This is an article written for the Freethinker (Jan 09 issue) by Sarah Trachtenberg, a freelance writer and amateur stand-up comedian in Boston. She has been published in several national magazines in the US and Canada. She is currently working on a book about the personal experiences of atheists in America, Not My God. Visit Sarah’s blog here.
At age nine, Janet prayed to forgive the man who sexually abused her, an enormous test of her faith. Her Christian background encouraged her to forgive him. Praying did not help, but what did help was when she had nightmares in which she killed her enemies. “My brain avenged me,” she says, calling her nightmares a healing defense mechanism.
The molester, a camp counselor and children’s book author, sexually abused hundreds of children, including Janet. Her father, a preacher, despite warmth and good intentions, did not know how to respond when this ugliness reared its head. Like every little girl, she wanted her father to be angry at the offender and protect her, but her father was “never that person”.
She did not testify at the trial, feeling too angry. Raised to believe that God must have a plan for her, she thought God had allowed the sexual abuse, but did not know why it happenedto her. It took her years to sort it out. Her father couldn’t reconcile that such a bad thing had happened to his daughter since it didn’t fit with his concept of God’s rewards and punishments.
Janet asked her father if people like the sex offender could still go to heaven, and he said yes, which didn’t make sense to her:
As a kid, I thought of heaven as a place with rainbows and unicorns. Child molesters shouldn’t get in.
Her father said that if bad people accepted Jesus with their last dying breath, they got into heaven.
You could be a horrible person your whole life. This seemed wrong to me. What justice system is this? Part of the comfort of religion is that bad people will go to hell, and good people will get rewarded.
As a teenager, Janet dated a boy who was abusive to her, and again, her father knew about it and did not act. When something was bothering him, he went into a room, closed the door, and prayed, while she wanted him to talk and deal with situations directly. She found his passive aggression very frustrating. Both abusive incidents had a huge impact on Janet’s belief system, her concepts of good and bad, trust and deceit, and the realization that her father was not a hero.
Originally from Maine, Janet is in her 30s and lives in New York with her husband. She works in retail and is realizing her goal of being a professional musician.
Janet was a “PK” (preacher’s kid), whose father was a Protestant Methodist minister who went to seminary as a young man; his own father was a minister, as well. Instead of belonging to a single ministry, he filled in at various churches.
He traveled around New England working as a resort minister at ski lodges, starting services in resort towns, and Janet and her sister enjoyed skiing when they tagged along on his travels. In some ways, Janet was very proud of him: he was a cheerful, warm and supportive preacher who comforted the sick, helped the needy, and was a very loving father. But some of his views were callous and unsympathetic, leaving Janet ambivalent about her feelings towards him.
Her parents divorced when Janet was four. Her father didn’t believe a woman should work outside the home and held that wives should obey their husbands, conflicting with Janet’s mother, who wanted to work, or at least have the option.
While her father was “born-again”, her mother came from a Catholic family, but was veering away from Catholicism, saying that the Protestant God was “nicer”. She did not want her children raised Catholic, and raised Janet and Janet’s sister from her subsequent marriage as Protestant. (Janet’s father officially adopted her half-sister.)
Janet and her mother’s family went to a liberal church where she sang in choir and participated in the youth group. She enjoyed Sunday school and the liberal atmosphere, which did not include yelling about fire and brimstone. It was a positive experience and Janet had trouble giving it up later.
As a child, Janet thought much of the Bible was meant to be interpreted rather than taken literally. Her mother encouraged her to ask questions and even encouraged her to experiment with other churches. Despite this liberalism, no one presented the option of not going to church at all, nor did it occur to Janet. Probably this is the case for many American kids.
Janet’s father, though divorced from her mom, was still at times very involved with his kids. He would get together with his two daughters most weekends and holidays, but since weekends with him were his working hours (Sundays), he didn’t always give his children his full attention.
Sometimes seeing him was good, but other times Janet and her sister felt that they were just in his way. Her dad’s religion often proved an obstacle. “God was first, work second, family third” to Janet’s father, a sentiment he expressed to his family. Janet notes that the statement was reflective of the Bible, in which Jesus told his followers to leave their families to join him.
