Popular Post JCW Posted August 11, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted August 11, 2015 It has been exactly 3 weeks and 6 days since I came to the end of my rope and found I was no longer able to believe in God anymore. I don't know exactly where to begin and I must apologize in advance if this gets drawn out. Five years ago I came to the realization that the reasons I had for my God belief were insufficient to say the least. However, because this belief had become so integral to every aspect of my life including my sense of meaning and self-worth, I was unable to let go of these beliefs and began searching for a substantial basest for my faith with the full expectation that I would find the reasons I was looking for. Whether or not the God I believed in was real, the love I had for this God was VERY real and the pain and isolation of this deconversion is also very real. Almost two years ago I wrote an email to a friend where I first opened up about my story and about the extent of the questions I was facing. I think that perhaps the best way to see what this deconversion has been like for me is to first allow you to read that email. Hey Wesley, After the conversation in your car you and Rachel had and after you had told me some of your story I wanted to tell you some of mine. Sorry this is so long and don't feel obligated to read it. I guess I am just telling you for my sake since it will feel better to get it off of my chest. As a child, I accepted everything my parents told me and that I heard in church as fact, no questions asked. I was raised in a highly conservative christian household and from a very early age my parents would take us door to door evangelizing. The church was literally a second home to us, and my siblings and I would serve every way that we could, quite literally devoting our lives to the church. I gained a very early appreciation for rationality when I would see my mom react to things we would do very emotionally and then my dad would come in with the voice of reason and explain things to me that just made sense. I was a very quirky kid with speech impediments and a whole world of imaginary friends. I lived in a world that I had created in my mind and it made it difficult for me to interact with other kids. When we moved to Texas, this detachment somehow was exemplified and even began to reflect poorly on my grades. My parents took me out of public education and home schooled me for a year. While I greatly admired reason and loved argumentation, I also developed to become very emotionally attached and greatly desired the affection of my family. This caused problems when one of the people I looked up to the most in my life, my older brother, began to lash out in anger at me, likely in response to people picking on him at school. I remember many times when he would wail on me with his fists when I would do something annoying or say something that would hurt me even worse and remember many nights crying myself to sleep because of how he would hurt my feelings. However, I never wanted to tell on him because I didn't want him to get in trouble as I was so emotionally attached to him. I developed a particularly strong emotional attachment to the God I believed in and would experience very strong emotions when I would worship him. I spoke in tongues and was “slain in the spirit” at a very early age. Even with my social inaptitude, it was never hard for me to talk to people about God. I remember in 5th grade, I would spend many of my lunches counting ceiling tiles and floor tiles in my cafeteria as I was unable to enter into normal kid conversation. However, when I watched a video of street evangelism with my parents, I went around to my peers running them through this routine about the ten commandments. It was also around this time that something clicked in my mind and I began to make very good grades without even trying, something that would for years make me believe I was quite a bit smarter then I really was. Anyway, at this point my parents were pastors in a church in Texas and some interesting things began to take place. Some people on the board were not pleased with all the decisions my dad would make and began holding secret meetings and talking behind my parents back. Eventually they got the majority of the board behind them and and told my parents they were letting both them and the youth pastor that my dad had hired go. As the majority of the church was still behind my parents, I got to see a lot of the political mess that goes into the structure of church and the district stepped in and dissolved the board and reestablished my dad as the pastor. My parents helped clean the mess up a little bit but really felt like God was letting them know it was time to leave at this point. So end of my eighth grade year we went to a church in California and left behind what little friends I knew. Outside the bible belt I experienced a very different type of culture then I was used to. Many people were very friendly yet appeared to care nothing for God. I developed a very strong desire for apologetics and desired to show everyone how the God I could so clearly see was real. However, I also felt a very strong feeling that I simply didn't belong and spent the rest of my eighth grade lunches by myself in prayer despite being invited to join other groups of people. Then I went to high school and encountered a whole new world of experiences. At this point all of my shirts were christian t-shirts and I carried my bible with me everywhere. Well that drew some attention and many kids began to respond. I had an entire class laugh at me and call me bible man, another class mock me for my decision of abstinence where I got the nick-name Christian, and