Only recently have I begun to call myself a Humanist. The truth is I have been living, thinking and reasoning as a humanist for many years now. In reading Dr. Sohail’s book, From Islam to Secular Humanism a Philosophical Journey, I was able to frame my take on things and give it a name.

I wish to acknowledge that I have lived with depression all my life and remained undiagnosed and untreated until my 30’s.  I suffered intense sadness, fear, apprehension and hopelessness throughout the years and my self-esteem took more than the usual thrashing that I suspect most of us are at times subjected to.

In spite of this, I am indebted to my depression.  The emotional pain it spawned drove me to seek answers with a relentless determination. Consequently, I have examined my place in this world and found a greater truth that resulted in the very happy, rewarding relationship I now have with myself and with life.

Innocence of Youth

I would not change a thing about my past:  my upbringing in a moderately Christian household; the anxiety and depression that led me to examine my values and beliefs; and certainly not the journey that has led me to the happiest, most fulfilling time of a life-journey still unfolding.

My mother and father were neither too lenient nor too strict in introducing my siblings and me to Christianity. Baptized as babies, accompanied to Sunday School as children, confirmed as young teens, encouraged to be responsible, caring individuals, all gave us a strong base on which to form our own views and find our way in terms of our spiritual life.

I do not recall discussion of God or faith in our home. I do remember my brother, two sisters and me going to All Saints’ Anglican Church, in Westboro Village on Sunday mornings with our mother until perhaps our teen years. I have great affection for this lovely, grey stone church, built in 1865 and situated a fifteen-minute walk from my childhood home.  

Strains of my favourite hymns from childhood resonate in my mind as I write.

 ♫God sees the little sparrow fall,

it meets his tender view;

if God so loves the little birds,

I know he loves me, too.♪ 

-         Maria Straub, 1874

And

♫All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

all things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all. ♪

                                                - Cecil Frances Alexander

And my favourite

♫Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong. ♪

                                    - Anna B. Warner, 1860

These gentle, soothing images of a loving, compassionate, yet powerful God touch me still and summon up fond memories of magnificent, stained glass windows depicting Christ’s ministry and crucifixion, the hustle and bustle of delicious potluck suppers, lively Sunday school lessons, and respectfully shaking hands with the minister as we filed out of church afterwards.

As warm and welcoming as church was, the best part of the Sunday ritual was yet to come. Mom and we children went to a nearby restaurant for a delicious lunch, which, as years went by, became the prime motivator for dragging myself out of my cosy bed early Sunday mornings. My father was an active member of the United Church and I feel that he was strong in his faith but not particularly vocal about it.

As a child I talked to God/Jesus, for me they blurred as one, when I could not understand or accept things or when I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I clearly recall, at age five or six, asking God questions I considered very important. Not receiving answers at that time, I asked Him to remember my questions for me so that I could have my answers when I eventually met Him. God/Jesus made life safer, fairer, and tolerable for the oversensitive, sad child I was.

I never assumed that Christianity was the preferred religion. My mind somehow viewed all religions as valid. My best friend, Jan, was Jewish and we shared the celebrations of both faiths at times. I remember joining Jan’s family for the Passover Seder. Taking place the first two nights of the eight-day holiday, I learned that the Seder is the most important event in the Passover celebration. We gathered in the living room where beautiful candles glowed warmly and my friend’s father said Seder in Hebrew. Although unable to understand the words, I was fully aware that I was sharing in a moving celebration steeped in long held traditions and customs.

Jan’s memories of Christmases in our home focus mainly on our living room: a beautiful full pine or spruce, standing by the fireplace and extending the full eleven feet to the ceiling; lights, ornaments, garlands and icicles gracing the tree; and Christmas morning, gifts of all shapes and sizes vying for space beneath it.  To this day Jan professes some degree of jealousy regarding the generous display of gifts. She fondly recalls too all the chocolates and other decadent goodies available in our home throughout the holidays and a feeling of warmth in our house at Christmas.

I in no way thought Judaism and Christianity were in conflict. Somehow my God embraced all good and loving people whatever their background. My simplistic faith continued throughout childhood and resurfaced in only a slightly more sophisticated form at different times in my adult life.

