beth

Hello,
I am new here. I am a Christian but I am beginning to seriously question the existence of God. I wanted to ask you to share with me the reasons why you gave up your faith. How did you fill the void after religion left your life? Did you face social ramifications for your decision? I am very troubled right now. Even depressed over this. Is this a common thing? Thank you for your response.
Blessings.

seebs

BTW, if you find yourself also wanting to hear the "other side", you can ask around at:

http://www.christianforums.com/

Both sides will have good insights.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Hey blonde goddess. Welcome to the boards!!

Well, for me the deconversion from Christianity took several years. I grew up Methodist, and when I was in about 3rd grade we started going to the Catholic church. I just accepted God as truth because I knew no differently. When I was about 12 or 13, though, I started having doubts about Christianity. After thinking about Christianity and reading the Bible I decided that Christianity wasn't for me, but I still believed in some concept of "god". As the years went by I lost interest in this question and just accepted the existence of God as truth.

However, towards the end of my high school days I started thinking about religion a bit more. I realized that church was starting to look more and more primitive. At first I thought that the service was a vestige of earlier times and that they didn't grasp the true concept of God. Then I realized that I didn't even know the true concept of God. I kept pondering this a bit more, and eventually I realized that I had no basis for faith in God. At that point I finally realized that I was an Atheist.

It was a bit hard to accept at first. It took me a couple of months to get adjusted to life without God. Also, many of the friends I had at the time were theistic. I felt like I had to keep my beliefs to myself in order to keep them. It was tough to keep my beliefs to myself and trying to cope with the nonexistence of God at the same time. It took some time, but I did adjust just fine. I'm reasonably open about my Atheism now, and only keep it from my family (for reasons I won't get into now).

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I suppose my main reason for becoming an Atheist is that I saw no evidence for the existence of God. I realized that I had no basis for my own faith. I then noticed that people in similar countries tend to have similar religions, which led me to think that religion (and believe in God) is mostly cultural. Additionally, I was introduced to such arguments like the Argument from Evil (If God exists, then he is omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. But an omnimax deity would want to prevent evil, be able to prevent, and know how to prevent it. Evil exists; therefore, God as defined does not exist). I began to read webpages like the SecWeb library and another page (I forgot which), and those arguments convinced me even more. At some point during my discovery I shed religion completely.

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Yes, it's common to be depressed and troubled about this. Religion is a big part of a person's life, and it's tough to question that religion and potentially discard it. Some people are able to leave religion fairly painlessly. Others go through a much more difficult time.

This link is another thread in the discussion boards about everyone's deconversion. Check it out if you will. Everyone has a different story about leaving religion, and you may like to read what other people went through when they left their own religion.

-Nick

Celsus

Hi blondegoddess,

I hope all is well. For the moment, here's a very worthwhile book: Leaving the Fold

In terms of filling voids, I just mixed with the friends I had where religion had never been an issue. Not much of a problem on the social front.

On a personal one, it was very difficult when I realised I didn't believe the target of my prayers existed. It turns out, it was a good thing, because instead of sitting on my ass waiting for God to make things happen, I started getting out there and doing it for myself. And the main thing is, find those worthwhile pursuits you've always had that never required God.

For me, that was football (soccer), poetry and reading. That and getting blind drunk every night. And don't listen to seebs. The other side is just more pain.

Joel

Strawberry

Hi, blondegoddess! Welcome to II. Perhaps consider posting in the Welcome forum (although I skipped this step entirely and emerged with only a few more bruises than normal ).

As to the reasons I left xtianity, I just saw too many Biblical contradictions, too many unanswered questions, too many flimsy defenses. If you'd like to check out some of this firsthand, http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com is a good site.

The "void," for me, was actually filled by an intense sense of relief...the fear of hell had been really eating at me, and finally getting rid of most of that baggage was liberating, to say the least. It's harder now for me to relate to my family, as they're very religious, and it feels odd to suddenly be part of a small minority rather than a majority. But I honestly don't think I've felt too many more repercussions from losing faith entirely than I would have from simply switching to a different religion, if that makes sense.