even a kid spit at my feet in disgust of my religion. I did not respond to this in the typical way that might be expected, but was instead filled by excitement for it all. I had been taught that this was suppose to happen and that it meant that I was actually doing something for God. I imagined all my dreams coming true of speaking to great crowds in my school and God showing up in such a real way that no one could deny it just as I had heard of in so many stories. I did in fact get the opportunity to talk to many people about God and try to answer their questions at this time; however, I do not know that any of it made any difference in anyones life. The next summer another interesting thing happened. My dad hired a new principle for the christian school at our church who had two teenage daughters. The younger one seemed to take an interest in me like I had never felt anyone do before and the older one took an interest in my brother. We hung out every day and texted each other through the early hours in the mornings and over the next year I became very emotionally attached to this girl. I imagined myself marrying this girl and felt that my emotions were so real that it had to work out. Junior year I decided to switch schools so that I could go to the same school as this girl. However, when I did that she seemed to start avoiding me even though she would still tell me I was her best friend and I got really confused. Eventually she told me that she used to have feelings for me but felt like we were going different directions in life and didn't feel the same way anymore. Well anyway, I was devastated and for the first time that I can remember I cried in public. My eyes were opened to the superficiality of all those emotions that I had believed to be so real for so long and as I looked at the shallow relationships of all the other high school students I saw that what they had was no different to what I had had with this girl. I began to question the reasons I based even my faith on as it seemed I had nothing more then emotional experiences to base it off of. I also began to look more closely into things I had been so adamant about such as creation science and looked more deeply into the arguments from the other side. I realized above all that I was not happy and I was completely alone. My family didn't know who I was and I couldn't tell them as it had grown so hard to communicate with them and I couldn't disrupt the view everyone had of me of the perfect Christian kid they thought I was. It wasn't just my reputation I had to be concerned about, as I am sure you know, pastors kids have to uphold a reputation for the sake of the church. If I did something as simple as not saying hi to all the older people in the church, it could prove detrimental. In fact, my parents were once told that me and my brother were the rudest boys in the world for that very reason by an older couple that would eventually leave the church. At my new school I was completely ignored and felt invisible. But I didn't abandon my faith, I still believed I would find something if I continued to look for it intently. I knew I had to find something, because I knew that it was impossible to believe anything without a reason to believe it and if that reason was not a very good reason then that belief was not a very good belief. I went on like this for several years and often questioned why God had made me that I might suffer and offer nothing to the world. I began to immerse myself into science and math at this point as I believed that I was very good at it and that some day might be able to offer something through it. I tried to rationalize everything that didn't make sense in the bible and question everything I had been taught and excepted as true. I believed that there was an answer to all the questions and if I was smart enough I could rationalize away all the problems. Yet I still had that nagging feeling that I still had nothing to really base my faith on and that I had never felt like I could really distinguish the voice of God and had no idea what he wanted from me even if he did exist. I believed that as long as I made an honest attempt to follow after what he wanted me to do, he wouldn't let me go wrong. I thought that maybe that would be were I would find my reason, in the way that I would see God work out things in my life as I trusted in him. I recognized that without God my life was meaningless and I felt I would have no desire to go on living it without him. So I decided I needed to go to a Christian school, because if I would find any answers then certainly they would be found there. I also needed to get away from home to be free to think as I would without having to meet all the expectations everyone had of me. So I went to Oral Roberts University to see if I could find the answers I was looking for there. However, that first year many things would unfold that would cause me to question even the idea that the honest attempt was all that was necessary. That family that had the daughters would create problems in the church before they left and, our church that had seen very slow growth over the last 6 years, would have a set back that made everything seem like a mistake. My parents had to shut down the christian school for financial reasons and questioned leaving the church. The church was on the edge of shutting it's doors and it seemed like California had all been a mistake. If my parents could be so wrong about what they believed God had told them and God would allow them to waste 6 years of their life, how could I expect to ever get what God wanted of me right and maybe I could waste my entire life on the attempt. I saw that so many people had done so many things believing that they were doing