At age 13, I was confirmed. An important aspect of being a Christian is to accept, believe and profess that Christ is Lord. When I was baptized as an infant, my parents and godparents made the profession on my behalf and promised to raise me in the Anglican faith. Now I had reached the stage where I confirmed those promises on my own behalf. With other children, I took weekly, evening classes in which we studied and discussed the 39 Articles of Religion, which are the essential beliefs of the Anglican Church. We were expected to memorize some material prior to our confirmation and demonstrate knowledge of the 39 Articles.

At my evening confirmation the girls wore fussy white organza silk dresses and the boys sported jackets and ties or suits. I am sure we were all somewhat nervous in undergoing our confirmation and relieved and proud when it was completed. We were now full member of the Anglican Church and expected to assume more responsibility for our Christian life. I joined the Anglican Young People’s Association in my teens, but it and the church did not play a particularly significant role in my life during my teen years.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I judged myself harshly, believing I did not measure up in terms of how I, as a good Christian, should be living my life. I always believed that I fell short in terms of my faith and in conforming to what I saw as the "church's” expectations of me. God had let his own son die for me because he loved me. I felt immense guilt and despair because I was undeserving. I attempted to pray my guilt away, willing myself to believe in God and to live a Godly life. The sadness and anxiety I experienced as a child intensified and more and more I struggled for some meaning in my life.

Given my rather liberal upbringing, it amazes me to what a profound degree the Christian belief system permeated my being. I cannot imagine how emotionally crippled I would have been had I been raised in a strict, religious household.

Disillusionment in Adulthood

My boyfriend, a committed Christian, reintroduced me to church in my 20’s. I became an active member of his High Anglican Church. I gained some sort of official standing in the church, the specifics of which I do not remember. I clearly recall meetings in which members of my church mocked the views of members of other denominations, other faiths. They were equally uncharitable with certain people of our own congregation. Loving, patient and accepting on Sunday mornings, these same people were judgemental and scornful on Tuesday evenings. Different points of views, different lifestyles were the object of their cruel and judgmental remarks.

What had originally attracted me to Christianity was the message of love, of being compassionate towards others, of being good to one another. . What I now discovered was a pettiness, meanness, and a lack of tolerance in my fellow worshippers. Uneasiness with my "new" church set in and I began to feel a much happier person when away from church, so much so that my attendance again decreased and finally ended.

In addition to being disillusioned with the church itself, and many of the people I met within the church, what particularly disturbed me was my relationship with God. From the start, I related to the loving God, the forgiving God. The angry, vengeful God confused me as a child and later provoked me. I found the concept of hell as a punishment for sin abhorrent. I had difficulty accepting it as a hell of my God’s creation. I think my inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to accept the concept of hell and damnation helped me to assume a more mature and independent outlook on Christianity.

Doubts and misgivings about my faith increased. However, I felt duty-bound to broaden my knowledge of the Bible and church doctrines.  Perhaps if I researched more thoroughly I would regain my faith. Inherent was the belief that my doubts were a reflection of my inadequacies. I should be a good Christian. This to me meant putting God first, going to church each Sunday, ridding myself of all doubts and uncertainties. All of this was a struggle for me, a struggle that would end in failure many times in the years to come. I felt lazy and undisciplined for not finding my place as a Christian.

I responded to my need to sort out my thinking and my faith by trying to keep my mind open to see, to hear and to believe in a good and just God, finding at times that I tried to will myself to believe.

I attended different denominations of Christian churches to gain further understanding and enlightenment. My most noble effort was to understand from a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) viewpoint. In the mid 70’s my sister became an Adventist and she found and finds great comfort and fulfillment within her church. She lives her faith and I respect her for that.

Visiting with Gail in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the early months of her conversion, I felt compelled to give SDA a chance. I read Desire of Ages, written by Ellen G. White, prophetic messenger of the SDA church. I attended my sister’s church in Vancouver and an SDA church in Ottawa upon my return home.

Seventh-day Adventists follow most of the beliefs of conventional conservative Christianity:  creation, the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, original sin; the virgin birth; the divinity of Christ; the nature of the Trinity; belief in Satan as a rebellious created being; the inerrancy of Scriptures as they were originally written; resurrection of Jesus, salvation by the atonement of Christ, etc. This was in great contrast to the liberal, Anglican perspective. In addition Ellen White is recognized by the SDA church as having received the gift of prophecy. The written works by Ellen White "are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction.”

