Skip to main content

I am now starting to fully understand

By Thick Canadian Beard --

This may seem like an odd testimonial, but please bear with me, as they are to my discovery of the hardships that come with the actions of leaving the church behind.

I stumbled across this site recently, and I have to say that as a man who has grown up as an atheist, I find it amazing to read stories of Christian de-conversions. You have to understand that to me, a religious world is quite foreign. My mother stopped believing before I was born, and as a result I have lived a life shielded almost completely from religion, Christian or otherwise. To go into a church for me is akin to stepping through a portal into another dimension... in fact, I remember going to a funeral when I was about 8 and, when everyone broke out into hymns, asking out loud "Mommy, why does everyone know the words?". Until I was in high school, I'd say that close to 100% of my religious knowledge came from popular culture. Most of my friends when I was growing up were, and still in large part are, atheist or agnostic. I guess it's true, your best friends often reflect your own values.

I've always been pretty liberal about my position concerning religion: live-and-let-live. I obviously don't go to mass or anything like that, but my views have never kept me from attending a wedding or funeral in a church. Am I uncomfortable being there? HECK yes, I always have been (I can't think of a more surreal experience, church services honestly creep me out a little bit), but I also won't let someone else's beliefs keep me from celebrating the joys of marriage, or mourning the loss of a loved one.

I have read many posts here recently that are interesting in that the majority of everyone in this community have reached the same common understanding that I have, yet we have arrived at these conclusions from very different roads; as one who never believed in the first place, it has been phenomenally simple for me throughout my life to rebuke arguments in favor of religion: scripture has always to me fallen into the realm of fairytale, as the idea that the entire collected being of "women" came from the rib of a man is as plausible to me as rubbing a lamp and having one's wishes granted, or trading a cow for beans that grow so high that one could climb them to reach a castle in the clouds. I grew up being taught and knowing that I was ruled by rational thought, and that morality and moral well-being was an absolute constant in man rather than necessary lesson, that doing good for others was doing good in itself, without the unnecessary ultimatum that religion forces upon acts of kindness.

I am now starting to fully understand just how hard it is to rebel against something like the church, against an idea that you have been raised by and lived with since you were old enough to have memories.My point is, I had no idea how much of a stranglehold religion had on people. I agree that while I have absolutely no reason to endorse religion, I admit that the sense of community it creates within people is often very healthy, however misguided the cause is, and to remove one's self from that community can be in many cases a great hardship. I have a much deeper and greater understanding and respect for those of you who have de-converted, as I am now understanding that the stress it takes to do so can sometimes be unbearable, creating scars and wounds within families and neighborhoods. To those of you who have shown such true inner-strength, I have nothing but the highest respect for showing such courage to not only change your personal views, but also to reflect that change in your actions.

I am now 30 years old, and I'm just now coming to the realization of just how indoctrinated the Christian community is, ESPECIALLY in certain areas of the U.S. If you never once believed in religion, it is SURPRISINGLY easy to excuse it as trivial and irrelevant, however I an now starting to fully understand just how hard it is to rebel against something like the church, against an idea that you have been raised by and lived with since you were old enough to have memories.

My best wishes go out to all of you who have felt the need to leave the church in your mind, but who maybe can't leave the flock: Knowing that the true realization of your own self-worth can be attained without the fear of divine retribution, that the world can be a good place without spiritual ultimatum, can be enough. Simply knowing you have changed is in itself a great reward, and you shouldn't dismiss it even if you find yourself in church every week.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi