An Atheist Observes Ramadan: Week 3

Day 15 (Wednesday)

Woke up today late once again. I skipped morning prayer completely. I got home so late last night from the offsite apparently I hit snooze 80 times and slept through sunrise. I also missed eating, which having some disgusting bean tacos from a local fast food restaurant last night, I don't deserve breakfast.

12:52pm: Finally was able to get at least one prayer in before my four day break from Ramadan. This prayer was like the slap-stick comedy prayer. I nearly fell on my ass as I was getting up from sujood and I found it somewhat hard to concentrate at the first part of the prayer since the cat was just staring at me so intensely as if thinking "What on earth are you doing?!" However, hands down (not just literally) the prayer requests were the most enjoyable. It all came flooding back to me. How to pray and to really mean it. I couldn't stop. I was naming all my friends and family. Keep them safe, Allah. Bless them with good health and wealth! I prayed for the poor. I prayed for everyone else except for myself. This was a first time too. I usually always pray for my life, my health, my success. I was too consumed with others (which I think is a good thing) to pray for my own needs.

So I am about packed for my trip. I am looking forward to seeing my friend. It's been a long time since we've hung out. We have been friends since we were in high school and known each other throughout grade school too. I look forward to relaxing by his pool and meeting his new son. Well, off to work now. I will of course stop for my usual skinny, extra iced, (with extra shots), pumpkin spice, sprinkles, and light whip frappamochachaiatino on my way to work - You know, I'm fasting and all. This is what I like to call the "all coffee fast". This has basically just been an all coffee diet.

Day 16-20 (Thurs.-Mon.)

I took this time off of Ramadan to go visit one of my longest friends in Houston. During this time I met my best friend's 14 month old child - which was pretty much the cutest baby I have ever laid eyes upon. I also swam in his pool in his gorgeous back yard. We shared stories, beers, laughs, food, and memories. It was such a relaxing vacation. I met my friend's friend from work. She was a really funny and fun person to be around. Her hardy laugh made the baby cry as we joked that her joy basically makes the child weep.

She asked me why, as an atheist I was observing Ramadan. She said that she had read week 1 of my Ramadan blog. I told her one reason was to blog about it. (obviously) I told her I love to write and these types of experiments are really enjoyable to me. I like also to be challenged and this even goes for my atheism surprisingly. If this month of Ramadan were to convince me that the one true way is accepting Allah as the one true God then so be it. This hasn't happened yet, but maybe it's still too early to tell. As always I am a freethinker and a skeptic first. So this entire experience, reading the Qu'ran, the fasting is all part of teaching me something and if that something happens to be that the Muslim faith is the one true way to live, I will accept that. That's what being truly open minded means.

Before I left for Houston, my friend in Vegas mentioned to me that I should start writing a book called something like, The Religious Atheist: Or How I learned to Stop Being an Anti-Theist and Embrace Nonsense. It would consist of me (the atheist) participating in all these different religious rituals (not just Muslim but Christian or Hindu or whatever). I liked the idea, even though it does sort of sound like a spin-off of A.J. Jacob's book Year of Living Biblically. - Which is a great book by the way! Before I left I had some sort of weird epiphany; maybe it was the starved brain that made me feel like it was some sort of message from Allah, but it certainly seemed powerful. I felt like God was calling me to be a writer. Not that that is really anything new, but to really pursue it in a university. We'll see how far that conviction leads me. At least the epiphany wasn't to go back to Bible College. That would have sucked. And I would have ignored God.

During our trip we also attended atheist church. That's right - Atheist church. I was very disappointed I didn't come a week earlier. The guest speaker of last week was Jerry DeWitt (an ex-Assembly of God pastor/televangelist) turned atheist. This was a weekly Sunday morning meetup of atheists put together by the Oasis Center ("A community grounded in reason, celebrating the human experience." - as it said on their business cards) The group was led by Mike Aus, an ex-pastor, turned atheist. The banner on the wall just said "People are more important than beliefs". I really liked this simple message. It was more of a humanist-driven church. They discussed when and where they would meet up for upcoming charity events like soup kitchens, etc.

My friend and I recalled how we would sometimes get "called down" by the pastor growing up in our Baptist church, and just how funny it would be if the same thing happened in atheist church since we were cracking jokes the whole way through the service. I wrote in a past blog about our ridiculous "Mighty Boosh/Tim and Eric style stories" my friend and I would concoct from the surrounding cast of church-going characters. We pictured everyone shooting up heroine and tripping on acid, orgies, thievery, wild animal sacrifice (basically all the things that our conservative Christian family or friends think happens when atheists get together). We were like, "Oh I guess our parents were right all along."

We couldn't deny the strange bizarro-world that seemed to be the parallel to our Christian church from back home. There were even people in the audience that resembled some characters from back home. The speaker at Oasis meetup looked almost exactly like a deacon and faithful church-attendee from our home church named Bill. We laughed at how everything was just a mirror image. The music was whatever, but before the speaker went up to the podium a man had something he wanted to read to everyone. It was his thoughts on using the word "luck" and how there was no such thing and how faith was bad. My friend and I laughed at how directly opposite this "church" was. They were talking about the dangers of faith while at that very moment in our hometown in Illinois the pastor was probably talking about faith being a virtue. Also, people started to chime in after this man got done with his diatribe on use of the word "luck". "Can you image this happening in our old church? Can you even imagine a discussion like this where people in the congregation disagree and vocalize their disagreement with someone in authority?"-  my friend said to me. It was refreshing to see a debate and a discussion where no one was "in charge" so to speak.

