Truth

Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines.

• Captain Ahab - Moby Dick, Chapter 36

I want truth. I need truth. I have a psychological, possibly pathological, drive for consistency, for Consilience. My world is not split into separate spheres, with one for spiritual matters, another for scientific, and a third for community. Nonoverlapping Magisteria is for weasels like Stephen Jay Gould who want to avoid conflict by papering over meaningful disagreement. Everything has to fit, or something is wrong. The world is not self-inconsistent, and claiming that the existence of miracles is not a meaningful historical claim is simply false.

In some cases, such mismatches are unavoidable. I do not know how to fit our best theories of the very large (gravity) with those of the very small (quantum physics). No one does. This bothers me, but it is not something I can do much about. But where I can, I do. I must. It’s not a choice, it’s how my mind works.

Let’s start with religion. I do not have the credentials of Monte Mader, but I do know the Bible better than 99% of people, most pastors included. I was raised in the WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) denomination, with a belief in the literal, infallible truth of the Bible. After retiring from the Air Force, my dad went to Martin Luther College and became a teacher in the same synod. He was my teacher for his first two years, covering fifth and sixth grade. If I had not made it into the Air Force Academy, I would have gone there to become a pastor.

I went to church (and Sunday school or Bible study) every Sunday. I read the Bible damn near every day, starting around 10 years old and continuing beyond the point where I was no longer Christian at 28 years old.

I lived by the Bible, to the best of my ability. I gave at least 10% of my income to the church. My sponsor while I was at the Air Force Academy was the pastor of the local WELS church in Colorado Springs. When I left, I gave a donation of $6000.

I sacrificed for my belief in other ways. I didn’t take revenge, even when I was sure to get away with it, because: “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19 - I was raised with NIV, and will use that version here.)

I passed on sex, even when it was explicitly on the table, because “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4). I tried, quite literally, to beat the lust of out myself, because “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28) and “if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell” (Matthew 18:9).

I’m not telling you any of this to say I’m better than other people, as I now regret many of those decisions, but to show that I did not just give lip service to the Bible. I was so delusional about it that I thought everyone was that way. I thought that the people having sex before marriage were a small minority, despite all four of my sisters having kids before they were married.

With all of this, I still left Christianity. Why? Because IT’S NOT TRUE. That is the single reason. It did not even occur to me until roughly 2 years later that anyone could have a different reason (community, comfort, etc.) for belonging to a religion. Almost every deconversion story I’ve now heard started with a breakdown in one of those other reasons, and if the truth ever became an issue, it was secondary at best.

No, fuck that. It’s true, and I’m in. Or it’s not, and I’m out.

I do realize this is a position only available through privilege. To say “only truth matters” and disparage community. I can do that, because it’s available to me both psychologically and in terms of resources. Whether just natural temperament, or a mismatch between myself and others (also called “autism”, but I didn’t know that until I was 31), I’ve never been social. So long as I’ve got my partner, I could piss off literally everyone else in my life, and I’d be fine. I’m financially secure, and that provides a lot of freedom.

As I write this on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I do see and acknowledge the positive possibilities of religion. In terms of truth claims, King was not really a Christian. Among other pillars, he didn’t believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus, which is a cornerstone of the faith: “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

Yet he was a fantastic Christian in one core aspect. “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:4). He lived that. I will never stand here with my white privilege and criticize the things he did to resist oppression, to inspire hope in people, to draw out the better nature of the nation.

But I couldn’t do that. I could not put truth aside and claim to be Christian for any other reason. Is that the best outlook? Probably not. But it’s one of the few firm parts of mine. Nothing is sacred, but truth is close.