I don't think that de-converting is very common. Atheism isn't very common in and of itself; I think maybe about 5% of Americans claim atheism as their spiritual preference. But I--and I'm only slightly biased --tend to think that it's the most intelligent way to go. (Kidding, kidding.)

Good luck in your spiritual journeying. There are quite a few others here who have dealt with depression over this, myself probably included. You're contemplating a major change in world view, so you likely will feel a lot of inner turmoil. *That* part is entirely normal.

pug846

I didn’t have a very traumatic deconversion story, so I don’t think I can be of much help. It never really affected my life; religion rarely came up in High School and when I went to college, I found a lot of people who thought just like me. Nearly all of my close friends are atheists/agnostics. I found out later that my dad is an atheist as well. My mother is Catholic.

This is my take on people who do have a hard time deconverting.

For so many people, religion is their identity; in a very real sense, it is who they are. So, when they deconvert, they lack an identity, hence the void of meaning in their life. It’s similar to why some people take break ups so badly. If you’ve been dating someone for a while and they break up with you, most people feel like life has lots all meaning. In a way, it has since you identified so much of who you are as being X’s significant other. But as most of us know, over time, you find meaning and identity in new things. The key then is to try and find meaning in other relationships or to go out and find new things to do. If you’re married or in a serious relationship, maybe spend more time with your significant other (or your children, if you have any). Or maybe go do other activities that you haven’t done in a while. No matter what you do, you will eventually find new meaning in your life. Some people will try and convince you the reason you are having such a tough time is because you are doing the wrong thing. But if it is just like the breaking up situation, then you can see right through the objection. Most of us have been involved with break ups that hurt like hell, but we know now that it was the right thing.

As for reasons why I personally decoverted, I think the first thing that hit me was the ridiculousness of the bible, particularly the Old Testament. The pettiness and childlike behavior of God in the Old Testament was a big turn off. The problem of evil was something that I could never get my mind around. None of the answers made any sense to me. Either they tried to make God into a utilitarian (He lets children die for the greater good), which doesn’t make any sense, or we have free will and God didn’t want to interfere with it, which made no sense since the God of the Bible interferes all the time…and if he couldn’t interfere, why bother praying? The questions kept coming and the answers were either non-existent, or so ridiculous that as a 12 year old, I could see how silly they were. I also could never understand why God would let non-Christians go to hell. My father is ethnically Jewish (and at the time, I assumed that also meant he was a religious Jew) and I never understood why God cared if he believed in Jesus or not. Why should that matter? The final straw was reading about Noah’s ark. Either it literally happened, which made no sense at all to my 12-year-old mind or it didn’t literally happen and I didn’t understand the point of the story. Why could we possibly learn from the story? Go against God and He will kill everything? That wasn’t what I thought when I thought “God.” What the Bible and God taught as “good” was such a perversion of everything that I knew and thought of as “good.”

Anyway, those are the reasons I felt were strong enough to one day drop the whole charade of claiming to believe in God. I’m older now, so my reasons have probably changed, but at least originally, that’s why I walked away.

Bill

Thats a good thing, since at least the Christian idea of God has been quite adequately disproved (from my perspective, anyway; I am an agnostic on the whole idea of God, but I remain an agnostic only because atheists have no reasonable reply to "first cause" and "arguments to design" assertions). I gave up my "faith" rather gradually. After I became thoroughly disgusted with Christianity-as-practiced (meaning I got rather sick and tired of hearing about allegedly-devout Christians who would not behave in any way that at all resembled what the Bible said Christians ought to behave like), I began a search for "truth." The more I read about the early Christian church and the goings-on in Jerusalem around the time of Jesus, the more convinced I became that Jesus (if he were alive today) would not have anything at all to do with anybody who called himself or herself a "Christian" today, and that (furthermore) the folks who wrote the New Testament not only didn't know Jack, they clearly didn't know Jesus. The only person we can agree did know Jesus was James, the Brother of Jesus, and James was virtually a High Priest of Judaism! You don't have to believe anything like all that he says, but read Robert Eisenman's book, James the Brother of Jesus. And in fact, even that book, by itself, doesn't refute Christianity as much as challenge Christians to seek the real basis of their faith. (See, for instance, the review by a Christian on the bookstore page.)