Janet thought that God was selfish since she wanted to spend time with her dad, who was busy writing sermons, checking on people in hospitals, and praying. Often, he would go into a room, close the door, and pray for hours at a time. On the plus side, his absence did allow Janet to bond with her sister, with whom she otherwise did not get along, since during his time alone they only had each other.
Their father told them that he wanted to see them more often, but his work demands trumped this. As the girls got older, Janet’s sister rebelled against the church, having lost interest in visiting their father.
Janet’s maternal grandmother, who was “not a fan of dad”, described him to Janet’s mother:
He was too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good.
Her mother quoted this to Janet when, as a teenager, she couldn’t understand why her father always put his work first.
When Janet was 15, her father was witnessing (trying to convert people). Upon meeting a young gay man dying of AIDS, he told the patient that it was his fault and God was punishing him for being gay.
The preacher warned him to accept Jesus’s salvation before he died. Janet couldn’t believe that her father would be so thoughtless to a man dying of a painful disease, but her father was proud of himself, unaware of the pain he caused. But Janet, still a Christian at that time, thought it was the most awful thing she had ever heard.
Similarly, when sponsoring Janet in a walk for AIDS, he commented, “Well, that’ll take care of the gays”. She could not understand the paradox of a warm, loving man being so callous.
Janet gradually detached herself from Christianity during her 20s as she learned more about the Bible and read about how biblical stories were lifted from other mythologies, such as Greco-Roman. Noting that religions could not all be correct, she came to the realization that one’s religion is the result of the nation of birth and who one’s parents were. As a child, she avoided reading Revelations, “the unpleasant stuff”, and as an adult understood that people were cherry-picking the parts that they liked from the Bible.
At 22, Janet still believed in God, but was no longer going to church. Janet’s father wanted to know if, at 22, she was sleeping over at her boyfriend’s apartment, hoping that she was not having premarital sex. When she told him it was none of his business, he said that must mean that she was not a virgin. He told her that he would be very sad if he went to heaven and did not see her there. He wanted to save her soul and was very disappointed, gently telling her that she was going to hell.
After that exchange, she didn’t speak to him for months.
I felt like a good person. If I felt guilty, that was between me and God, not my father.
When she was seriously questioning the existence of God at 25, she mentioned to her father that she was not going to church anymore. He asked her outright if she accepted Jesus, and she said
Not anymore.
Janet discussed atheism with her husband, an atheist, and her mother. But despite her lack of faith and anger at religion – particularly its hypocrisy and greed – Janet couldn’t call herself an “atheist”. She instead called herself agnostic.
Then last year, walking in the snow in Boston with her husband one evening, Janet looked at the stars, and “just saw stars”: “I didn’t think of it as heaven. I thought, oh, they’re just stars, but they’re still amazing.” She had been reading Hitchens and Dawkins, watching related videos on YouTube, and was interested in rational thought.
She talked about this with her mother, who had been thinking the same way, describing her own feelings as agnostic, even though she had been in organized religion for years.
It was fun for Janet to share that moment with her mother, but she mourned the loss of religion, feeling lost. No longer could she believe in heaven, and along with it, the comfort of believing that deceased family members were there, and she would see them again one day. She had to accept that all she could do was to live with the memories of her loved ones.
On the other hand, she was relieved that God couldn’t see you all the time. She describes losing God as liberating, freeing herself from the control of religion, and embracing humanity and her conscience.
I was no longer feeling constantly judged. I no longer felt God was always looking over my shoulder, or that I needed to apologize.
She has not yet told her father that she is an atheist. The closest she came was writing a song called A New Belief, which she professionally recorded and played for her father. Its lyrics were about trying to find reality in a confusing world in which she was raised with a belief system she was now questioning.
When her father said the song bothered him, she said it was about how she was trying to figure out what was going on. He said he knew she was against organized religion and was not a Christian. Janet says that if he knew she was an atheist, he would probably pray for her, thinking he failed to save her soul and that she was going to hell.
She does not believe that coming out to him would do any good, saying it would do nothing except hurt him. For this reason, her father is the only person to whom she isn’t “out”.
Janet is proud that she managed to get through her abusive situations and their aftermath and is in a wonderful relationship now. Despite his loving and amiable personality, Janet asks herself why, if her father is basking in God, he is not happier. In truth, he is often depressed. “It never occurred to him to not follow a religion,” says Janet.
Many people who follow religion believe that it cures people of depression and hopelessness, and often ask atheists how they can get out of bed in the morning. But for Janet, being free of God has proved a positive experience.
Living in the moment is more relevant now that I’m not heavenly-minded, so life as an atheist seems far more important. I have come to celebrate that, rather than mourn the loss of my faith.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
February 7th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Lovely. Same here. You’ve made me smile.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Thanks
February 20th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
One of my mates in school was the vicars’ son. This article has jogged my memory and I cannot think of even one occasion where we discussed religion or mentioned the “g” word.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
comment1,
June 16th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Wow…Janet, you are a perfect example of what I know in my heart to be true. Those individuals who emanate the purest "light" to serve God are under the greatest attack from Satan and his army. I'm talking about YOU, your light, not your father's. I'm so sorry you let the evil ones win. What you don't realize is that your spirit was much more evolved than your father's, but your feelings were too hurt to see it. (The evil ones made sure of that.) It's sad that you got so wrapped up in your dad's version of God, instead of your own.
(CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
CONTINUED…
Do you recognize the arrogance and self-righteousness in your dad's attitude toward people – God's people, the people God loved so much that he sent his son? God can't stand self-righteousness. Jesus didn't even pass judgment on people, which is why he taught in parables. He didn't come to earth telling people what they HAD to do, he just taught the lessons they needed to understand. You were the one with the pure heart, which is why you felt such a strong need to reject your father's ungodly, unsupportive, judgmental nature.
(CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
CONTINUED….Please remember that Jesus didn't come here to form a religion. His teachings were for everyone. It's MAN that turned his lessons into religion. He came to teach us how to treat one another, to explain God's expectations for us, to create the path to God that will last an eternity, and yes…to teach us how to avoid hell. But I have to say that I don't see hell in the same way as your father does. Your father has made himself the almighty judge of where people will spend the afterlife, and no one but God knows what is inside a person's heart. After all, if I go sit in my garage all night, it doesn't make me a car anymore than sitting in a church every Sunday makes a man a Christian. I'm sure there are plenty of people attending churches who don't know God at all. And there are many sinners with God-seeking hearts who God claims as his children. Sin is sin. Your dad sins, I sin, you sin, we all sin. That's why we need Jesus. (CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
CONTINUED…I don't believe we are necessarily "sentenced" to hell, rather we choose it with the free will God has blessed us with. After reading your story, I still believe you are a Christian…one who had the wrong mentor growing up. You said yourself that you felt empty inside after making the switch to atheism. That's because we were designed and created to seek God. You will see that nothing you do or accomplish in your life can be truly fulfilling or bring pure happiness on its own. You will always be looking for the next thing to satisfy you, and it won't come without God. I know you have an amazing light, just temporarily darkened. I could feel it in reading your commentary.
(CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
CONTINUED….Believe it or not, I actually believe it's your destiny to be an example of true faith to your father that will enable him to see his own destructive ways. Think seriously before writing your book. If you are wrong about atheism, you will be influencing people in a way you might come to regret someday. From your upbringing, you know as well as I do that Satan and his army of fallen angels want nothing more than to deceive people into his family so he can keep them imprisoned for eternity. You will make it easier for him to do that. And what if you are wrong?
(CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
CONTINUED…I don't doubt the bible at all because I have my own solid proof. I've personally encountered demons, and once you've interacted with the evil ones, you don't deny their reality. I actually had an apartment exercised when I was 25 years old (I'm 40 now). Trust me…there IS A SPIRITUAL REALM beyond what we can see. I would suggest you ask Christ back into your life as your personal Lord and Savior, ask for forgiveness of your sins, then without an inkling of fear, command your deceivers to leave you by saying: (CONTINUED TO NEXT POST, TOO LONG)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
CONTINUED…I am a child of God who has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, my savior. He commanded demons out of the crazed man in the cemetery, he commanded 7 out of Mary Magdalene, and with the power of God's word, the Holy Spirit and the blood of Jesus Christ, I too can cast you out. I command you to leave this place, go to the dry place far away and never return. By the power of God Almightily, the ruler of the universe, you must obey! I am a child of God and claim his protection from you. Then, pray to God giving him your gratitude and ask him to send you an army of angels for protection. Make sure you are saved, and right with God before praying this prayer because the bible says the demons will come back 7-fold if you "invite" their return. This is the prayer I was taught when my apartment was "cleansed". Worked like a charm. The incidences ceased immediately. The demons must obey their creator…after all, God is their creator too. (CONTINEUD TO NEXT POST)
June 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
CONTINUED…
You'll be in my prayers. And…if you aren't certain about all of this, then I suggest you ask God for unmistakable signs that show you his existence. Be persistent in your request. He will answer.
SHINE YOUR LIGHT!
PS – Watch Joyce Meyer, TV preacher. She's awesome. I have a feeling she knows a very different God than your father.
Your (imperfect and still learning) friend in Christ, Angie
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
As Billy Connelly says, "Beware of anyone who only reads one book". Without wishing to be unkind, I think he must have been thinking of you at the time Angie.
David.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I found freethinker.co.uk very informative. The article is professionally written and I feel like the author knows the subject very well. freethinker.co.uk keep it that way.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:09 am
angie- get help
August 7th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Angie, my first response was to think that perhaps this was the ravings of the mentally ill, then I realised that you are merely verbalising the programming that you've been embracing at the Nazareth cult.
1) Watch BBC God on the Brain, there is no supernatural you just have a defective brain. As David Hume paraphrasingly said, what is more likely, that the laws of nature are broken, or that your mind has decived you.
2) Watch Hubble – 15 Years of Discovery; realise that Earth is an insignifcant planet in an insignificant galaxy. Spend some time on the Hubble website. Realise that the cosmos is 14.3 billion years old and that the creationist mob are fringe 'scientists'; they are the ones deceiving you.
3) Read 'Science, Evolution And Creationism' by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine and realise that evolution is true.
4) Once you realise that earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans have been around for over 100,000 years. Study ancient history and religion and see how ignorant and illiterate people developed many religions to explain everything they didn't understand.
5) Read 'Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium' by Bart Ehrman to learn about the 'historical Jesus'. Yes Angie the 'historical Jesus' i.e. the real Jesus.
6) Read some philosophy, start asking questions like: 'Is it more likely that omniscient God stuffed us up when he created us or that we stuffed God up when we created him?', or 'If God so loved the world why does he heal Ethel's shin pain at church but allow 6 year old girls to be pack raped by soldiers with AIDS in Africa?
Angie, your Bible tells you that you must be prepared at all times to witness to a non-believer. You are obligated by Paul's words to go and learn about these things so that you may talk in an educated fashion about Christianity; sadly at this point you are highly ignorant; I know because you remind me of me about a decade ago.
I empathize with Janet; Christianity is a flawed, man-made religion like all the others that has enormous manipulative power. The problem, is that the believers never use their brains, anything that doesn't have a cookie cutter Sunday School answer is sent up to their imaginary friend whereby the say, " It is not for me to ask such questions". Religion/Christianity is the opposite of thinking, it is simply a coping mechanism for the ignorant.
As a former Christian zealot who decided to study: cosmology, evolution, philosophy, Jesus, the historical Jesus, mythology, early Church history, the Bible, textual criticism, gnostic texts etc. I came to only conclusion that a thinking person can; no man-made religions are true. One must do the study, accept the reality, and then with humility say that we are agnostic on a deist God. Angie, this is the position of humility, we don't have all the answers, we must stop being children and accept reality.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Funny how much applies to me, too. I'm a preacher's kid, attended a fundamentalist college. Lost my religion there. Father who refuses to communicate about the issue, but only quotes scripture – telling me what to believe, rather than engaging in a discussion. I used to have tremendous respect for him and still see him as a painfully polite, conscientious person in many ways, but also incurious, passive aggressive, even hateful in others.
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Well, Sarah, I, too, am a Preacher’s Kid who’s “lost the faith” and is much more centered and happy as a result. I share a lot of your history, particularly: father, grandfather and uncle ministers (in a liberal, open protestant church), a father for whom it seemed his children were “in the way”…etc.
I have 3 preliminary reactions:
1. Atheism seems like one of the last taboos in this country. “Faithful” people seem unable to accept it in others. Or that’s the reaction I’ve been getting anyway.
2. I know at least 2 teens in my church who reached out to my dad when they were sexually abused, and he was “unable” to help….YEESH!!!!!
3. LOTS of PKs need to tell there “inner santum” stories….”surprised” reactions to the stories of life in “God’s house”, etc., make this essential! Ministers/rabbis/imams/what-have-you do not have any more of an idea than ANYONE else what is going on here on earth.
I was comforted by your story. Thank you.
March 25th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
im NOT religous i found this very inspiring but……….BUT FOR GIVING SOME1 WHO SEXUALLY ABUSED YOU ARE YOU MESSED UP THATS JUST NOT RIGHT
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:19 pm
1) Watch BBC God on the Brain, there is no supernatural you just have a defective brain. As David Hume paraphrasingly said, what is more likely, that the laws of nature are broken, or that your mind has decived you.2) Watch Hubble – 15 Years of Discovery; realise that Earth is an insignifcant planet in an insignificant galaxy. Spend some time on the Hubble website. Realise that the cosmos is 14.3 billion years old and that the creationist mob are fringe 'scientists'; they are the ones deceiving you.3) Read 'Science, Evolution And Creationism' by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine and realise that evolution is true.4) Once you realise that earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans have been around for over 100,000 years. Study ancient history and religion and see how ignorant and illiterate people developed many religions to explain everything they didn't understand.5) Read 'Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium' by Bart Ehrman to learn about the 'historical Jesus'. Yes Angie the 'historical Jesus' i.e. the real Jesus.6) Read some philosophy, start asking questions like: 'Is it more likely that omniscient God stuffed us up when he created us or that we stuffed God up when we created him?', or 'If God so loved the world why does he heal Ethel's shin pain at church but allow 6 year old girls to be pack raped by soldiers with AIDS in Africa?
+1
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:46 pm
1) Watch BBC God on the Brain, there is no supernatural you just have a defective brain. As David Hume paraphrasingly said, what is more likely, that the laws of nature are broken, or that your mind has decived you.2) Watch Hubble – 15 Years of Discovery; realise that Earth is an insignifcant planet in an insignificant galaxy. Spend some time on the Hubble website. Realise that the cosmos is 14.3 billion years old and that the creationist mob are fringe 'scientists'; they are the ones deceiving you.3) Read 'Science, Evolution And Creationism' by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine and realise that evolution is true.4) Once you realise that earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans have been around for over 100,000 years. Study ancient history and religion and see how ignorant and illiterate people developed many religions to explain everything they didn't understand.5) Read 'Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium' by Bart Ehrman to learn about the 'historical Jesus'. Yes Angie the 'historical Jesus' i.e. the real Jesus.6) Read some philosophy, start asking questions like: 'Is it more likely that omniscient God stuffed us up when he created us or that we stuffed God up when we created him?', or 'If God so loved the world why does he heal Ethel's shin pain at church but allow 6 year old girls to be pack raped by soldiers with AIDS in Africa?
+1
July 27th, 2010 at 12:05 am
The funny thing is, religious people to give more to charities (and this does not include giving to churches) than non-religious by 2-1, by professed atheists almost 4-1. What does that say about the compassion of atheists towards other humans? For all of the evils religion that present – it does much more good that atheism.