Coming to a newsstand (or mailbox) near you

The cover of the issue where my first Free Inquiry essay was published. It was appropriate for someone who was called "funny, profane and adamantly atheistic" by the Washington Post.

Free Inquiry has been been berry berry gooood to me! (Perhaps I'm dating myself with a reference to that old Saturday Night Live catch phrase. That bit is also kind of racist, making fun of Latin American accents, but, hey, I didn't create that sketch!)

Anyway, it's gotten so that when I submitted my latest essay to them, I expected that they would accept it for publication. I would've been crushed if they had rejected it, but my assumption proved correct, fortunately.

"Saving My Life by Saving My Soul?" shares the title of a Coma Chameleon blog on the same subject. It tells the tale of the mendacious minister at the hospital, who made the situation around my apparent death bed more stressful for my secular loved ones.

The essay also talks about the very first time someone implied that my recovery was a miracle. That was the priest in my Catholic nursing home, All Saints. He took one look at me after my awakening and said, "God is good."

I've written about these stories both in Coma Chameleon and in the Secular Spectrum. The essay is a synthesis of what I've written in both blogs. It's slated for the October/November issue of Free Inquiry. My first essay, "Without a Prayer of a Chance," also appeared in their October/November issue, in 2015. The publication of the new essay will therefore make a fitting anniversary celebration for my secularist writing career. Though I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the first work I published for secularists, the Skeptical Inquirer article, "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience."

I guess you can say that my coma-related experiences have been berry berry gooood to my writing career, too!

Here are the Coma Chameleon posts on the aforementioned stories: All Saints; one "none"; Saving my life by saving my soul?; God say me eat COOKIE. And here are the SecSpec posts: "God is Good," But for What?; Isn't There Something in the Bible About Lying?; The Chaplain's Cat Logic; A Little Birdie Told Me to Do It.

My first Secular Spectrum post

The theme of my first post for the Patheos Atheist Channel group blog The Secular Spectrum will be somewhat familiar to my regular readers, but I took a particularly satirical tack to introduce my story to a unfamiliar readership. It's not hard to satirize the fact that so many believers think God bestowed a miracle upon such a committed atheist. Here's the link: Miracle Girl?

God say me eat COOKIE

Part 3 of a two-part blog about my encounters with nursing home and hospital clergy. I suppose you can call it part 2.1, since it's unpacking the subject of the second blog. I really should stop labeling linked posts with numbers. (Part one.)

Naturally, atheists think they're right about the nonexistence of God and consider the faithful misguided, at the very least. In fact, that's the very word I once used to describe the family members lamenting the fear of the dark they thought was preventing the poor dying girl in my ICU room from "crossing over." The same goes for believers, of course. How can atheists deny the "evidence" of God's work? But what sets the two groups apart? And what was different about the prevaricating hospital chaplain and his probable motivation for his behaviour?

When was the last time you read about a child being killed in an attempt to drive religion out of them? Take your time; I'll wait. In most cases, the adults involved in tragically fatal exorcisms are doing this through love, not malice. But surely it's unfair to link the probably well-meaning mainline Protestant hospital chaplain to such ignorant, fringe religious thinking, you may say. I agree, despite the fact that I snarkily used an image from The Exorcist to illustrate my last blog.

But what links these religiously based behaviours is an absolute conviction of the righteousness of their cause. It's a belief that the ends justify the means, and a faith that God is guiding their actions. Atheists, on the other hand, believe that their own biases and desires are shaping their motivations--duh!--not some outside force. They therefore tend to consider their moral actions with utmost seriousness. Far from being rudderless without God to guide them, it's been my experience that nonbelievers think far more deeply about the consequences of their actions. The faithful are more likely to translate their inner voice as God telling them to do, coincidentally, exactly what they want to do.

That's like Cookie Monster telling himself that God is the voice in his head. God say me eat COOKIE! Nom, nom, nom. An atheist is more apt to be like Oscar the Grouch. I love trash, and that's why I collect it. I don't steal trash from other Grouches because it would be wrong to take their battered and worn sneakers just because they have more holes. They love their ragged or rotten or rusty trash too.

