by Dan Riley
A turn of events in my life challenged my distancing from faith. When I was 10, my family moved out to a rural section of Rhode Island, and we lived there for only a year. While we were there, my mom became mentally ill and very depressed. She developed symptoms of psychosis. She stopped eating altogether, lost a lot of weight, and was very unhealthy. It was scary; I was worried about her and my whole family. I remember feeling hopeless. With nowhere else to turn, I decided to pray. When nothing happened for an entire year, I felt lied to, betrayed. I realized, finally, that God isn’t helping us because God doesn’t exist.
I have always gotten very upset by things that I see as unfair, and because of that, I’ve always been very sensitive. In fifth grade, for example, my class and I were learning about the history of slavery in America. I was in the back of the room crying. Other kids in my class were teasing me about it because they thought I was kind of silly for crying, but I couldn’t help being emotional about it. Then again in eighth grade, I learned about the Holocaust, and I had the same reaction. At one point, during my own independent research, I learned about Hitler being a Catholic and wanting to become a priest. I wasn’t taught that in school. In my youth I had always been taught to view religious people as the good charity-doers. I hadn’t been exposed to a darker side of it. The Holocaust involved religion. I think that made me start to realize that being religious doesn’t necessarily lead to virtuous behavior.
I grew up in a very religious, Catholic area, and I was aware that if I “came out” as an atheist I would probably be ostracized by a lot of my peers. For a long time, I really didn’t tell anyone. I lied to people, and I told them that I was Christian. I was kind of a dork, and I didn’t want to lose the few friends that I did have.
In my middle school years, I met my friend Taylor. When I first met her, she was very religious, very Catholic. Once, I was at her house, and we were having a sleepover. I was a full-blown atheist at that point, but I hadn’t told her that. Instead of painting nails or doing makeup, I grabbed her computer and went online. I brought up this website GodIsImaginary.com. I started to show it to her. When we were looking at it together, she was very curious, and I was glad to see that she was. A month after that, she declared herself an atheist. My other friend, Alex, who I met between seventh and eighth grade, was, at first, kind of religious. We started talking more about religion, and over time, she also realized that she was an atheist. That was pretty awesome for me. It made me feel a little bit safer. Those are my two best friends, and I’ve been very lucky to have them.
I am also incredibly lucky to have been born at this period in time with the internet, being a kid, growing up, and questioning things. It has allowed me to find many influential resources. For most of my life, I didn’t know that other atheists existed. I thought that my family and I were the only ones out there.
The rest of my story begins at the very end of my freshmen year of high school. My friend Taylor was in the auditorium of our school and saw a school prayer banner. She told me about it, and I ran down to take a look. I was in shock; I never knew it was there. The banner asks God to help the school and allow all of us to do well and get along with one another. It ends with the word “amen.” It’s a positive message, but it’s asking God to let us do things rather than asking us to do them ourselves. I was intimidated by it.
I immediately asked my dad if it was legal; he said that he didn’t think so. When I got home from school, I started talking about it more. I imagined that such religious displays might happen in the South or years ago, but not in my school, not today. I remember doing some research online to see if other cases like this had happened in the past because I wanted to know what to do. I wanted to say something. I wanted to go to the administration. But I was also quite scared because most people in my community assume that people are religious unless they say otherwise. I was still considering my options when school let out. I was curious about it all summer. In July, I found out that there was a parent who had sent a complaint to the ACLU about the prayer. The ACLU had asked the school to remove it, and the school, in response, put together a subcommittee to decide what to do.
The first meeting I attended was in November of 2010. I was under the impression that I was going to go and that the meeting was really just a formality, which they had to have because of technicalities. I assumed that the subcommittee would realize that the banner was illegal and take it down. I thought that I was just going as an observer. I was planning to speak if I felt the need to, but I didn’t really want to. I’ve always been incredibly shy.
At the meeting, my jaw dropped. Most of the people there wanted the prayer to stay. They were saying, “We need to have God.” Some people were saying, “It’s not even a prayer.” Other people were saying, “It includes all monotheistic religions.” Other people were saying, “It’s historic.” I was stunned. I thought the grownups would know that it was illegal and know what to do. I spoke that night. When I did, I stood up, and for the first time in my life, I publicly said that I was an atheist. I hadn’t previously told most of my classmates; none of my teachers knew. I said, “As an atheist student, this prayer is discriminating against me.“ Someone gasped. Other people started whispering. At one point during the meeting, I stood to speak again, and when I sat down, the former nominee for the Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island, Kara Russo, called me a witch under her breath. At the end of the meeting, the subcommittee agreed that they needed to have another meeting because they hadn’t come to a solution. After the meeting, I was on the news. I remember getting in the car afterward and feeling really overwhelmed because it went completely differently than I had expected.
After being on the news, in school it was a little weird, but at that point it didn’t seem like it would be a big deal. A lot of people still didn’t even know about the prayer controversy. I had created a Facebook group in support of removing the prayer. After I was on television, there were 150 people in the group. Most people joined and said, “I’m an atheist, thank you for doing this.” It was very encouraging because I really hated the meeting. I didn’t want to go back to another one, but I planned to do so. I felt sick every time I thought about it.
