JolieChienne Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Hello Everyone. I've already forgotten how I stumbled upon this site, but I've been enjoying reading the great content on here.I'm going to try to throw in my story as well. This is assuming I can remember! I think my family started going to church around the time I was 5 or so. I'm pretty sure it was after/around her remarriage, so the church got me pretty young while my developing brain could be easily influenced. It was a good old-fashioned Evangelical, Hellfire & Brimstone kind of place. Sometimes we just went to one Sunday service; other times we went to both Sunday services, plus the bible study, the evening service and the Wednesday evening service. For two years in elementary school, I even went to our church's school. Apparently you sometimes just can't get enough of Jesus... Pretty much from the get-go, I bought all the religious teachings like a good mush-brained kid. At the same time, however, I was almost always aware things didn't make sense. Even before I was in my double-digits, I knew something was off about a preacher on his second wife teaching about the sin of divorce. Being a little boy, I like dinosaurs and knew they existed millions of year ago. At the same time, my science booklets (booklets! that's what we had at that school) said the Earth was much much younger. This type of thing continued well into my teens. There was enough cognitive dissonance to cause an almost static noise in my head for years. The brain is really kind of awe inspiring. It can know so many things and yet have these incompatible beliefs all squished inside the same head. As soon as I hit 18, I went to college and never once stepped into a church again. Thankfully the weddings I've attended have all been in non-church settings! So for about the next ten years, I slowly tried to 'unlearn' all of the christian crap. I pretty much always knew the end-point (there is no god), but it was a slow process of losing those beliefs. By my 30's, I was pretty much there. Annoyingly, even now that I'm in my 40's, those beliefs are still there somewhat in some tiny form. Yesterday I was Googling for those little christian tracts that I saw referenced in someone's post around here. As I went through a couple, remembering those stupid/hateful things, I did have a fleeting thought about maybe I was being wrong/stupid about the nonexistence of god. It was only for maybe 5 seconds, but it annoyed the crap out of me that the seeds of that religion crap are still in my head.Anywho, that's my Reader's Digest of a story. I hope to continue to read all of the interesting things on here! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overcame Faith Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Hi, JolieChienne and welcome to ExC. You're right about the young mind being very susceptible to religious indoctrination. Good for you making the exit from Christianity once you started college. Glad you're here and I look forward to hearing more from you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Welcome! If something doesn't logically add up (as Christianity does not), it will always have only an uneasy resting place in the human brain. Glad to hear that you evicted Jesus from your mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Welcome!! I envy you getting out when you went to college. When I was that age I was just revving up the cray-cray. How does your past influence you today? Are there any areas of your thinking that are still colonized by Xianity? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinas Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Welcome. Look at the minimal continuing influence of your Christian past as being a sort of itching of a psychological scar. Annoying, but ultimately just a sign that there was a wound that has healed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JolieChienne Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Thanks for the welcomes. I don't think there are (m)any beliefs left over from Mr. Christ. There are the occasional gut-reactions to things, but those are generally for less than a minute and quickly forgotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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