Anyway, in my search for truth, I eventually discovered that I very much needed to study Philosophy in order to gain an understanding of exactly how we know things and what knowledge is truly reasonable to hold out as "true." Ultimately, that led me to formal agnosticism as a follower-in-the-footsteps of Thomas Henry Huxley. (See my essay, The Essence of Agnosticism.) Under the dogma of agnosticsm, no belief is reasonable unless it is firmly supported by a foundation of demonstrable facts and a logical chain of reasoning to some particular conclusion. The problem for virtually all religious beliefs is that they are not supported by any "demonstrable facts" whatsoever. (Pure atheists have this same problem when it comes their turn to refute theistic arguments such as the "First Cause" or various "Arguments to Design." Either there are insufficient demonstrable facts, or the logical chain of reasoning does not truly exclude the possibility of the existence of some sort of a God. It is only the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God whose existence is excluded by what we now know, although even that is a highly-debatable proposition.)

Anyway, I try to avoid fighting with atheists, since we have a lot in common when it comes to relating to the followers of that non-existent Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. By becoming a practicing humanist. My wife and I belong to a local humanist group that is, to all intents and purposes, a "church." We meet every Sunday morning at 10:00 AM. Sound familiar? Yes. My relationships with my family have been strained, to varying degrees, depending upon the particular family member's own attitude towards disbelief. And, I find that I now move in a totally different circle of friends. Whether this sort of thing is good or bad for you is a different matter entirely.

I will say that I'm quite comfortable with the idea that I'm not going to believe some "controversial" belief (or, in my case, a thoroughly-disproven belief) just because of "social consequences." If I could not find a "significant other" (in this case, my wife) who either shared or accepted my disbelief, that would still not be a reason to believe something I believe to be false.

Accordingly, it is my recommendation that you just make the best of any social consequences and believe whatever it is that you believe is really true. But that's just the way I've chosen to live my own life. Your Milage May Vary! I would say that it is not only common, it is "normal." Your entire worldview is changing right before your eyes. It can't help but upset your psychological equilibrium. You've lived your life for however long and all-of-a-sudden, you begin to doubt the very foundations of what has gotten you to this point in your life. If you are a caring person (and I sense that you are), you can't help but wonder, deep down inside, if you might have been a better person if you had just not bought into this myth we call Christianity. And, since you probably don't know what to replace it with right now, it is a thoroughly depressing situation.

But things can (and probably will) get better, the more that you read about your options. Eventually, you should find a place you feel comfortable with.

I would suggest that a good place for a "seeker" like you would be to visit a nearby Unitarian Universalist Church. While that church arose out of the Christian tradition, they believe in rational inquiry, and they accept members of virtually all beliefs (including Christians, Humanists, Wiccans, etc.). You can do a search within your state right from the Unitarian Universalist Association Home Page. Oh, you are welcome. And please feel free to hang around here. You will meet all types of folks on our discussion board.

== Bill

Pensee

I really feel for you; I know what that's like. It's awful. But I promise it will get better. Robert Frost once said, "The best way out is through." That's all you can do. You must deal with your emotions. You must deal with your questions. You must deal with those nagging thoughts that tell you something just doesn't make sense anymore.

I'll summarize what happened to me. I was born & raised to be Christian, although I had quite a traumatic childhood. I went to private Christian schools; I went to church a minimum of 3x a week. God/Jesus was part of my every waking moment. I always believed everything I was taught. Never questioned it, for to do so was to exhibit a lack of faith, which is a sin. So anytime I had a troubling question, I just put it in a "don't think about this" file in my brain and promptly forgot about it, trusting that God knew the answer even if my small, human mind didn't.

