheist and no longer saw any reason to use the softer, more politically correct moniker, agnostic.

I was again afraid of what others might think of my beliefs or lack thereof, not surprising considering my earlier misconceptions of atheists. I could no longer give the answer that I believed in God but wasn’t religious, an answer that in the Northwest pretty much ends the discussion. But to admit to somebody that I don’t believe in God…

Coming out of the closet as an atheist was a slow process. I wasn’t going to advertise it, but if somebody asked I would answer. This came up a few times and people didn’t seem too horrified by it, although a few did caution me about telling others. This made me more comfortable with it, but  even though I have at least one brother who shares my disbelief, I still felt alone in my atheism.

In May 2009 I started listening to the Atheist News podcast and soon also started listening to the Chariots of Iron. Even without direct communication, these podcasts helped me feel a sense of community. I’ve exchanged emails with them several times, joined them for bar crawls in Portland, and I was recently interviewed for an upcoming show.

On one of those first few shows I listened to one of them mentioned that if you are an atheist yet still on the books of a church that you should drop your membership. This made sense, besides I was getting tired of receiving Adventist publications in the mail, especially since they followed me with each of my three address changes and nobody got the hint. It was time to be direct, so I emailed the church where my membership was held and formally resigned my membership with the Seventh-day Adventist Church on May 23, 2009. If they had resisted I was prepared to inform them that I met five of the seven grounds for removal of membership found in the church manual. They didn’t press the issue and took my request to the next business meeting.

While I am very openly an atheist I obviously don’t flaunt it at work, but it still comes up sometimes. By this point I think that almost my entire staff knows, not surprisingly a few have told me that they are also atheist or otherwise non-theists. I know my regionals and possibly those a few echelons above them also know. Recently I even had a colleague, after a few too many drinks at a company meeting, out me as an atheist to several Mormon colleagues. You know what, nobody cares. I know that some of the more devout are worried about my soul, but that has only been expressed on a select few appropriate occasions.

It was a long road from theology student and seminarian to being an atheist who is completely open about it, but by now you know why I’m an atheist.