what God wanted of them. That family thought they were doing what God told them, those people in our church in Texas certainly thought they were doing the right thing. I didn't even have to go beyond the bible to see these inconsistencies. I was reminded of a bible story were a man dedicated the first thing that came out of his house to God if God would give him victory in battle. Of course the first thing that came out of his house was his daughter and doing what the man thought would please God he sacrificed the girl while God did nothing to stop him. So I found myself at this point searching for truth, trying to understand what faith is, and trying to hear God's voice and feeling like I was getting no where. This is part of the reason I wanted to go on this mission trip, I thought God might have told me to go and I might gain that foundation I have been looking so many years for. Perhaps it is somewhat ironic that I should now be going to one of the poorest cities in the world to come face to face with theodicy, the question that has driven so many others away from God. Well anyway, now I am at this point in my life where I am surrounded by people who don't think the same way that I do just as I have always been and I continue to feel like I don't belong. It is because of this that I cannot except when someone says that all that is required is an honest attempt and God will make sure they find him. I base it not on scripture but that I have tried so hard with such a desire to find an answer but have found nothing. I am not looking for an absolute proof, just something real that I can base my beliefs on. I have not given up hope, but I know that if I do not find something more, I will be forced to give up my faith within a few years. I could never blame someone else who has gone through the questions that I have and given up searching, even if there is an answer at the end of the road. In fact at times I am not entirely sure that I actually do believe in God or that I shouldn't have given it up long ago when I saw that I had been given nothing with which to base it on. I have many questions that I am looking for answers to. I do not understand why God should require faith at all, why he shouldn't reveal himself to everyone. I do not understand why his scripture would seem to condone things like beating slaves and genocide. There has to more to it all but I do not know what. I do not know how to distinguish his voice from my own thoughts or even if he has ever spoken to me before. As you can see there is actually more to my not being on the research group this year then just the business of sci and I and the reality is I have nothing to offer the group. I am beginning to see that I am not really all that intelligent and I am a terrible communicator. It is foolish of me to seek to do anything such as make any sort of significant contribution to physics unless this God is real and he will share his wisdom with me. Well anyway I think I have said enough now for now so I will see you later Wesley. respectfully, Joshua To clear a few things up, I should emphasize that I did in fact find many reasons that could bolster my faith along this journey and answers to some of the contradictions that I was able to find satisfactory. For instance, even though I could recognize that it was certainly possible that our sense of morality stemmed from nothing beyond our biological sense of empathy and social conditioning, to me it at least seemed like this morality was rooted in some deeper truth and so I found great comfort in the moral argument. Likewise, when I saw the doctrine of hell that is most widely believed in consisting of a literal place of eternal torture created by God for the truly horrific, senseless cruelty that it is, I was able to consider other interpretations that were more palatable. Yet I was aware of the story of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, who when faced with the problem of retrograde motion (apparent reverse motion of the planets) in his geocentric (earth centered) model of the solar system created the concept of epicycles (orbits within orbits) that would allow scientist to hold onto a flawed model for centuries rather then consider the possibility of a better heliocentric model. At some point I had to wonder if I was essential preforming the logical equivalent of epicycles to continue to hold onto a belief I knew I did not have sufficient reason to believe in. Since writing that email, I did go on that mission trip to the Philippines where I felt encouraged in my faith for a little while but also faced things that would cause even more questions. One of the things I had been struggling with for a while was the lack of evidence for the miracles that I was taught were suppose to be happening. Before I went on the trip, we were prayed over and one individual "prophesied" that I would see the miracles on this trip. Over the month that we were there I did not see a single evidence for any such miracle or supernatural encounter. I remember specifically praying over one young boy who had an infected wound on his stomach. I prayed and nothing happened so I prayed more with the most sincerity I could muster. I had prayed many times for people without anyone getting healed and had never been all that affected by it, however, this time was different. I wanted so badly for this kid to be healed and when he wasn't I questioned if it was my lack of faith that had prevented God from healing the boy. Then for the first time that I can remember, I felt physical anger with God. It wasn't right that he should withhold his healing power from this kid for MY lack of faith. I realized in that moment that I could never accept the doctrine of faith healing and