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Goodbye Jesus

Less Than A Glowing Testimony For Christian Homeschooling


jfaroe47

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This is such a strange thing for me to write because, while it's basically how I've been thinking and feeling for the past year, it cuts against those beliefs and feelings that go down to the core of who I am. Christianity is woven into my identity to the point that I can't disconnect from it without profound anxiety and a sense of meaninglessness. But as it stands, I'm no longer a believer for reasons I regard as wholly defensible, regardless of how guilty my current state makes me feel. Sorry if this post is long and jumbled should you choose to read it.

To make an overlong story short, my siblings and I were homeschooled all our lives by our mother. Our father was a preacher for four years at a tiny congregation when we were living in a very remote area. He was charismatic but incredibly narrow-minded, distrustful, and controlling. My mother was also a believer; mentally ill and prone to histrionics and superstition. Both parents abused alcohol (with my mother forming a chemical dependence). Home wasn't a happy place. 

We were fed a very narrow and exclusivist form of Christianity: everyone not in our sect (Church of Christ) was a pseudo-Christian likely going to Hell. Wives were to submit to their husbands. Evolution was a lie and a "doctrine of demons". America was run by evil conspirators who hated God and Freedom (my father had other fringe beliefs akin to the "Christian Patriots", involving international bankers secretly ruling the country). The only Truth was the Bible, and everything that came from Man was to be thrown on the shitpile. 

Once we were teenagers, our parents were divorced and our home situation took a turn for the worse. Our new church was a far more accepting and supportive place (with really caring and helpful youth ministers) and my sister and I became enthusiastic Christians. I loved studying the Bible as a historical document and a work of literature, so I dove into deep scholarly study (from conservative and liberal perspectives). I went on to go a Christian university, served as a counselor at a couple of bible camps, and became more fundamentalist in my views. 

My siblings eventually rejected Christianity (to our father's endless chagrin). The religion we learned was so fearful, closed-minded, and distorted that it couldn't really survive skepticism, but it also reflected our dysfunctional relationship with our parents (domineering, coercive, low on rationality and high on anxiety). I was the last Christian, and even though I felt the same way about our father's religion, I found my own personal faith in college that I could sincerely believe on my own terms. 

Until I started looking at the Bible a little differently (i.e. a little more objectively). It started with, oddly enough, the book of Daniel: a book that few Christians read and far fewer actually understand. Read without a commitment to self-deception, it unambiguously states that a king living in the 2nd century BC (Antiochus IV) would usher in the End of the World. I started picking up on other prophecies in the Bible that simply weren't fulfilled: conservative bible scholars like to call these "partially fulfilled" and claim they will be truly fulfilled in some apocalyptic scenario. My bullshit detector was sounding the alarm. But the fact is most Christians don't know or care about these obscure parts of scripture. The function they have in the Christian Bible is really only to draw up a dubious laundry list of "predictions" for Jesus to fulfill. 

Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua took center stage. I was troubled by all the violence, oppression, and genocide the first time 'round but I contented myself with "God works in mysterious ways". I looked at it again and I saw something funny: Yahweh sounded an awful lot like a Bronze Age Hebrew. Specifically one with a massive inferiority complex, need to control people, xenophobia and a streak of heartless brutality. He always seemed to fly off the handle and kill a bunch of people for daring to challenge his chosen leaders, or for complaining that they were starving or something. No god of infinite patience here. Why would a loving god who had the salvation of all people in mind order his chosen ones to invade the Promised Land, while hacking every Canaanite man, woman, and child to pieces? The problem went away when I realized that the Israelites were only justifying their atrocities to themselves with a convenient lie: a lie that resulted in them getting the best real estate in the area. 

Jesus was the hardest part to give up. You grow up as a Christian child with his face more or less imprinted on your psyche: the gentle, meek, infinitely loving father. The actual gospels give us a different portrait: a fiery, obstinate, grumpy prophet who heralds the judgment and condemnation of his generation. His morals are solid and worthy of imitation, but impractical. I realized that the whole concept of a "personal relationship with Jesus" is so fatally flawed. No one living has a fucking clue what Jesus was like as a human being. And I think a lot of Christians would be thrown for a loop if they ever met the 1st century Jewish preacher they deify and idealize as their savior. The resurrection stories aren't any more credible to me than stories of him walking on water or feeding five thousand people. All history can tell us (actually more like "hint at") is that his disciples fervently believed they experienced him after he died: who's to say that they didn't deceive themselves with a fantasy? And if he's a risen Lord that the scripture said was coming "soon", where the hell as he been the last 2,000 years while Christians were killing heretics, Jews, and Muslims in his name?