So what does this have to do with our lying cleric? He was probably so convinced that he was doing God's work that anything he did was God's will, even if it involved lying. There was a life at stake, after all. Without God's light, she will surely die. Yes, all of her loved ones but one is a nonbeliever, but keeping me from praying for her is like preventing her doctors from treating her. It's God's will that I pray for her, despite her beliefs and her loved ones' wishes. I'm lying, but it's for the greater good.

Of course, he wasn't doing it for selfish reasons, but the fact remains that he lied because he thought he was doing God's work. God's will gave him him license to do exactly what he wanted to do. What a coincidence. No one thinks they're a bad person, and when they do wrong, they can usually find a handy excuse to justify their actions. But those who believe their actions are guided by a higher power don't even recognize that it's an excuse, however justified. To them, it's a command from God. They chomp down on that cookie, convinced all the while that it's not because me love COOKIES.

Saving my life by saving my soul?

A representation of the scene at the hospital, with some creative license.

Part two of my two-part blog detailing the uncomfortable situations I faced with nursing home and hospital chaplains. Part one: All Saints; one "none"

Though it was a fair characterization to place my Free Inquiry essay "Without a Prayer of a Chance" on the "it's okay" side of the prayer issue, I make a distinction between sincere prayers offered by my friends and ones imposed upon me by people who don't know me and for whom it's not personal. Case in point, the probably well-meaning, but nonetheless mendacious chaplain at the Kaiser Permanente hospital where I spent the bulk of the six weeks of my coma.

You would think he had never come across a nonbeliever before. My mother, who is also an atheist, informed the hospital chaplain of my atheism the first time he came into my room while she was there. Joella already knew him, so this wasn't his first visit. My mom allowed him to pray over me, however. Even though she was uncomfortable with it, she felt it was relatively harmless--as I thought after my awakening (as mentioned in part one). It was a generic sort of prayer, God's love and all that.

Keith was raised an Episcopalian, with a couple of priests in his family. He's an agnostic, but his interest in the history of religion led him to become a religious studies major. His second interaction with the chaplain was memorably fraught, fueled by Keith's lack of sleep in those terrible days early on when I was hovering near death. The cleric entered my room, but Keith tried to wave him away. "We talked about this before. Stephanie is an atheist, and you said you wouldn't bother her." "Sorry, I didn't know," the chaplain replied. Keith, who isn't generally a combative person, called him on it. "Isn't there something in the Bible about lying?" Unlike many believers, he's actually read the Bible. That's one of the reasons he's an agnostic.

Now, I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Keith had written in my records that I was an atheist. And he had reminded the chaplain repeatedly of this fact. You would think he'd want to check that before ministering to a patient. You wouldn't want to pray to Jesus over a Jewish patient or speak of heaven to the family members of a dying Hindu, perhaps offering them a little beef jerky as a snack. My mother is not the type to mince words. She made my beliefs (and hers) perfectly clear. Was it too much to ask that our beliefs be respected? Perhaps he thought he was lying for the greater good. God knows.

He promised Keith that he would stop coming around, but that was a lie too. Unbeknownst to Keith, my mother encountered him two additional times. On the second visit, she repeated that I was an atheist. He said that Keith had told him that, as well (but he neglected to mention his promise not to return). He again asked if he could pray for me, and she agreed despite her reservations. "May you take the lord's light into your heart and be healed," he prayed. My mother was offended by the attempted conversion and the implication that I wouldn't be healed without it. He should've saved his breath. It would've taken the profound brain damage my doctors thought I had for me to believe. The third time he showed up while she was there, she refused his request to pray.

I had one last encounter with the minister, this time personally, after my awakening. I had returned to the hospital to repair a hemorrhaging ulcer caused by my feeding tube. The cleric asked if he could he could pray for me. I nodded reluctantly. But I quickly changed my mind, with a sharp shake of my head. Like the priest in the nursing home, he looked stunned. It was as if the previous encounters with Keith and my mom never happened. Yes, it was weeks later, but given the conflict with him and my relative youth, you would think my case would've stood out in his mind. Was he shocked that I hadn't taken God's light into my heart and was still healed?

To me, his prayer request felt like an imposition--like he wasn't praying for me, but at me. By then I knew my friends had been praying for me. I appreciated the feelings behind their prayers, but it wasn't personal for the chaplain. Why should I have to be subjected to this? And why was I worrying about saying no; didn't my feelings enter into this? It wasn't as if I could get up and walk away.

Yes, I believe all prayers are pointless, but some prayers are more so than others. My friends' prayers were a deeply personal gesture. To them, prayer works, so it was the most effective way they could help me. Forget my feelings about the efficacy of prayer; to them, this was the deepest form of support they could offer.

When Keith told the chaplain--in answer to his question--that he was an agnostic, he said, "Good, there's still hope for you." He wasn't kidding. But Keith isn't an agnostic because he can't make up his mind, but because there's no way to prove the existence or non-existence of God. This comment leads me to believe that the chaplain was indeed trying to save my life by saving my soul. God help me.

Before he left, the minister asked if he could visit me again. I shook my head once more. I'm sure his presence is a comfort to believers, but I just wanted to be left alone.

All Saints; one "none"

Godless at the hospital.

At All Saints Healthcare, five days before my awakening. Sill godless.

In my hospital records, my religion is listed as atheism. Leaving aside that fact that atheism isn't a religion, you would think that would've hung a big No Solicitations sign over my bed to clergy on their ministering rounds. But the day I awoke from my coma, I was visited by the nursing home's resident priest. He sat down beside me and asked me if he could hold my hand. I nodded, though I've always felt uncomfortable with physical contact with complete strangers, even when I didn't have dermatomyositis sore-covered hands wrapped in bandages. At least I wasn't an altar boy. Sorry, I had to make a crack. Now you know why I've always been afraid of saying the wrong thing around the religious.

As he gently took my hand in his, he said, "God is good." Oy! I fixed my eyes on him to prevent them from rolling. (He was the first of countless others who have called my recovery a miracle. I've probably the only atheist who has strengthened the faith of more believers than Richard Dawkins.)

"Do you remember me?" he continued. I didn't, but I nodded anyway, trying to be accommodating. I felt awkward around him. My tracheostomy tube prevented me from speaking, so at least there was no danger that I would accidentally blurt out something offensive. For that reason, among many others (hello...atheist!), I've always demurred when a hospital chaplain asked if I wanted to speak with them. This time, I couldn't just say no.

He smiled at me. "Have you thanked God for your life?" I was literally speechless. "No!" I wanted to say, but all I could do was vigorously shake my head. He looked as if I had slapped him in the face. What was I supposed to say? "Thanks, God, for saving my life after you almost killed me. Oh, that's right, I don't believe in you, anyway." He soon took his leave of this ungrateful atheist, but not before asking me if he could pray for me. As I've said of my friends' prayers (which I didn't yet know about), prayers are more for the prayer, so I nodded. It seemed harmless enough, and I still trying to remain polite.

I wanted to squirm, but I was so weak could barely move. It felt like he was praying at me, not for me. I didn't know why I was being subjected to this visit, and I couldn't wait for it to end. Certainly, my Jewish-atheist mother, who had been there for my awakening, hadn't asked for him. As I eventually learned, the nursing home where I had stayed for five days, after being transferred from the hospital, was called All Saints Healthcare for a reason. It's a Catholic nursing home. I guess No Saints Healthcare wasn't an option?

But this problem started in the secular Kaiser hospital where I spent the bulk of the six weeks of my coma. That story will be told in Wednesday's blog. You'll see why my attitude--at least when it didn't involve my friends' prayers--was closer Eric Wojciechowski's take in his essay, "Please Stop Praying for Me," which was paired with my essay, "Without a Prayer of a Chance," in the October/November issue of Free Inquiry.

Have you had a similar experience with hospital or nursing home clergy? Share your story in the comments section!

Click here for Part 2: Saving my life by saving my soul?

Applied Blasphemy

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is one of my favorite films, though "The Life of Brian" is better.

