How I became an atheist: Part 3 - Angelic choir

After high school I enrolled at Southern Illinois University. My favorite class was concert choir, mainly because I didn't have any homework. I spent 2 1/2 years in the SIU choir. It didn't dawn on me until just now as I'm writing this that our choir director, Dr. Mochnick, was always talking about our music being either sacred or secular. And he always made sure that our repertoire was mainly sacred music. We were only ever allowed 2 or 3 secular songs per semester. I didn't think much of it then, but now I'm curious as to why. Was it because Dr. Mochnick was a religious guy? Was it a school requirement? Did he feel there was more educational value to sacred choral music?

The words God and Jesus and Heaven and whatnot never really rolled off my tongue. I remember not really being able to connect to the music we were singing and it giving me a weird feeling inside sometimes.

Our choir spent a lot of time in churches. Every semester we would go on tour, covering practically the entire state of Illinois. We would sing at a church in the morning, a school in the afternoon, and a church at night. The church patrons would volunteer to house us for the night. We probably sang at a church from every Christian denomination over the course of 2 1/2 years. Our songs were often woven into the church service, so I had to sit through many different kinds of sermons and services.

Never once have I felt comfortable in church. Even later in life when I attended a few non-denominational and gay-oriented services, I still felt a disconnect and a sense that I didn't really belong. Back in college, I would sit there in the choir stall and watch the people in the pews as they listened to the pastor preach. I never bought it, the devotion. It never seemed sincere. More often than not, the people would be completely disinterested. They were there simply because they know they're supposed to be there. But even the ones who were devout, it always seemed put on, or forced. They wanted, and needed, to believe.

The one time I actually sorta enjoyed myself was when my friend Paul and I went to a Jewish synagogue as part of a class project. They were doing a special service about the holocaust. No one bombarded us with questions about why we were there and what we believed. One lady who was next to us kindly helped us navigate the Hewbrew scriptures that were being read aloud (it's written from right to left). It's the one time I felt like the people there were sincere in their beliefs and what they were doing.