I
’m not religious — but I like to pretend I am.
Sometimes, when I’m alone, I like to watch “It’s A
Wonderful Life” or “What Dreams May Come” and
believe, if only for a few hours, that someday my reality
will suddenly melt away and an angel will come visit me
and show me all the mistakes I could make, or maybe
I’ll be hit by a car and I’ll wake up in a painting and soar
around the sky with Robin Williams and I’ll meet every-
one I love again.
All my family and
their friends and my
ex-girlfriends
and
their boyfriends will
be there and we’ll
all love each other
without
anger
or
sadness or jealousy,
because it will just
work. We’ll all fuck
and dance and eat
and drink and watch
the stars in the sky
and feel the water on
our toes. Maybe we’ll
all look like we’re 21,
or maybe we’ll look
however we damn
well please and we
won’t have to worry
about that anymore.
Maybe
we’ll
be
able to rewind time.
Maybe all those for-
gotten
memories,
where I cuddled with
a girl or danced in a
puddle or put togeth-
er a puzzle with my
grandma, will all be
back and clear as day.
Maybe it’ll all make
sense: why there’s
something instead of
nothing, why I, back
down on Earth, got
to listen to Rubber
Soul and be stung by
a bee and do pretend-
karate and clean the
dirt off of my kitchen
floor.
I mean, I deserve
that,
I
think.
I
haven’t
been
the
most charitable per-
son and I haven’t
always
been
the
best friend to every-
one, but I did all
my schoolwork and
I never killed anybody. Maybe when I’m clutching the
sheets of that hospital bed at age 79 or twitching under
those truck tires at age 23 I won’t feel any pain. Because
maybe I’ll already have left my body, and maybe it’ll be
like sliding down a waterslide but going up, up, up.
Once, I read some article on VICE or somewhere
about a group of people that made an atheist church. I
remember in the pictures the speakers smiled, and the
congregation danced and laughed. One of the speakers
talked about how happy he was just to be alive and how
he was happier not buying into anyone’s doctrine.
I wish I could be like those people. But I don’t think
I can. I don’t think I could even be one of those smarmy
“enlightened” atheists who people on Reddit like to
make fun of. I think becoming an atheist was the worst
thing that’s ever happened to me.
It’s not like I wanted to be a non-believer. I don’t want
to think, like Brenda from “Six Feet Under” did, that
death is just “dreamless sleep forever and ever.” It’s not
like I wanted to picture myself rotting under the ground,
maggots crawling from my arms and legs and my dick
falling off. I don’t want my relatives who were slaugh-
tered in the Holocaust to have just died.
I didn’t decide to stop believing — it just happened. I
can tell you exactly when it did: I was nearly passed out
on the floor of my friend’s dorm room at Michigan State,
high on dabs and drunk on Hams and Admiral Nelson,
and something about the way the room swirled or my
head throbbed or my stomach churned made me feel like
I was there, I was inches from that eternal black void,
that maybe I wasn’t that Young Adult novel protago-
nist after all, that maybe I was going to die right then
and there, sprawled out in
fucking East Lansing next
to expired condoms and a
DVD copy of “Pirates of
the Caribbean.”
For me, being an atheist
isn’t fun or rewarding or
enlightening in any way.
It sucks. It’s definitely not
“freeing,” like some people
say. Sure, I guess I don’t
have to wake up early on
Sunday. I can masturbate
without thinking about
the moral implications of
doing so. OK — not hav-
ing to worry about Hell is
pretty nice.
But for the most part,
not believing just feels
claustrophobic. I’m in a
mental prison of my own
making, and I’m holding
the key, but I just can’t fit
it in the lock. It makes me
hate the sack of bones and
brains and fatty tissue in
which my consciousness
is stuck.
As an atheist, all I can
see are little asterisks
everywhere. These things
I’m experiencing, these
conversations and sunsets
and bugs and birds and
burritos, they matter to
me, but they don’t really
matter. Not to the sun or
the stars or the universe
slowly dying a heat death.
You can tell because of the
asterisks, those black Ann
Arbor crows that dot those
sunsets, those little stains
of piss on your underwear,
that homeless guy, sitting
in front of NYPD, who
you might eventually give
some of your PlayStation
money.
If you’re reading this
and you believe in something, hold onto that heaven or
reincarnation or subjective reality or whatever it is for as
long as you can. Losing your religion is like losing every-
thing. I would trade my doubt for your belief any day of
the week if I could.
So, believe. Believe as hard as you can. Trust me — I
would if I could.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016 // The Statement
6C
Personal Statement: The Reluctant Atheist
by Jacob Rich, Senior Arts Editor
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA