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Goodbye Jesus

A Confession/my Story (Round 2) (Read Instead)


lastphonecall95

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Over the past few days, I've felt the need to get something off my chest. I'm probably not who you think I am. More specifically, I'm probably very different from the person I come across as on here.

 

I tried to write a deconversion story a few days ago, after I'd typed out a lengthy description of my church, its beliefs, and why I've come to recognize it as a cult - even more so than most churches or denominations, or even Christianity as a whole. The whole description was very biting and sarcastic, and afterwards as I was reading over it I kept asking myself, Is this how you really feel? Or are you just trying to assume the general attitude of most of the people you've encountered here (more anti-Theist than not)? In other words, I knew I wasn't writing from the heart. I was writing what I thought someone else might say in my position - what I thought I was supposed to say.

 

After all, I was raised in a faith healing cult. The past four years of my life are a miserable blur in my memory, as I slowly felt myself losing faith and desperately tried to hold onto it, grabbing at shreds wherever I could find them. My identity gradually slipped away; I withdrew myself from my family and friends and resigned myself to my room at home for most of my days. I became a zombie - eat, sleep, go to school or work, repeat. Bizarrely, though in a way I'm sure many of you can relate to, though I could reason with myself for hours about how unlikely it is that there's any god at all, and how even more unlikely it is that that god would be the Christian God, the fear of hell and the Apocalypse still kept me from venturing beyond the very limits of faith. That is, when it comes down to it, hell's purpose, isn't it? If the carrot doesn't work, beat 'em with the stick.

 

So shouldn't I be angry? Shouldn't I be angry at my parents, pastors, and teachers (I attended my church's school, exclusively for "regularly attending members," from grades 1 through 12) for indoctrinating me with these dangerous lies for my entire life? For not being responsible enough to find out the truth for themselves, and instead perpetuating this tragic delusion through their many offspring, for whose ultimate well-being I now feel largely responsible? Shouldn't I feel personally incensed by the senseless deaths and suffering these beliefs have brought about? Shouldn't I be joining the ranks of the militant anti-Theists, gleefully bashing any and all "xtians" I encounter on and off the InterWebs, crowing about my intellectual superiority and my newfound freedom, now that I've found the "real truth?"

 

But... I'm not angry. And I'm not anti-Theist. Truthfully, I'm just tired. And more than ready to return to my old self, minus all the religious baggage. I miss who I used to be, very much. Before the doubts started, I was, of course, blissfully ignorant. But I wasn't especially religious. That came later, as I tried again and again to find some kind of footing in faith that would stand the test of my mounting doubts. I was immersed in religion; I went to church with my family at least 3 or 4 times a week and attended my church's school 9 months out of the year. There wasn't a lot of religion preached there, although we had a daily Bible reading. It was simply a place where we were sheltered from any sort of education that would call "God's Word" into question, such as most of the sciences. The teachers were church members, and likely not particularly qualified, although I can't fault their characters or work ethics. One teacher in particular I always loved for her open-mindedness, teaching style, pop culture knowledge, worldliness (no really, she's travelled all over the world), and messages of tolerance. My dad calls her a liberal. I call her awesome.

 

So what is it about the old me, in particular, that I'm desperate to return to? At the risk of sounding arrogant, Pre-Faith-Crisis Me had a lot of good qualities. She was cheerful, creative, imaginative, curious, friendly, trusting, kind, eager to please, honest, conscientious, big-hearted and bright-eyed, with a sense of wonder about the world and all the beauty it held. I'm not saying I've lost all of those qualities over the years, though some of them have radically diminished. She loved to read, especially stories with any sort of magic or fantasy, and told everyone who would listen how she wanted to be a writer one day (though she rarely finished any piece of writing that she started.) Perhaps above all else, she was full of hope. The future held only wonderful possibilities, not unimaginable heartbreak and disappointment. Certainly not the sort of hopeless depression she would fall victim to right around the time she turned 16, which would hang over her like a cloud until she just managed to outrun it a few months before her 20th birthday.

 

This depression started for her like it starts for many young girls, and that is to say it had to do with the way she looked. Her teeth were just too crooked, and her parents couldn't afford to get her braces. (I remember working up the courage to yell at my dad about this one time, right around the time we were having yet another mechanical problem with the family van.) Besides, braces were cosmetic; they were like makeup for your teeth. By getting braces, or even wishing to get them, you were in essence telling God you didn't like the way he had made you, and that was wrong.

 

But it wasn't just my smile that was wrong, although it was the bane of my existence - I would always have my lips clamped shut in pictures, smiling in the awkward sort of way one does when they're consciously trying not to show any teeth. Though I was certainly not "fat," I was never quite skinny enough, and because I hated working out and felt awkward doing it, not to mention had trouble controlling my eating habits (largely due to my depression), I had a feeling I never would be. My hair was awful. And my face - well, only a mother could love my face. My skin, thankfully, was one of my few good qualities - that is, up until a few weeks before my high school graduation ceremony, where I would be giving a speech, when acne suddenly decided to erupt all over my forehead. In the throes of what was perhaps my deepest depression until that point, I found myself eating a lot to comfort myself during that time, and when I look back at pictures from the event now, I see only a miserable girl with a bloated face, who felt uncomfortable in her dress and wanted nothing more than to go home and cry in her bed.

 

Things would only get worse from there though. There were times during those four years when I thought I had found my faith again, but each time I felt it slipping away again, I began to lose more hope that things would ever return to normality. I reached out to so many people over the years - my uncle, my dad, and then, in the hopes that they would have the answers I so desperately sought, people who had once attended the church but had gone on to other churches... my cousin, my sister's former classmate, her friend, my second cousin. I was ready to modify my beliefs to fit within "popular" Christianity - and that is to say, Protestant Christianity, where all I needed was faith to have access to grace, after which I could never lose my salvation, no matter what I did. (It is worth noting that "once saved, always saved" is perhaps the most hated "false doctrine" from where I come from, and it has been preached against often and loudly. It's been the cause of more than one rift within the church.) Unfortunately, this meant that my family, and almost everyone I'd ever known and loved, was almost definitely going to hell, and I knew there was very little I could do to sway their most deeply held beliefs in any direction. I would have waking nightmares where all I could picture were the horrified faces of my family members as they fell from a lofty height into a lake of fire below, while I watched helplessly from above.

 

Eventually, the mental and emotional torture got to be too much. I reached my breaking point. I was tired of trying to believe in something that it seemed I might never be able to truly accept ever again, especially given the horrifying implications it had for my loved ones, not to mention most of the world. I decided to give "the other way" a shot - after all, that's the direction my reason and frankly, the evidence, had been pointing for a long time. I watched debates and other videos challenging Christianity's claims on YouTube. Through a series of Google searches, I found you guys. I read a lot of your posts on the forums, particularly the ones that dealt with my fears of hell and the Apocalypse. (In fact, I dare say that the ever-looming "end of the world" was the last hurdle of fear I had to overcome to emerge on the other side of faith.) I'm sure it seemed, at least on the outside, that I went from 0 to 100 in a matter of weeks or even days - one week, reposting a Christian status on Facebook, and the next gobbling up The Bible Reloaded's Chick Track videos on YouTube. (I highly recommend them if you haven't seen them already, they're hilarious... even for a non anti-Theist like myself.)

 

So because the shift, though brought on by years of erosion, occurred in all important respects in a matter of days, I'm just now settling down to ask myself what kind of person I want to be now. And the answer I keep finding within myself is - pretty much the person I was before this all started, at least as a point from which to grow. As I said, the last few years are a sort of painful blur in my memory - I don't remember many of the details, and I think I'd like to keep it that way. I've been sad and hopeless for far too long; at this point, anything I can do to reset myself back to a time when the future was yet unmarred with sorrow is something I'm willing to try. I'm wiser now, and I'm no longer in denial of scientific evidence, but so much of me misses the young girl who was so in love with the beauty of life.

 

Many of the things that I believe will help me remember who I was before all of this started involve at least a cultural appreciation of Christianity's good side (as a non-anti-Theist, I do believe that this side exists and can be dwelt on by the reasonable individual to a virtually harmless extent.) Christianity, whether I like it or not, will always be a part of my identity, though the way in which I carry it with me will undoubtedly change throughout the years, as I've seen already. In any case, as a basically broke 19-year-old with a low-paying part-time job, little in the way of useful education, and few important life skills, I will be living at home with my family for the foreseeable future. I plan to use this time wisely, and this means working as much as I can, budgeting my money carefully (no more tithing, so that's a plus, although I've sort of diverted those funds to charity), and educating myself in all relevant subjects that my high school education lacked as I prepare to attend college in a few years.

