My 9/11 Reflections as an Atheist...

So here we are, ten years later, and it is 9/11 again. So much has changed, and yet, so much has stayed the same, not only personally but nationally as well. The nation gathers to mourn, in every state and city we remember the pain and anger of that day. I remember where I was that morning. I was at work. I worked for Liberty National Life Insurance back then and that morning we were all in the office getting ready for our day when the first plane hit the first tower and we stood around the radio listening to the minute by minute updates. I remember stepping outside and trying to call my parents who were out of town and, of course, I was unable to reach them with phone lines being buried under all of the traffic. I remember I went to Walmart and stood in Walmart for a large portion of the day and cried while watching the carnage and destruction on the tvs there. In the aftermath of 9/11 I was as angry as the next person and I wanted blood and revenge. My brother went off to fight the war in Afghanistan. I tried joining the Navy but was too fat. (I tried telling them I wasn't overweight I was under height but they were not buying it!) I wanted to see those that brought about the carnage of 9/11 to pay. I do not regret the fact that I wanted those that had protected the Al Queda fanatics to be brought down and I do not believe I was wrong in wanting Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, to pay for his crimes but other things, my way of thinking and my way of looking at the world around me for example, have changed since that day 10 years ago...

Change for Growth

Changes in me...

One of the constants in life is that change has to happen. Even bad change is usually better than no change. When you are unable to change, unable to progress you grow stagnant and too often become complacent and there is no upward mobility and you eventually lose the desire to better yourself. At least bad change will hopefully make you see the need for better change and motivate you to make that change. When 9/11 happened I was pastoring a small Independant Fundamental Baptist church in Dalton, GA. I was a complete different person at that time. I was self righteous, I was a bigot, I was homophobic and many more things I am not proud of. I saw 9/11 as God's judgement on America and I preached it as such. I also preached against Islam, participating in the fear mongering as much as the next evangelical pastor I suppose.

Times change, however, somewhere along the line I began questioning things. When my marriage fell apart I resigned my pulpit and in anger walked out and began breaking every rule in the book just to piss God off. Adultery, drinking and smoking until I was put on church discipline and eventually removed from the church attendance roll. Having no more attachments somehow seemed to free me up to question things I had never questioned before. Starting with the veracity, validity and dependability of the Bible I began to tear down every foundation of faith my life had been built on. As my foundation crumbled beneath the load of facts and reason, I found myself lost and without direction and, frankly, it took some time to find some sort of balance in my life. During this time I made a lot of bad decisions I am not proud of but I eventually began to get it together. Today I find myself more at peace with myself and with my life...and I guess that is really all a person can really ask for.

Changes in the world around me...

As a nation we became more defense minded than ever and became involved in several wars on different fronts. Many of these conflicts, in my opinion, were none of our business and cost us more money and more lives than were necessary. Somewhere along the way, I am afraid, as a nation we lost sight of the sanctity of any lives other than our own. In our obsession with revenge we exacted not only the lives of those that caused the damage but many innocent lives in the process as well. We justify this by stating how much better off those nations are now and we say whatever we need to to help us sleep at night but in the end as a nation we lost our innocence, which was inevitable, but ultimately we lost our good intentions and our good will and in many cases our common sense. After our initial unification immediately following 9/11 we became a nation even more divided than ever. As the economy continues to falter and the culture becomes even more confused and deblitated the answers being proposed become even more erratic and irrational.

The more things change, the more things stay the same....

Today as I watched the 9/11 ceremonies it occured to me how much things have not changed. Rudy Giulianni read from Ecclesiastes and President Obama read from Psalms. People still talked about God and how he was their refuge. They spoke how this was one nation under God. I heard so much about God today it nearly nauseated me. Where was God on September 11, 2000 when those planes were crashing into the Towers? And which God are we talking about? To hear it told from the side of the radicals in Islam "God" was in those planes raining down judgement on the infidels. We are supposedly "one nation under God" yet how can we hold to that plattitude when it was while this nation was supposedly "UNDER God's" watch that almost 3,000 people were killed in his name..wait..not him..Allah..which is Arabic for God, but apparantly isn't really God. We still are determined as a nation to hang onto the flimsy superstitions that have done nothing but provide a crutch, an escape to keep from facing the realities of an evolving world around us. The reality that the superstitions of religion are what brought us 9/11 in the first place. That the inability to move beyond those superstitions have made it impossible to move beyond that day. And the reality that we are fools to trust in a God that does not exist and can do nothing to prevent future catstrophes unless we take the time, courage and actions to prevent it ourselves. We have to see that if we are to be one nation it will only be after we move beyond these superstitions that promote the very divisiveness that plagues our nation now.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” Epicurus