Much of the above I've not shared with my parents yet. I'm not a happy ex-Christian; I already suffered from severe depression and anxiety while i was a Christian and in spite of "liberation" I feel a great sense of loss. I wanted to fill the whole for a while with some other religion but nothing speaks to me like Christianity (save for Buddhism). Thoughts of suicide and constant fear of God was what i was experiencing when i first started down this path; now it's more of a dull ache and longing for *something* that i feel can't be satisfied.

That and the pain of what's coming next, because i fear that when i tell my father our relationship will be over. The best times in our relationship (mid-teens) were when we bonded over our shared love of the bible. We argue enough now as it is. There's no triumphant narrative of how free thought triumphed over superstition. I'm relieved that religion doesn't control my mind but I miss its comforts, morality, and prepackaged sense of purpose. Now all that's left is a vague sense of emptiness and unease. 

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" Now all that's left is a vague sense of emptiness and unease." -- jfaroe47

 

That's only because you haven't figured out what to do with yourself just yet.

 

No need to rush things, or borrow tomorrow's troubles by outing yourself before you are ready to. Slow down, take a deep breath, relax and continue deconverting.

 

There isn't much difference between your story, how you got there and how you're feeling about it compared to most of the people here. The only real difference is, we made it through and are better people for it.

 

Welcome to Ex-C.

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" Now all that's left is a vague sense of emptiness and unease." -- jfaroe47

That's only because you haven't figured out what to do with yourself just yet.

No need to rush things, or borrow tomorrow's troubles by outing yourself before you are ready to. Slow down, take a deep breath, relax and continue deconverting.

There isn't much difference between your story, how you got there and how you're feeling about it compared to most of the people here. The only real difference is, we made it through and are better people for it.

Welcome to Ex-C.

Hello j47

 

I second Everything Fweethawt has said to you.

 

My mother grew up going to the Church of Christ back in the 1930s-1940s and she told me stories about it. There was a very small but tightly knit church in WV she went to and she said what she hated most was the alter call near the end of the service. These were all farmers attending this church and everyone knew everyone outside of it. The children were expected to go up to the alter ALONE. Talk about intimidation.

 

Anyhow no rush and take your time rubuilding yourself as it is an ongoing process and never complete.

 

Welcome to Ex-C

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Fascinating post!  I was raised in the Church of Christ, as well, but fortunately my mother was not a fanatic. I went to public school and had a ton of other influences that canceled out a lot of the ultra-fundamentalist doctrine and bullshit. I wish you well on your recovery from the silly little sect!

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Welcome, jfaroe.

 

I can promise you that it does get better. It will. I just can't give you an exact timeline. Your journey down the left-hand path has only just begun.

 

(Very well written ex-timony, by the way.)

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Hi jfaroe47 and welcome!! Freethawt is right. You are still deconverting and everything you are feeling is NORMAL. It really does get better. I promise. I have only been deconverting for a few months, although my faith had been irreversibly shaken six years ago. It took me that long to even START deconverting. My head is still a mess and I've only "come out" to my husband and two close friends: the only three people in my real life that I knew would understand. Like everyone said, take your time. Its a long, slow process and its a day by day thing. Shit, I had a nightmare just last night of being eaten by demons and a giant bible lying on my chest, crushing me and I couldn't breathe.

So as you can see, the effects of indoctrination to a religion are long lasting.

 

Welcome again, its great to have you here! Thanks for sharing your story. You are not alone! *hugs!*

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Welcome to ex-C, jfaroe47.  Nice to have you with us.

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Welcome to ex-c. Thanks for sharing your story too. You will get better. It takes time but it's worth the pain. Freedom isn't free!

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You've taken the most important first step of recovery: thinking for yourself. Most people never even get that far, so successful has been the brainwashing. So first of all, congratulate yourself on your mental boldness, and use that as the first stepping stone toward building a life based on reason. Millions of people are damaged, against their will, by this ancient superstition. The actual "good news" is that you have the freedom to live your own life. 

 

"Deconversion by Daniel" is certainly unusual, but someone else here said doubts only started to set in when they critically read the Epistle of Jude. Indeed, once you start critically analyzing any part of the Bible, the entire edifice begins to crumble like an avalanche. 