It's not every atheist who has the privilege of experiencing an authentic Miracle of God, you know, the kind they canonize saints over. I mean, you would think that God would reserve them for believers. Certainly, he wouldn't bestow them on someone who has so often mocked him, in person and in print.

Of course, I don't think my survival from kidney and lung failure, multiple strokes on both sides of my brain, and a six-week coma was a miracle. Unlikely, yes, but not a miracle, unless you mean a miracle of modern medicine. You can read about how my doctors bought my body time to begin healing itself in my Skeptical Inquirer article "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience."

But this is not what my religious friends, who were praying for me during my coma, and many others believe. It doesn't matter if I've laid out, step by step, how the actions of my doctors slowly turned the tide. To them, ultimately, God did it (by ensuring that my doctors followed the standard lifesaving procedures?). Indeed, I've been told my recovery was a miracle so many times that I've referred to myself as Miracle Girl. Knowing me, my friends must've known that I was joking, but they couldn't have understood how deeply ironic it that moniker was. I didn't fully "come out" until my work starting appearing in the secularist press. But my religious friends provided invaluable support for me during my long and difficult recovery, and my attitude about these types of prayers changed. Yes, I still think prayer is pointless, but I now see that this was their way of supporting me in a way that was deeply meaningful to them, at a time when my doctors seemed impotent to save my life. After all, my friends truly believed prayers work. To them, praying for me was the most effective way they could help me.

I've made it plain that I don't believe in miracles, but I don't call people out when they claim I experienced one. And when, after hearing my story, strangers tell me that I must have something important left to do on earth, I swallow sarcastic rejoinders like, "You mean like my Skeptical Inquirer article? Or maybe my humanist essays for Free Inquiry?" Instead, I just smile.

A case in point is my essay, "Without a Prayer of a Chance," which is in the current issue of Free Inquiry. My second FI essay,"Sympathy for the Devil-Believers," tentatively scheduled for their February/March issue, details how I came to this attitude after my completely secular upbringing and despite my generally anti-religious beliefs. My exposure to believers and the kind support I received from some of them began to soften my biases. Yes, it works both ways.

The theme of the October/November issue of Free Inquiry is blasphemy, and they've labeled a series of essays, including mine, "Applied Blasphemy." I love that! But coupled with the Washington Post's quote about my Skeptical Inquirer article, "Funny, frequently profane and adamantly atheistic," I sound like the perfect profile of a New Atheist. Actually, I don't at all approve of the New Atheists' tactics. In fact, I've joked that I may be the only atheist who has strengthened the faith of more believers than Richard Dawkins. You don't win a lot of converts by insulting them. And frankly, I couldn't care less if people want to believe in a great big genie in the sky...as long as they don't try to cram their religion down my throat.

This attitude is among the reasons my essay became the "it's okay if they want to pray for me" side of the applied blasphemy theme. As they put it in their blurb for my essay, "I don't credit God for my extraordinary recovery from illness, but I won't begrudge my friends the satisfaction they got from praying for me." A contrasting essay takes the opposite tack, "Please stop praying for me."

That's exactly where I was before my coma. Nearly dying has to change you. In my case, among other things, it made me more forgiving of other people's well-meaning magical thinking...especially when it shows how much they care.

The March of Times

So far, I've been pretty lucky for someone who doesn't believe in luck. My article, "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience," was tentatively scheduled for the July/August issue of Skeptical Inquirer. It's out now.

I was advised by someone in the know not to say in my article bio that my essay, "Without a Prayer of a Chance," was tentatively scheduled for the October/November issue of Free Inquiry. But low and behold, earlier today I received my proof for the essay, which will appear--wait for it--in their October/November issue. And, no, I didn't pray for it to happen

Seeing as I believe in neither luck, nor fate, I'm not counting on "Sympathy for the Devil-Believers" appearing in the February/March issue of Free Inquiry. But if it does, my work will be in almost continual publication through the beginning of 2016. I've already started work on my next essay for the same readership.

Hopefully, my string of published work will outlast the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.