EPTMy formal baptism into the lake of atheism came not within the philosophy classrooms, but in one of the silent and otherwise imperceptible freshman literature classes. It was not even Camus. Nor Sartre. But it was a little Philip Larkin poem that finally gave me the courage to finally let go of God. I say "courage" not because there is grandness in the claim of being an atheist, as is fashionable nowadays, but rather, it is all you have when you finally confront the idea that everything that you hold dear, what you are taught as the absolute of life, will soon be gone, and in its place an immensely insurmountable chasm that you must nonetheless overcome. I have crossed this chasm over and over, with equal measure of vigilance and bliss. Vigilance because I might have missed something and that I may have been wrong. And bliss because I know what it means to be free. My only regret now is not taking notes of the journey.
Now, close to a decade into my teaching profession, I have always tried to be keen on how my students grapple with this issue. One of the functions of education of course is for the students to learn to think for themselves and to have a more critical perspective of life, If this leads them to doubt God, so be it. To me, this has always been my latent goal. In my earlier years, I used the sledgehammer approach. All my post-freshman philosophy courses were, to be honest, vulgar indoctrination classes. It could not have been anything else - the fervor of a newly-baptized atheist and the potency of teaching young flexible minds is a match made in secular heaven. It was as if a wolf is unleashed inside a ranch of sheep.
After my third or fourth year in teaching, I took things a bit more slowly. It is not that I waned on my nonbelief, but I figured that genuine meditation on something so fundamental is more lasting when the students discover it for themselves. Just as the perfect pot of beef stew takes at least a couple of hours under low fire to cook, the final discovery of the irrationality of religion becomes more meaningful when the students ask the questions and discover the truth themselves.
I have since maintained an eclectic approach to my courses, but I maintain a subtle structure in my syllabus so that students can make the logical progression of thought. During the early phase of the course, I always try to insert a few literary texts in order for the students to have a full grasp of what lies ahead. The best things about teaching is that it is the proverbial Heraclitean river. You can never cross it twice, and no text or class, is ever the same.
One of the most satisfying moments in all of my teaching career came one day last semester when, discussing Beckett's Waiting for Godot I saw from the eyes of my students a certain sparkle. It was a sophomore course, so I was careful to tread the text lightly. As often is the case when I see foreheads wrinkled and brows uniting, I break into a monologue. "Vladimir and Estragon do not know who Godot is, they do not even know if he is arriving, yet why do they continue to wait for him?" I concluded. As any teacher can imagine, the variety of the answers from the students to this question can range from the downright senseless to the literal, from the banal to the critical. It takes some patience to encourage the right kind of discussion.
Eventually one student who just earlier was nodding her head profusely in agreement to a classmate who was insisting that I cannot ask them even theoretically what it means if there was no meaning in life, in parallel to the meaninglessness of the details in Beckett's play, slowly, and thoughtfully, as if she had unearthed the universe's greatest secret, said: "What if God never arrives?". I smiled. Normally, I would transition the discussion from the literary by introducing that isn't waiting for Godot the perfect allegory for Christian life. In this case, my heart was full of joy that the students arrive at this realization much sooner.
"What then", I asked. "Does it make a difference whether he does or not?"
With these words I dismiss the class, the certain and vigilant look on the faces of my students now gone, and only an expression of discovery and doubt is left. I prefer that over dogmatic certainty any day.
