Skip to main content

What Remains

By hellboundsoul ~

It’s been nearly 4 years since I left the beliefs of my childhood behind. The dust has settled for the most part. I have long since developed a new perspective, a new philosophy, a new moral foundation. In many ways, arguably the most important ways, I am still the same person as I always was. I act on my convictions wherever they might lead me. When I was 16 they led me to choose to become baptized in my community’s church. When I was 20 they led me away from everything I had ever known.

The settling of the dust that coloured the long and arduous transition phase revealed something that would not fade away into distant memories. It was a new structure, a product of the transition of my beliefs. It was a structure of sadness. The sadness of loss.

The bright new world that I saw through my brand new perspective was lacking something that I had become accustomed to having, so accustomed that I had taken it completely for granted. I had always had the support of my family and the religious community I grew up in. I belonged there. I was related to nearly everyone in the community in one way or another, but more significantly I shared something with them that bonded us all together. Shared belief is social glue. Shared religious belief is home. It is belonging.

I don’t go “home” anymore. I can’t. It’s an odd feeling of homelessness, not having a supportive community of family and friends to rely on in hard times. While it may be true that I can still go “home” and be with these people, my home is gone. Home is where you are loved and accepted for who you are. Home is where you can relax, because nobody is going to come up to you and remind you that they fundamentally reject the person that you are and the life choices you’ve made. My “home” is home in name only. “Home” is where I feel that I am surrounded by a pack of hungry lions, eager to show off how superior their beliefs are to mine in one way or another, by being annoyingly nice or by pretending that their “relationship with Jesus” makes them more happy than the average human being. There is an agenda in every interaction and the agenda is to change me. Some are more subtle and more clever than others, but it all boils down to the same thing.

I don’t go “home” anymore. I can’t. Before the dust had settled I could because I believed in words. I believed that I could communicate to these people that I was still the same person as before and they could continue going about their business and not concern themselves with my change in philosophy. I thought I could communicate that I wasn’t interested in “converting” them to my new beliefs, that I still respected them and only wished for the same in return. At times I even thought I could explain the details of my transition in such a way that they’d approve of my decision. Thousands upon thousands of words were spilled, attempts at explanation, attempts at patient understanding.

The era of words is over. Everything that can be said has been said. It is clear where I stand and it is clear where they stand. We are at an impasse. It’s over. The contract of insurmountable differences has been signed. In the absence of words only sadness remains.

The structure of sadness holds a place in the landscape of my mind among a myriad of other things. It is often hidden by other structures–confidence, excitement, contentment, happiness–but it holds its place in my mind, and visits me on occasion. It is never a pleasant visit but I do not resent it. I lost something all those years ago and sadness is a natural response. Fortunately the visits are shorter and less frequent than they used to be, but the sadness is still very real.

I am building a new home now. A network of people who are accepting, people that I can relax around and not feel a need to defend myself to, a new family. Won’t you join us?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

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

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