Slip-sliding Away

[Thalia]

Hi, all. I'm new here, though I've been lurking/reading for a few weeks. I figured the best way to dive in to these forums would be to a) introduce myself, and post my de-conversion story, though it's rather tame.

My de-conversion wasn’t dramatic or catastrophic, but a gradual easing away from the principles I’d been taught as a child. I was raised Southern Baptist, went to a Baptist private school through middle and high school, attended church every Sunday and sometimes Wednesday nights, etc. I was hopelessly naïve about the world and incredibly self-righteous, often scolding friends for swearing, smoking, or other activities that I believed to be repulsive in the eyes of god.

 

Late in my teenage years, my family became involved with a teen outreach mission group. At first, I enjoyed the work and the company, but slowly the hypocrisy of the leaders became evident and I wanted to leave the group. But since my entire family was involved and the overall leader of the group was my mother’s psychologist (a clear violation of APA guidelines, but I won’t get started on that here), I was informed that I was “not allowed” to leave the group unless I had another mission group to join and the leaders had approved it first. Between that and other incidents with other members of the group, the leaders playing favorites among them, and a general sense that I was a second-class citizen in both the group and the church the group was affiliated with, I quickly became disillusioned with the whole thing.

 

At the same time, I was beginning my very first romance with the man who is now my husband. He was an agnostic and we would often have discussions about evolution and creation (luckily I wasn’t a young-Earth creationist), god’s existence and influence on our lives, and other philosophical points. His arguments for evolution began to make more and more sense, and creationism make less and less. I held on for awhile, calling myself a “theistic evolutionist,” but eventually even that fell away. When I ceased to believe in creation altogether, the rest of my faith began to die, as well.

 

I moved across the country in order to be with him, and we attended church for awhile, but the only one nearby that had any members we knew was an old-fashioned Pentecostal congregation, and neither of us was very comfortable there. After the pastor married us, we gradually stopped attending, using work and school as an excuse not to go. When we moved to finish our bachelor’s degrees, going on to get our masters, we didn’t attend church at all, and most of my friends were non-religious, which helped my continued de-conversion. I made friends with atheists, homosexuals, people with tattoos . . . all the sorts of people I’d been raised to despise. I continued to learn that what I’d been taught as a child was wrong.

 

We moved again so I could work toward my doctorate, and we made one last attempt to go to church. The service we attended included a video arguing for young-earth creation, and neither of us could take it at all seriously. We haven’t been inside a church building since.

 

The final nail in the coffin of my Christianity was meeting a colleague who had done his undergraduate work at a small, private Christian college nearby. In him, I saw myself as a young, naïve, overbearing person who was determined that I was right and better than everyone else. Huge fights would break out on his Facebook wall between my friends and his, mostly over feminism and the Christian stricture that women are lesser creatures and must be obedient and submissive. I decided that I couldn’t believe in their god, that religion in general was a control mechanism and a way for people to feel better about themselves, and that my relatively new feminist worldview would not allow me to be controlled in such a manner. I was absolutely disgusted by the rhetoric these men spouted and their demands that because of my gender, I was supposed to do whatever they said, have no opinion on important matters, and generally was a lesser being.

 

I’m at the point now where I slide between agnostic and atheist. A part of me is still afraid to completely give up the possibility that there might be a great spirit being who controls everything, but at the same time I can’t believe that he/she/it cares at all what we do, who we sleep with, what we put in or on our bodies, or anything else, really. Also, between biology, sociology, psychology, and all the other things I study, I see less and less evidence that this being has any hand in the world at all. Rather, I see people, and the people who subscribe to religion tend to behave badly because of their beliefs, refusing to help others or consider taking care of the planet because “god will take care of everything.” The more I see from them, the less I believe in their mythology.

 

 

[Deva]

Welcome to Ex-C Thalia! I also come from a Baptist background. I am still willing to consider the possibility that some form of theism might be true, so I don't call myself an atheist. I am more the non-dualist type. If there is a god, it is everything. After over 40 years of searching, that is where I am at.

 

No I don't believe in a separate being "out there" that cares. Impossible.

 

Baptist churches treat women like shit. I realized that in the 70s. Yet it took many more years to break free.

 

Congratulations on escaping the brainwashing.

[Thalia]

Thanks for the welcome, Deva!

[Eugene39]

Hi, Thalia, It's good to read a tame deconversion story! Welcome to Ex-C.

[Overcame Faith]

Hi, Thalia, and welcome to ExC.

 

As far as whether one is an agnostic or atheist really doesn't mean much, at least in my opinion, so long Christianity has been flushed down the toilet where it belongs.

 

Glad you made it out. I look forward to hearing more from you.

[Thalia]

Hi, Thalia, It's good to read a tame deconversion story! Welcome to Ex-C.

 

I think I'm glad my deconversion wasn't full of fire, brimstone, and a smack upside the head! Especially after reading some of the sad stories from other members of this forum.

 

Hi, Thalia, and welcome to ExC.

 

As far as whether one is an agnostic or atheist really doesn't mean much, at least in my opinion, so long Christianity has been flushed down the toilet where it belongs.

 

Glad you made it out. I look forward to hearing more from you.

 

I tend to agree on the agnostic/atheist thing. After all, neither makes me think that there's a "great sky fairy" (as I've heard god called) that's personally interested in my welfare.

 

And thanks to both of you for the nice welcomes! I'm already finding this place much more encouraging and nurturing than my church or youth group ever were, which is kind of ironic if you think about it.

[ScifiChick]

Allow me to add my welcome, though you've probably been lurking longer than I've been a member.

 

Congrats on escaping the brain washing. It really is a lot less stressful to use logic and science for explaining things.

 

I still tend to think there's something I can't yet explain - something outside myself that is interested in my life - but I don't think it's responsible for creating the Universe.

 

I like to play around with the idea that the Universe is sentient, but that doesn't mean it would be aware of everything within it, especially something as small as a human being on earth. But I also can't completely get the notion that magic is real and I can fly without an airplane out of my head as well, so I tend to take all of my thoughts on these matters with a grain of salt.