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Welcome to the forum, jfaroe47. :)

 

As others said it will get better.

 

I too had a great sense of loss at first. Jesus, praying etc had occupied such a large part of my thoughts, life, and decisions for so long! I felt somewhat like I lost a friend, and came to realise the whole "friendship" was a lie. The one thing in my life I could trust was a lie. That was a major empty, sad, fearful state to be in.

 

What has helped me a lot recently has been what someone said to me on the forum...that all the times I felt god gave me strength, it was really me.

I don't know yet how to use that ability to gather strength to the extent I was able to do back then. Still, being afraid to stand alone is changing to knowing I always was alone and I'm not the weak, worthless, nothing without jesus person I thought I was.

 

Take your time, be gentle with yourself, and please keep writing if it helps. This place is full of good listeners who have helped me more than I could have imagined.

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Welcome.

 

You've excised a fundamental part of what you were, so of course will you feel anxiety, depression and so on.  The point, however, is that this is a process of building a new basis for your life - and as you establish yourself without Christianity, so things will settle.

 

I wish you well in your dealings with your father.  That sounds awkward.

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Hey,

Welcome.

I relate to your feelings a lot.

I recommend counselling, it was expensive but a big help in getting me to accept that "the god I was handed" by my parents did not have to be mine, too.

The biggest thing I learnt that got me through the hardest parts of deconversion, is that I have 2 choices - despair or joy. I only have one lifetime to find meaning and work through my issues, and I choose to do that with an attitude of joy. As long as I was choosing to despair, I was miserable and empty. As I began to choose joy, celebration and simple gratitude for all the privileges I have (clean water, a brain, etc) life started to get easier and eventually I got my confidence back and I feel whole again.

I hope you find your joy. Take your time. Talk to people, us included.

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Welcome!  I read your extimony yesterday, which caused me to read the book of Daniel this morning after breakfast.  Wow.  I had never read the whole book before and it's full of dream interpretations that cause a lot of people to get murdered, including women and children.  Dream interpretations.  Murder.  And yes, there are specific end of the world prophecies that have long come and gone.

 

Have you stayed close with your siblings, who you say also reject xianity?

 

With time, life gets easier without xianity.  Then it does get enjoyable!

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Thank you all for your support. It was therapeutic putting that out there. The more I read about deconversion experiences the more I see the common threads of anxiety, panic, and feelings of emptiness. Biggest thing for me I guess (still) is not having anything to "fill the void" with. Continued belief in God/Higher Power helps but it still leaves one wanting. 

@sylensikeelyoo: Sounds like a bad sleep paralysis attack (the feeling of something heavy on your chest while half-awake). I had a few of those as well. They ceased as I got more adjusted and less hostile to Christianity as a whole (though I still maintain a strong dislike of dogmatic controllers within that faith).

@EyesOpened: Very interesting...that sounds really Baptist of them. The Church of Christ version of the altar call is typically an invitation to be baptized (and they'd only dunk adults and teens, not children). Though the two are actually very similar in practice and general approach to religion, and it's because of that they usually can't stand each other glare.gif 

@amateur: I still talk to my siblings but we rarely talk about religion. It's pretty peculiar. My brother will outright refuse to talk about it (he's on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum and he rarely wants to talk about emotionally charged things). I could probably bond with my sister over it but I think she resents that I haven't told our parents (she did and was alienated for it). Work in progress I guess. 

I want to clarify that my parents' beliefs do not accurately represent all Church of Christ people. The college I just graduated from is a C of C school and it's trying really hard to be accepting and ecumenical. But because this denomination fetishizes the Bible so much, you get a lot of "I'm always right 'cause THE WORD says I am" people in the more conservative corners. 

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Yes, the anxiety, panic, depression is pretty common.m Like most things, time helps.  Give it time and you'll soon find that you will have other goals.  You'll find ways to fill the void until eventually you realize there is no longer any void there! I actually found looking into meditation (as just meditation, not anything faith based) to be helpful when I first deconverted.  Actually, it still helps, but I've always had trouble focusing but I might give it a shot again. Also, that whole inner selves theory helped, too, just because it wasn't faith based, but also wasn't based completely on physical evidence (psychcology based- fogot exactly what it's called tho).  I liked it just because it was different.  Read a lot of just science based books, too. The emptiness will go away. 

 

Tell your parents in your own time, do whatever is best for you. 

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