The next meeting was in February 2011. That meeting was much bigger. We had to use a different room than was originally reserved because there were so many people, and the original room couldn’t accommodate everyone. The overwhelming majority of people there were in favor of keeping the prayer. They showed up led by former candidate for mayor of Providence, Chris Young, and his fiancée, Kara Russo. They are two of the most passionate Catholics I have ever known. At the first meeting Kara had repeatedly said that people needed God in their life, that they didn’t want to be on the wrong side. They made me realize that people really are trying to put religion into our government; people really are trying to infiltrate our secularity. To me, that’s scary, because as an atheist, I fear for how they would change the country.
There was a massive amount of prayer support. All the prayer banner supporters showed up with paper and string signs around their necks that read “Keep Original Banner.” They were really angry. They didn’t like atheists; they started yelling about the “atheist’s agenda.” They were criticizing atheists and saying that I was a puppet. I felt belittled and scared. I expected them to act a bit more civilly, especially toward a 15-year-old. I wanted to leave, go home, and cry for awhile.
At one point during the meeting, people were saying that if I had a problem with God, I should go to a different school, which was really frustrating for me because Cranston High School West is a public school. If people want God in school, then they should go to a private school; no atheist really cares about that. No one wants to take that right away. I was trying to say that what was happening with the prayer banner is illegal. I wasn’t trying to speak out as an atheist per se, but they kind of turned it into a religious war.
At the end of that meeting, the subcommittee decided to have yet another meeting. The n
ext meeting was in March and was even bigger than the last one had been. We had maybe 10 people in support of removing the prayer, with over 100 people there who wanted to keep the prayer in my school. It was very difficult for me to speak in front of those people. When the prayer supporters got up to speak, they wouldn’t just argue about keeping the prayer. They would say things about atheists, how bad they are, how atheists have an agenda, and that we’re socialists. At one point one woman went up to speak, and she told everyone to take out a dollar bill. She took out a dollar bill and said, “Hold it to your head. I want everyone in this room who doesn’t believe in God to rip it in half.” When none of us did, she said that was proof that the prayer should stay, emphasizing that In God We Trust is on the money. I still don’t really understand what her point was.
At the fourth meeting, the vote was held. The result was a vote of four to three in favor of keeping the prayer and fighting the ACLU. I remember at the first meeting the superintendent had said, “If you want to pray, maybe you should go to church. I’m a Catholic. I go to church every Sunday, and I see a lot of empty pews around me.” I was on board with that. I thought that was pretty cool. No one’s trying to take away religion; we’re just trying to separate religion from public schools. He seemed to be on the side of taking it down, but when it was his turn to vote he said, “I think that the prayer should stay; we need it there” and voted to keep it in the school. It seemed like the majority was scaring him and making him think that he wouldn’t get reelected if he didn’t vote to allow the banner to remain. That was a common theme with others on the subcommittee. They had started off rather neutral.
The ACLU then asked me to follow through with a lawsuit. They said, “If you would like to become a plaintiff in the case, we will represent you.” When I got that e-mail, I knew that I was going to say yes. It was important to me. It didn’t really matter that I would probably be facing a lot of hate for it. I wanted to do it because it seemed to me like the right thing to do. I’m not 18, so I needed a parent to give me permission. My dad said that it was entirely up to me, that this was a big decision, and that I could do it if I wanted to, but there shouldn’t be any pressure on me. After I said yes, I started to feel like it would be my fault if the school lost a lot of money defending the lawsuit. In the end, I decided to go through with it because I felt as though it was the school’s fault. They decided to keep the prayer. They could have taken it down, and they wouldn’t have had to deal with the lawsuit. It has taken a lot of time, a lot of energy, but it has definitely been worth it.
There’s one story that I must share. My school has a week every year called “Diversity Week,” and during this week, there are assemblies run by students who manage the whole thing. During the time of the prayer banner controversy, the mayor came. He’s Chinese-American. He gave a talk about minorities and how they’re often discriminated against. He talked about how even though he is a minority, he has been able to be successful. It was a nice little talk. At the end, there was a question and answer session. One student got the mic and asked, “Mayor Fung, how do you feel about the prayer in our school?” When I heard the question, I was a little bit nervous and surprised that the question had even been asked. He pointed to the prayer banner and said, “I want to see the prayer stay exactly where it is!” He was very dramatic and passionate as he pointed to it. Everyone in the auditorium jumped up and started cheering and clapping and moving and screaming. I wanted to run out of the room and cry because it seemed like I was the only person sitting down who didn’t like what he had said. People started looking at me, and I felt like such a freak. It was awful. The mayor didn’t seem to care that I was quite possibly in the room; he didn’t seem to have any concern for how I felt. It was also hurtful that none of the teachers came over to see if I was okay. Everyone seemed so happy that the mayor was on their side. I also found it very ironic that he was there talking about the discrimination of minorities, while saying that he thinks that the discriminatory prayer banner should stay in the school, hurting the feelings of atheists and other non-Christians who felt like they didn’t belong. I think the incident actually ended up making me a bit stronger, a bit tougher.
