This One Time, At Crazy Camp, I Was Fully Convinced God Exists

I enjoy engaging in philosophical debates about God and the meaning of life, and I've always been fascinated by the polarizing force of religious discourse. As an agnostic with atheist leanings, and a casual follower of Buddha, I've always considered the dubious existence of God as inconsequential to my unequivocal existence. Religion played almost no role in my childhood. When I was really young, my parents took me to church maybe five times a year and left me in daycare. I knew church as the place that wasn't my school where I played with strangers. By the time I was old enough to understand organized religion and the concept of God, probably around six or seven, my parents didn't go to church anymore. I knew my grandfather was raised Irish Catholic, but had disassociated himself with the Catholic Church long before I was born. I was aware my grandparents went to a church on occasion, but they never said anything that would identify them as believers. As I discovered in my early teens, they went to a Unitarian church, which explained their tendency to be ambiguous in matters of faith. Since the God issue was of such minor, peripheral importance in my family, I never gave it much thought and suppose I was agnostic by default. However, sometime in middle school, a catalyzing moment spurred my affinity for religious musing.

One summer night, while my friends and I were engaged in an existential discussion about the universe while gazing at the stars, the topic of religion segued into the conversation. While everyone was formulating as sophisticated an opinion as a 12 or 13-year old could on a decidedly adult topic, one of my friends succinctly proclaimed, "All religion has ever done is start wars." We all nodded in agreement, visibly embarrassed by our attempts to be scholarly and comprehensive when the conversation only required those eight words. Our focus immediately shifted back to the vastness of space. Since that defining moment, I've relished opportunities to discuss religion because that statement, hyperbolic as it may be, taught me that while religion may be inconsequential in my life, it has been the impetus for physical and ideological contention for 2,012 years. My views on religion and God have changed some since I was a teenager. Where I used to be strictly atheist and scoff believers, I'm now more open to traditional interpretations of God, and tolerant of the beliefs and practices of theists. Although my sacrilegious ways have been moderated over the years, I haven't once been convinced of the existence of God, not even for a moment. Until slightly over two years ago when I had a nervous breakdown.

The fall of 2009 was a noteworthy time in my life. I was working as a bike messenger in Washington, DC, where I had graduated school the previous spring (well, technically I only walked at graduation, but I digress). While I wasn't fond of some aspects of the bike messenger culture, it involved many elements that were already embedded in my "fresh-out-of-college" lifestyle: booze, weed, reckless endangerment, and a general disregard for authority. After a few months of indulging in dangerous amounts of all four of these things, I reached critical mass. By late December, I'd become delusional, socially withdrawn, and self-loathing. The day after Christmas, my Dad made an emergency trip down to DC to take me home and see a shrink. A few days later, I was involuntarily placed in a psychiatric ward, or 302'd, as doctors call it. I will save the full story behind this for another time, but basically you can't say things to a psychiatrist that would suggest you have criminal tendencies, even if it's in jest. Psychiatrists don't care about detecting sarcasm; they care about their legal obligation to fly you over the cuckoo's nest.

I spent two weeks in the psych ward and the majority of that time was spent under the spell of some powerful anti-psychotics. One night, while alone and drifting off into a maelstrom of chemically-altered reflection, I experienced what born-again Christians would call "seeing the light," and thereafter whole-heartedly believed in God. For about 6 weeks. The experience was similar to that "moment of clarity" scene in W. when Bush collapses while jogging after a night of binge drinking, has an intense bout with nauseating visions, and realizes he might find refuge from his transgressive behavior through God. I thought the unexpectedly chaotic and surreal period I recently experienced and the grandiose thoughts I was having were an act of God. I thought I'd become a medium of his. I even went so far as to believe I might be the second coming of his son. It was an indescribably bizarre and sublime turning point. I'd become a believer, and a fanatical one at that. Even in retrospect, I remember being uncharacteristically happy with the world during this fad. Everything seemed divine to me. I felt like I'd ascended to a higher vibrational plane, and perhaps even died and was in heaven. Soon enough though, the novelty began to wear off. More and more occurred that conjured up semblances of my former sacrilege. That and my acclimation to the goulash of meds I was prescribed afforded a less severe state of mental catatonia. Before long I deserted the God bandwagon and returned to worshipping the cosmos, Buddha, and Joe Pesci.

As illustrated by this story, it appears the only time in my life I sincerely believed in God was during a period I was certifiably insane. I wasn't psychotic, sociopathic, or otherwise dangerous, I was just harmlessly living on the fringe of reality. I'm not telling this story to ridicule believers and suggest they must be as loony as I was during that time. It's a cautionary tale. My experience confirmed what I'd long assumed about born-agains and those whose faith is realized later in life: their belief often stems from their darkest hour, a time in their life when they're downtrodden, guilt-ridden, desperate, and traumatized, and having exhausted their options, reach for something they never previously thought was there. It may seem like a sincere change of heart, but ultimately it's just a self-serving ascription to Pascal's theory. If God exists, I doubt he cares whether or not you believe in him. As long as you live righteously and abide by a noble moral code, you should have no problem gaining admittance through the pearly gates. If God is so capricious as to prove this assumption wrong, then I'd rather be in hell anyway.