The guest speaker's name was Dennis Fehr. He was an ex-Mechanized Amish turned atheist. His story was very powerful and moving. He grew up in a strict environment that didn't even allow for the simple joy of art. Mechanized Amish is a little more modern than the traditional Amish. They are allowed to drive cars but the speaker said the cars where not allowed to be "flashy", all the chrome from the vehicle was removed and everything painted black. He talked of going to college for art and how this was not acceptable to his Amish community. He also married very young and finally divorced, which too was something that ostracized him. He attended the University of Illinois for Art and even talked about Decatur, Illinois which was very close to where we both grew up. In the end he talked about his father. We all teared up with Dennis as he told of how despite the push back from everyone his father knew, his father always supported his decisions. He held back the tears, and his mouth twisted to say the words that despite all the pain he caused his family his father still showed unconditional love for him. Even through his de-conversion and path to atheism he was accepted by his family. It was such a great story. Very uplifting.

At the end of the service Mike Aus came to the podium and talked about the exciting program next Sunday that would start a half hour early. Next Sunday's program is going to be with famous internet atheist, Aaron Ra and biologist, PZ Meyers. After the "service" let out we met some people that were in attendance. There were probably, I would estimate, around a hundred people in attendance. We met people that came to atheism from all walks of life. Some were born into an atheistic home, another man was born in Pakistan as a Muslim, yet another was still a Mormon that was "working things out in his head". All very nice people and that was the thing I loved most about this, it's all about meeting people. We are social animals at our very core and it feels good to socialize. I was moved by the whole refreshing experience. I am now going to look into local atheist meet ups here in Vegas.

After the the "service" we met with the "congregation" at Jason's Deli (in our home town, growing up, after church we would all meet up at Ponderosa or Pizza Hut for the buffet - see "bizarro-world"!) My friend had been trying to call his wife multiple times to confirm if she was making lunch for all of us or not. She wasn't answering her phone so we went ahead and got in line at Jason's Deli. In front of us was a man wearing a shirt that said "It is finished!", referencing Jesus' last words on the cross. One of the atheists in attendance at the Oasis meetup was talking to him about religion. It was sort of like un-evangelizing. As we stood in an unmoving line for about ten minutes my friend said we should probably just go, just in case his wife was making food. So we ditched everyone. We didn't really say goodbye to anyone. We jokingly imagined, as we saw Mike Aus straggle in late while we left,

Mike saying, Oh you guys leaving?

Yeah, we just converted back to Christianity in line here. - we reply.

Mike Aus just sort of makes a confused look while replying back, 

Alright then, ...

We laughed about the possibility of someone that was so fickle to just instantaneously be convinced by a single argument. This person after attending atheist church would be "saved" then attend a Christian church next Sunday be convinced instantly by a conversation with a Jewish person, and Muslim and so on. Each week changing their mind on the most important of questions about life and the universe. We had a good long laugh about how absurd that would be and joined his wife and son for a delicious lunch on the patio.

I had a wonderful time in Houston. I reflected on this as I sat drinking a large beer at Chili's in the George Bush Intercontinental Airport waiting for my flight to start boarding. I miss my friend and our jokes. We discussed forming a band that will most certainly be called "Slack Jaw Jesus and the Balling Fondas". It will involve my brother, me, him, and probably a laptop, but the laptop will for sure be an actual member of the band. We saw some pretty interesting indie music in downtown Houston at a place called the Fitzgerald. The bands were "Ishi" and the "TonTons". I was able to see mission control at the NASA Space Center museum. We visited Austin, Texas where everyone has an ironic t-shirt, a mustache, and tattoos. It was a pretty cool city. I will be visiting Houston/Austin again very soon. Band practice starts next month, I think...

Or does it?!?

Day 21 (Tuesday)

Hello, Ramadan! I'm back!
I arrived back in Las Vegas late Monday night. The last non-Ramadan meal I ate was Chipotle. It was around 6pm Monday night. I woke up too late for prayer so I will do it right now at 12:47pm. I'm curious to see how this will go. How hungry I will be since I took 5 days off of fasting. This is the last day of the 3rd week of Ramadan. I work until 10:30pm tonight. Hopefully it goes well.

I stopped by Coffee Bean on my way to work for my daily fasting cheat of coffee with dark chocolate flavoring. This help sustain me and my entire day was very productive with no real hunger pangs. I almost didn't even notice it was past 8pm. I broke fast with olives, some brown rice and some orange peel chicken Thai food. I only prayed once, but the midday prayer was a good one. I have to admit I missed it. I enjoyed the time to just sit and focus on my friends and family - sending them good thoughts and wishes. Praying for them. When I was on my vacation in Houston my friend sent me a link of Reza Aslan doing a calm verbal smack down of a badgering agenda-driven Fox News "reporter" not really talking about his new book on Jesus of Nazareth. I found Reza's response refreshing and his clarity empowering. It was what I mentioned in my previous blog. I was impressed by this man's passion for history and his engaging, friendly demeanor. I will post a link below with the video I am referring to.

This is the end of my very shortened week 3 of Ramadan. Week 4 is coming soon... It will be the last week and a handful of days near the end. I hope to write a wrap up conclusion to this whole experience.

Meet Houston Oasis:
www.houstonoasis.org

Meet Mike Aus:
www.un-pastorized.com

If you are ever in Houston go to see shows here:
http://fitzlivemusic.com/

Meet the band "Tontons":
http://thetontons.com/

Meet the band "Ishi":
 http://www.ishimusic.com/

Reza Aslan being "interviewed" by a Fox News "reporter":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY92TV4_Wc0