There were other difficult occurrences that related to the prayer banner, too. On Facebook, students from my school began adding me as their friend just so that they could harass me. At one point, I posted a video about how our nation’s history is secular and how elements of today’s government discriminate against atheists and other people who don’t believe in a traditional Christian God. One kid started freaking out; he posted a bunch of material, including an Edward Currant video. Edward Currant satirically portrays a Christian. I asked, “Do you realize that Edward Currant is sarcastic? He’s actually an atheist.” That sparked an enormous argument of 200 or 300 comments in which this person and a bunch of his friends were calling me the worst names I’ve ever been called in my life. They were saying that no one wants me in the school and that I should just leave. He said that if I knew what his opinion of me was, I would kill myself. The next day the same kid said that other people who hadn’t commented but had viewed the whole thread had told him that he had done a great job.
Overall, this whole ordeal has changed me. Before this, I never would have considered myself an activist, someone who would speak up about these subjects. I have always been terrified of public speaking: I almost puked when I had to give a presentation to 20 members of my third grade class about the state of Georgia. This, obviously, has been a bit more intense.
There’s a huge difference in who I was a couple years ago and who I am now. I feel better. I feel like I have a lot more real friends. I feel much more comfortable speaking out and being open about my atheism. I think it’s paying off. I remember feeling entirely hopeless and alone after the first meeting. I found out that there’s a whole community of atheists and that there’s a movement. The people who rallied behind me have been amazing. The fact that I knew that I was speaking up not only for myself but for other people as well changed everything. That made it worth fighting.
Even though I’ve gone through some hardships, I don’t think I’m getting colder. I know I’m still the same person that I have always been. I just understand more now. I would never go back to being religious. When I was younger, I remember feeling confused every time I thought about the universe or God. Everything’s much clearer now. I have more confidence. For the first time, I can say that I don’t care about what other people think and genuinely mean it. I don’t intentionally avoid situations where I will be surrounded by people who disagree with me. I have plenty of friends, lots of support, and I know what I’m doing is right. That makes it all much easier.
Note: Since Jessica’s interview for this book, a federal judge ruled the prayer banner in Cranston High School West to be unconstitutional.
III.
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Michael Amini — Michael’s Story
“Keep on working now, child.”
— B.B. King, Sinner’s Prayer
At age 19, Michael Amini was standing on a highway overpass, seconds away from suicide. He thought about jumping onto an oncoming semi, planning to be splattered on its windshield like a nighttime summer bug. And why not? As a teenager, he had just lost his faith, his girlfriend, his community, and the trust of his family. He was an ex-Mormon with no rudder. Then, B.B. King and Ray Charles’s “Sinner’s Prayer” played on his iPod. He listened to its lyrics and mustered the courage to carry on.
Michael’s story, the original inspiration for this book, is a fascinating tale of a very detailed and very personal religious journey. In the end, it was his insatiable curiosity to find the truth that led him out of his faith and toward a life without religion. His new worldview, perhaps most importantly, has enhanced his empathy, allowing him to both better understand religion and view the status of his relationship with his family without bitterness. This is Michael’s story.
Having just returned from a mission for
the Mormon Church in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, Germany, my father was encouraged to find a girl to marry. He wasn’t quite 21, but returning missionaries are commonly taught to seek “their next and last companion.” My grandmother, who worked at an elementary school at the time, brought home a faculty picture and laid it in front of my dad, telling him that she would set him up on a blind date with the girl of his choosing. He looked at the photo, thought for a moment, and put his finger down on a 25-year-old blonde teacher from Spokane, Washington. They were engaged two weeks later.
I was born in Salt Lake City, and my family moved to Spokane not long after. We were a highly active and firmly-believing Mormon family, with the faith an integral part of our lives. We would go to church every Sunday and attend extra meetings throughout the week. Most of our friends and associates were people we met there.
I took my faith seriously from a young age and was excited by the fact that I had the whole of divine truth at my back and a mission before me. Always curious and inquisitive, I took apart anything that I could to see its workings. I could hardly satisfy my desire to learn. My parents encouraged and praised my inquisitive nature and made huge sacrifices to put me in the best and most challenging schools and courses to help me grow — at one point, they even took on some janitorial duties at the private elementary school that I attended in order to offset the cost of tuition. I’ll be forever grateful for that.
My parents also encouraged me to investigate and learn about our faith. Mormonism’s foundational story begins with Joseph Smith reading the Bible and questioning his own faith, and honest, inspired inquiry continues to be stated as a core virtue of the Mormon paradigm. After all, as the Church claims, if Mormonism is truly Christ’s restored church and holds all of His truth, honest questioning can only lead to that conclusion.