On Becoming an Atheist During the Pandemic

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I’ve gone through quite a large paradigm shift during the pandemic – I no longer believe in a higher power or afterlife.

Time in the pandemic is strange and bendy, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say it was about four months after self-isolation began in mid-March 2020. I just turned to my husband and said “I think…I don’t believe in a higher power anymore.” It was not something I agonized over or researched extensively although I think I’ve been inching towards this conclusion for years now.

I’m not sure what caused the final push exactly but I would conjecture that the pandemic laid the truth of the situation out so clearly in front of me that I could no longer ignore it. I’ve never experienced something that was so completely out of my control and endangered my life and the lives of my loved ones on such an ongoing basis. Normally, if I’m in a situation that is dangerous, I’ll leave (I am aware of the privilege here). There is no leaving this pandemic; there is no ignoring it or pretending it will go away if I just live my life and ‘trust god’. The science is clear and unwavering on this.

I think many people, when faced with that lack of control, chose to lean towards their faith and belief in a higher power. For me, it was quite different – I leaned more towards science and released my belief in a higher power. And I would guess that the hordes of people blatantly ignoring the science during a pandemic to go on and endanger others while saying “god will protect us” probably contributed a bit to my choice.

At the same time, I also realized that I no longer believed in many of the pseudosciences I had previously advocated for and enthusiastically partaken in or even studied. When faced with Covid-19, these pseudosciences could do nothing and it was dangerous to think that an unproven herbal supplement would protect me.

These realizations were quite a monumental shift for me and it caused me great anxiety for about two months. Many of the tools that I had used to comfort myself emotionally were gone. I was raised Catholic and was quite devout in high school and early college, even going so far as to attend a Catholic university to study theology while simultaneously becoming a youth minister at my local church. There were even many months that I wondered if I was being ‘called’ to become a nun. Then I realized that the patriarchal and homophobic mentality of the Catholic Church no longer fit for me (the big pedophilia story hadn’t come out yet). So I spent the next many years drifting from one Pagan-esque, New Age idea to the next, even ignorantly dabbling in some cultural appropriation (I’m so sorry) but then eventually settling on the idea of the ‘Divine’ and ‘Energy’ and using tarot cards once in a while. This was my vague belief in the ‘divine’ until…one day, it wasn’t. After the two painful months of adjusting, it was actually incredibly freeing to release this belief that had comforted me over the years.

Then, to my surprise, I realized that, overall, I was actually LESS anxious. Releasing my belief in a higher power and pseudosciences had released an entire layer of worry and stress that I had been carrying around. No longer did I wonder: “Am I doing the ‘right’ thing?” “Is this fulfilling my life’s purpose?” “Is there a dark spirit in that closet or is it just drafty?” “Will holding onto this anger give me cancer?” “Am I on the right ‘path’?” “Should I be getting Reiki treatments?” “Are my dead grandparents’ spirits watching me when I have sex?” I had freed myself from imaginary monsters and ailments and could deal with the world as it was, real and present in front of me, with science by my side. Instead of trying to treat my seasonal allergies with herbs and honey (neither of which have been scientifically proven to help), I took cetirizine hydrochloride (as my doctor had suggested) and found out that I wasn’t actually tired all the time – it was just untreated allergies! And my sinus issues not only never developed into something more serious but went away because I was actually treating my allergies now. And I no longer see “sending healing energy” as a viable response to a crisis or a problem; scientifically proven action is now my go-to response.

So now I’m many months into being an atheist although I’ve only recently embraced the term, preferring agnostic until I was able to accept that I am in, in fact, an atheist. Atheists are a minority in the U.S. and so many people wonder how we find meaning in our lives without a higher power. The truth is, I make my own meaning and I am now free to choose how I want to live my life instead of adhering to what I think a higher power wants me to do. And I feel even MORE compelled to live my life to the fullest and effect positive change in this world. There is no longer this ‘afterlife’ that would allow me to continue living. THIS IS IT. There is no do over for me. There is no extra time with my family in a heavenly abode. There is no ‘more’ and there is no guarantee. Because I no longer believe a higher power is protecting me or my family, I know this life or theirs can be taken away from me at any moment. So I’m living it as best as I can and as fully as I can because I now see clearly that I only get this one shot and I’m sure as science not gonna waste one second of it.