Why I Am No Longer an Atheist

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
-Albert Einstein

For most of my high school years, I was a self-proclaimed atheist. While I considered myself a Jew culturally, after spending years in Hebrew School learning what felt like little more than ritual chants, I very quickly became disillusioned with the spiritual aspect of my culture. I was further impacted by the world political climate. When I saw how much Evangelical Christians impacted George Bush’s reelection in 2004, my anger towards all organized religions (as irrational as it seems in hindsight) grew tremendously. I also noted how so many of the world’s conflicts have been religiously motivated. The combination of all these things made me feel resentful towards religion as a whole. When one looks at the state of the world now, it is very easy to feel this way; especially when he is young. Lastly, I was under the impression that scientific evidence was in direct contradiction with scripture. I tended to look upon religious people as superstitious and foolish. My philosophy was that man just happened to be on Earth without purpose or meaning. However, this bleak outlook on life was pretty understandable considering the lack of motivation I had in my life to be spiritual.

I feel that spirituality is not something that can be truly taught; only experienced. In religious school, one can learn the stories of the Bible, how to pray, the laws and morals of his respective faith; but he cannot learn God. He can go through the motions his entire life, pray every night, go to Church or Synagogue, donate his money to his religious institution; but routine is not the same as spirituality. A spiritual experience comes from a connection with whatever higher power you perceive. I believe this higher power to be a single omnipotent God, but how you view this power is unimportant. When Siddhartha Gautama meditated under the Bodhi tree, and achieved nirvana after forty-nine days, that was a spiritual experience. While some might not connect with their spiritual selves in the same way that I do, it is better to make those connections in their own ways than to just practice a routine. I am not going to criticize the doctrines of faiths that say otherwise, but I believe that how a person connects with God is personal; not dogmatic.

My own spiritual experience occurred this past winter when I went to Israel. I had originally gone on the trip to learn more about the history and culture of my people. Since the trip I had decided to go on was decidedly secular, I did not come seeking any sort of spiritual fulfillment. In the final part of the excursion my group traveled to Jerusalem. This inevitably brought us to the Western Wall; the holiest site in Judaism. We were given half an hour at the wall to do as we pleased. As I entered the main area, the site was astounding. Jews from all over the world were gathered at the wall, deep in prayer. While I had not originally intended to pray at the wall, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to do so. I do not know what my motivation was, but I needed to pray. One of the customs at the wall is to write a prayer on a slip of paper, and slip it through one of the cracks in the wall, so I decided to follow suit. On my slip of paper, I scribbled down the first prayer that came to mind. One that every Jew who has ever been through Hebrew School has said so many times it is second nature: “Shema Yisrael. Adonai Eloheinu. Adonai Echad. Hear O Israel! The Lord is God! The Lord is One!” However, there was a difference. When I used to say that prayer in Synagogue, it was because we were at the part of the service where you are supposed to chant it. When I was writing it out at the wall, I felt every word, and I knew it was true. After I slipped my paper through a crack in the wall, I put my head against the wall in silent prayer. My surroundings seemed to fade away. An incredible power coursed through my body. There was nobody there except for me and God. He was all around me, but part of me at the same time. It felt like an eternity, but was probably less than a minute. When I ceased prayer, I felt weak but cleansed. I noticed there were tears running down my cheeks. The whole rest of the day, I was dazed, and everything seemed surreal to me.

I am sure some people are going to read this and believe that I am either lying, certifiably insane, or actually describing an acid trip (hopefully not the third. I would like to think that my readers have a little bit more faith in me than that). I assure you that I am in no way exaggerating my experience to make it sound more dramatic than it actually was. As for me being insane, I used to think that people who described experiences like this were insane too. However, everybody that I talked to directly afterwards described a similar experience. Unless there was some sort of psychedelic drug permeating from the cracks in the wall, I cannot think of how else something like that could happen. I finally understood how so many people find solace and strength in prayer or meditation. Once one has had that first spiritual experience, the way that he perceives the world is forever changed. After my experience, I could go on pretending that I believe the world is meaningless, but then I would be denying something that I know deep down must be true. If our lives are meaningless, then why do we bother living at all?