I was quite happy with myself and my "walk with the Lord" when a bunch of these infidels invaded a Xian message board that I frequented. They brought up all of these questions I had refused to think about. I was confronted with them day in and day out. They started to really trouble me. But I was afraid to question the almighty God. How dare I! But finally I gave myself permission to question. I figured that since God gave me my brain, he'd want me to use it. It all went down from there. I deconverted hard and fast: much, much faster than most people. It was traumatic, but so worth it!

The main reason I lost my faith was that I couldn't reconcile a loving God with evil and hell. I threw out the literal interpretation of the bible so that I could still believe in a loving god. I purposely ignored any scripture that contradicted a loving god. But then I wondered how did I know that the verses I choose to believe were the right ones? What if it was the other way around? How do I know for sure? What evidence do I have outside of the Bible for a loving God? And, more than that, what evidence outside of the Bible do I have for God at all? WOAH! I could NOT be thinking this!

But pretty soon I realized that there is no evidence. There is no reason to believe, other than that's what I'd always been taught. I couldn't ignore that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach any longer. Sitting right here, in this very same spot, about a year ago, I whispered the blasphemous words aloud for the very first time: "I don't believe in god anymore." The rest is history.

I've had some troubling times. I lost my best friend when I told her. But I am an overwhelmingly happier person than I ever was before. Realizing that this is my only life so I better make the most of it makes me appreciate every single second that goes by. Humanism has filled the void. "Humanism is a progressive lifestance, that without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity." I see beauty in the world around me. I want to work to create more beauty. Here is a profound revelation that took me awhile to have, but changed my life once I did: I CAN BE GOOD WITHOUT GOD!!!!! (and happier, to boot!)

I need to get, but first let me direct you to the
Atheist's testimony thread. If you want to talk or anything, feel free to e-mail me.

mods: can this be moved to SL&S?

Thieving Magpie

I am not an atheist, but I am an ex-Christian, so I hope you will accept what I have to say, regardless.

I believe that things in life are simple, firstly, and that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and absolute rightness, secondly. I will not discuss how I came to these conclusions here, as it is beyond the realm of this thread, but they are important to know for my response.

I was raised as a Christian, and though I would like to think I understood Christianity fairly well, I found I could not help but doubt. Basically all Christians do this at some point or another. People take it to varying degrees, by questioning some things, and not others. People often go about it in different ways as well, relying on different mixtures of personal, emotional experiences, and cold hard logic. Some also say that it is too complicated to bother with, or too idiotic to seriously consider.

When I was 13 or 14, I had great doubts about Christianity, and I thought that the only way I could settle these doubts was by ignoring all pretensions, biases, and what not, and by starting again, with a clean slate. I tried to ignore everything that I had thus far been indoctrinated with, by friends, family, my Church, my government and my culture. It was a classic tale of self-discovery.

Anyway, I thought that if Christianity was true, then I would eventually (hopefully) find my way back to it, assuming I was intelligent enough. I have not found my way back to it as of this point in time, and despite whatever mental faculties I may possess, I do not think I will, merely because I believe that I now recognize it as it really is. I found my way to it, and subsequently passed it by as I am now sure that there are better pastures out there.

I still consider myself religious, and I do have a concept of God. In fact, I think everyone does, they just do not call it as such.

I have met with some social rammifications, but none that I think I deserve to care strongly about.

And, lastly, it is very common. Talk to other people about this, like you are doing. Like I say, many Christians and ex-Christians have gone through this, so it is hard to say that you will definately be one of the other at the end of the day.

However, with whatever you find, good luck, and godspeed you black emperor.

beth

Thank you all for your stories. I do appreciate. I will look over them again tomorrow and I will check the Library to see if it has the earlier mentioned books.
Blessings.