I expanded my search through reading –C.S. Lewis, Robert H. Schuller, The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, Viktor E. Frankl and many, many others, their titles and authors long forgotten. I kept these books in boxes long after I had determined that they did not “speak to me or for me”.

This is when I was most tempted by Christianity. An excerpt from my diary captures my thinking and my mood and the return of my simplistic, faith.

“I feel the joy of living a Christian life...thought about all that God gives us and the fact that what he denies us is bad for us anyway. I feel He wants every moment to be one of beauty, peace, and love. Thought about how truly wonderful it is to be shown the way...to follow it and to have everlasting life offered to us."

This religious euphoria, thankfully, did not last. As I learned more about the Christian, and particularly the SDA, mindset and lifestyle, I became increasingly anxious and distressed. I felt a loss of my natural love for life and appreciation for every day things. A sense of foreboding set in. I felt that to be a true Christian I would have to stifle much of my personality, the real me, and turn my back on who I really was.

At about the same time that I decided I should seek help for the sadness, anger and anxiety that had been building in me since childhood; it occurred to me that I did not choose to have a multitude of unresolved feelings around God, my faith, and the church. In fact, if it had been my choice, I would have fully embraced Christianity and all the comfort and promise it offered.  To this day, I do not know how my growing anxiety and sadness and my increasing dissatisfaction with God and organized religion played off each other.

 In questioning and exploring what Christianity could mean in my life my thinking was this. If there was a God, He gave most of us the ability to learn, analyze and think logically. He endowed us with emotions and sensibilities through which to screen the outside world, and a conscience to tell us right from wrong.  He also gifted us with creativity and uniqueness. A God who would give us these wonderful tools surely would want us to examine and question the values and beliefs that our sponge-like minds absorbed as children. Only recently I discovered that Galileo expressed my thinking more succinctly and firmly when he wrote “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

Bbelieving this, I gave myself full permission to listen to my head, my heart and my conscience. Ultimately, I determined that I had given my all to understanding and fitting into Christianity and it clearly was not a fit. I gave up this immense struggle and along with it my sense of guilt for not living up to the Christian belief system of my childhood. 

Help for my depression and the release of religious guilt occurred simultaneously. I note this as a point of interest, without drawing any conclusions from this observation.

Enlightenment in Middle Age

Several years ago, now reconciled to not believing in God, and religious institutions, I gathered most of the religious books I had acquired through purchase or gifts and carted them off to a book sale.

My search for enlightenment did continue but without the limitations that Christianity imposed. For many years, I attempted to find a common denominator among people for whom I felt great respect. These people came from different cultures and traditions; their religion, ethnicity, educational and religious background differed, as did their choice of vocation and lifestyles. What was it these people shared and how could I get it? It was not until recently that the answer became obvious.

What these people had in common were the very attributes that drew me to them. They were caring, compassionate and accepting individuals who demonstrated a sense of fair play, generosity of spirit and respect for others’ points of view. Comfortable with their thinking and their place in this world, they did not find it necessary to parade their particular religion or lack of religion for all to see. I now feel that all these very special people are Humanists.

I totally agree with the late American astronomer, Carl Sagan, who said "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." I have found peace and self-acceptance in allowing learning and self-knowledge to replace dogma and blind faith. Truth, as I have discovered it, has enabled me to replace anger, despair and guilt with tolerance, compassion, hope and joy.  I feel a strong and mounting sense of optimism in knowing that I can trust my view of this world and my ability to make it just a little bit better.

I enjoy life here and now. My thoughts and actions reflect who I am. They are not an attempt to gain my admission to a heaven I do not believe exists. I do not turn to the heavens, but to those nearest and dearest to me, the people Dr. Sohail refers to as “family of the heart”, for love, intellectual stimulation and support.  In abandoning my futile struggle to believe in God, I find I now believe in myself. I rejoice in developing my newly discovered creative writing talents, a process through which I have been able to examine my road to Humanism and emotional liberation.

Sandra Manuel

September 23, 2002