 

Not to mention that Christianity is an inextricable part of the most important bonds I've ever forged with the people in my life - my friends and family, and all the members of the congregation that have become a sort of big extended family for me throughout the years. Without it, those bonds are drastically weakened, and without those bonds, I am drastically weakened. Unlike perhaps many on here, I don't feel particularly burdened by the thought of having to play-act some sort of faith for most, if not the rest, of my life... my family's faith is more about following rules and attending church than any sort of radical evangelism, impassioned worship, mission trips, or street preaching.

 

And though the "rules" that I will adhere to and even the church that I attend will almost undoubtedly change throughout the years, I believe that some sort of profession will go a long way towards maintaining those bonds and keeping the relationships that matter the most to me. Now that I have no god, family has moved to the highest priority spot (though dare I say that they've been there all along, and my "God first" profession was only ever another case of saying what I thought I was supposed to say.) If they find out I no longer have any sort of faith, it will break their hearts into tiny pieces, which in turn will shatter my own newly on-the-mend-heart all over again. I've hurt them many times in the past; I think it's about time I start showing them how much I care about them. If that means going to church, so be it. I can take it. I'd rather go and hear what kind of propaganda they're being preached from the pulpit than sit ignorantly at home while the differences between us are sharpened by a wildly deluded pastor on their end and an increasingly heavy dose of the real world on mine.

 

So, back to my original point. I'm probably not who you think I am. I don't hold a personal grudge against Christianity, against my church, or against any of the people who have been responsible for my indoctrination and "education." Though I have no doubt that anger can be cathartic for some, it has always been toxic for me. Forgiving and forgetting comes easier, perhaps mostly because I feel that I need and will always need forgiveness from others for my many faults and mistakes. Besides, I've gotten incredibly lucky. I could've been born unhealthy, into an unhealthy family. I could've lost so much by now. But I haven't, and I'm left in a position where I'm looking for some Being to thank, but can find none. So I thank my immune system, and first world living conditions. I don't want to take my or my family's health for granted, but it looks like that's what I may have to do, at least for the foreseeable future. Perhaps one day things will change - again, if I am very lucky. In any case, I plan to be here for my younger siblings as they get older and encounter the same situations and questions that I did. Maybe I can help them avoid some of the heartache. And just maybe, I can help them to accept reality for what it is, and learn to live respectfully with (at least some of) our parents' and family's beliefs. This is one of my greatest dreams.

 

I don't know yet if Ex-C is the website for me. I have a tendency to conform to the attitudes and behaviors of the people around me, and in Ex-C's case that has seemed to mean a mostly anti-Theist outlook. If you catch me contradicting myself in chat or on posts, feel free to call me out. I know I have to learn to stand by my own opinions (if well-founded) and stand up for my own beliefs (or lack of them), even if they differ, albeit slightly, from the majority. And I guess if I'm not around here a lot, you'll know why - it's not you, it's me :-) Though I want to say that I truly appreciate all of the help you guys have already provided me, even indirectly, through a lot of the forums. You seem like an absolutely fantastic, wonderfully grounded, and positively brilliant group of people, and I'm very glad to have found you. May Odin bless each of you on your journey.

 

Namaste.

 

Ps. For anyone who cares, I have since gotten glasses and contacts for my horrible vision, set up a payment plan and gotten braces, and lost and kept off at least 10 pounds since graduation. Things get better, I guess :-)

 

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Welcome to ExC. There is a difference between atheist and anti-theist. Not everyone here is anti-theist. I hope you'll stick around and get to know us.

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Namaste, you are young with at least another 65 years ahead of you. All I really know is my own experience. Maybe it is not applicable to you at such a young age. All I know is that it took me till age 50 plus to fully accept and throw off everything, 100%, taught and programmed into me. Now...as a result... I have delightfully regressed back to when i was between 18 and 23 years old....the happiest and most wonderful days of my life. I am back to being that person that you are striving to be... that person who we "used to be". I am soooo happy, and have been for over 1,000 consecutive days. Man... if i could regressed early....I definitely wasted soooo many years. Anyway, i want you to know there is plenty of time and hope for you. You definitely have a big head start compared to my journey. :)

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Hi lastphonecall95, I'm glad to read your extimony now on here - both because I appreciate and identify with what you wrote and because you got it in full on the site instead of as an attachment!  I think it was necessary to sign in before being able to download the attachment.  So this way, now that it's posted in full, people who have not joined the site can still read it. Keep on writing! 

 

I'm also glad that you have come to these realizations before you're twenty.  It was when I was 19 that I dove headfirst INTO fundamentalist Protestantism.  Aargh.  Rejoice in your youth!  It's great to hear of the steps that you are already taking.

 

I agree that lots of the time on this site, snarky comments are made, etc.  I have to admit, sometimes it's just for fun.  I do appreciate many things about my Christian years and many of the people I met through being a Christian.  I'm glad to be out of the system, though, and just try to be a human being.

 

Namaste in return!  Look forward to seeing more from you.

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So shouldn't I be angry?

You shouldn't make yourself angry if you're really not.

 

Shouldn't I be joining the ranks of the militant anti-Theists, gleefully bashing any and all "xtians" I encounter

In my opinion, no you shouldn't - affirming oneself by putting others down is characteristic of the immature, and if you don't need to be like that, you'll be a better person for resisting the temptation.

 

But... I'm not angry. And I'm not anti-Theist. Truthfully, I'm just tired. And more than ready to return to my old self, minus all the religious baggage.

Good. I think you'll probably adapt quicker than most, to not being a believer. I see a lot of anger on this forum, and although I expect it's initially cathartic in some cases, I think in the long term it's damaging when it's constantly stirred up.

 

I've been an ex-Christian now for a long time - over 25 years, in fact, and I don't define myself by being an ex-Christian. And although at times I feel bitter about the years I spent as a Christian, I've mostly learned to accept and understand the person I was.

 

And being nasty, mocking and snide towards Christians behind their backs is not an honourable way to be, in my view. The people that rant all the time about how terrible the Christians are, seem to forget that they were like that too, often not that long ago. A little kindness goes a long way.

 

Ps. For anyone who cares, I have since gotten glasses and contacts for my horrible vision, set up a payment plan and gotten braces, and lost and kept off at least 10 pounds since graduation. Things get better, I guess :-)

 

Well done you!

 

You sound pretty balanced to me. Welcome back to real life clap.gif

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Welcome to freedom and to ex-c! Thanks for posting your story.

 

A common misconception is that us atheists or anti-theists are always 'angry' or 'bitter'. I can honestly say that I am back to being as happy and carefree as I was in my youth. I was struggling with depression, weight gain and a constant striving for "god's will" before losing my religion 2 years ago. Now I'm happy, engaged with the world around me, fascinated by nature and the natural sciences again and in awe over the wonder and grandeur of the cosmos.

 

Am I angry? No. Not in general terms. However, I AM angry in specific terms though! I'm angry about spiritual abuse that's still going on in millions of people's lives. I'm angry at the lies of the church. I'm angry at the 30 years I wasted on lies and deception. So if I come across 'angry' - it's not about life in general but rather against one very specific thing in life - the deception of religion and the harm it does.

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Hi lastphonecall95,

 

It sounds to me as if you've got a good head, and a good heart. I think it's wise to try to not make waves while you are still living at home--as long as your parents' religion is not causing you harm, that is. You'll have time later to make your own path. Like you, I don't feel anger toward my religious past. Puzzlement that I could have been hoodwinked so long, but no anger. Then again, my parents really loved me and I didn't suffer some of the abuse other ex-Xtians suffered, so that makes a difference. I'm pleased to meet you, and I hope you'll continue writing here. I enjoyed what you had to say!

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Welcome. I've set out to reply to this a couple of times but on each occasion failed to get to it before running out of time.

 

I can relate to the "I am tired" feeling.  Religious and other prejudice, and demands for conformity, are grindingly tedious and wearing.  But you appear to have a sense of your own identity, your own nature and of what you want as a result.  It is that which answers any question of what you should or should not be.  You should be yourself - as angry or otherwise, happy or restless as your current situation demands.  That, and only that, is your path to your own fulfillment.  What any of the rest of us think or feel ourselves, or anyone considers you should think or feel, is irrelevant.

 

Sounds like you've started well and struck a blow for personal freedom.  That is a good path to be on.

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