what this kid needed was medical attention, not our prayers.After I got back to the country I lost my motivation to search and for a while stopped looking and stopped reading my Bible. This continued for a while until I thought I had some kind of epiphany. I recalled an atheist deconversion video I had seen several years back by a youtuber called EVID3NCE who had presented the God belief as this mega belief that is not held on for any particular reason but for an entire network of reasons. I realized that he was completely right and though he presented the negative aspect of this newtwork in its ability to allow the believer to hold onto the belief without any good reasons, it could also be seen as a strength where a reasonable faith could be established by taking a holistic approach. Perhaps I had been going about it wrong the entire time by looking for THE reason to base it on. I had long since rationalized God's silence in my life during this time as God's purpose for me to understand the atheistic perspective in order to be a voice to that community. At this time I become confident that it had always been about my developing this idea and created my on nodal network and a 5 year roadmap to investigate it's merits. I imagined myself creating and "almost deconversion" video serious and writing books on this topic. However, I was heading toward a rude awakening.The first node I decided to look into was the miraculous and evidence of supernatural intervention. I looked for the more common stories that are less spectacular and for which natural explanations can easily be found. I realized that on their own these stories did not hold much weight to convince a skeptic. However, I believed that together and taken with other reasons, they could be used to support the idea of a personal God at work in peoples lives. Yet as I collected these stories, I become more confident that these bigger, "new testament" miracles should be happening. Furthermore, if they could be clearly demonstrated then they would be able to establish a sufficient basest for most people to believe. Yet I could find no clear evidence that they were happening, or at any rate they certainly weren't happening at the frequency one would expect from reading the scriptures.This summer I got accepted to a 10 week physics REU at Purdue. Most of the other researchers were atheist or at least non-religious and in some of them I saw something that shook me to my very core. I saw that they were enjoying life and fare happier then I was and I realized that I had nothing to offer them. They were not "searching" like they were suppose to and did not fit the narrative I had accepted. With that I lost the hope I had for any reason God would have for his silence in my life and I truly reached the end of my rope. In a moment I couldn't believe any longer and walked around a few days in a surreal state. Then it hit me hard and for two days I couldn't eat or sleep. This climaxed with a severe panic attack on the second night. I got to my room feeling physically sick and I couldn't stand. I collapsed on the floor in a ball and trembled repeating to myself that "I gave everything until there was nothing left to give." I even began praying in tongues even though I knew it was nonsense simply because it made me feel better. It was a horrible night; however, the next day I seemed to be able to finally accept it and I could eat and sleep like normal. I told one of the people in the REU; however, they really couldn't understand what I was going through. I haven't told anyone else and I don't know when I will be able to...I don't want to hurt my family. Part of me still hopes that this isn't how it ends, that God will suddenly show up in my life and I will be able to believe again. That these years have not been wasted... 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TrueFreedom Posted August 11, 2015 Moderator Share Posted August 11, 2015 Good luck, JCW. You are fortunate to find your way past belief so young. Nice chatting with you today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Welcome to ex-C! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCW Posted August 12, 2015 Author Share Posted August 12, 2015 Sorry for the grammatical mess towards the end, should have proofread that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 The warmest welcome to you JCW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disillusioned Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Great extimony JCW. Your story bears some strong similarities to mine. I was also homeschooled, and spent time in a Christian school. My parents were also pastors. I also tried very hard to find a basis for my faith before leaving. But the evidence opposing my faith just kept accumulating to the point where I found it insurmountable. This happened in spite of all my efforts to the contrary. I never decided to stop believing; one day I just realized that I didn't anymore. Welcome! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Nice to meet you in chat earlier today, JCW. You will find a lot of comfort here, and people who understand you. And won't judge you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Hi again, I thought I'd mention that I study physics too. I had my last adventure into trying to really follow God after starting those studies and having a pretty bad burnout. The adventure didn't go well (in fact I nearly died) and I couldn't but realise I did not have any actual evidence that God was real at all. My "experiences" were all results of being easily led, overly emotional, and naturally super good at self hypnosis. I too grew up thinking I was this wonderously smart person, to whom studying has to be effortless because I'm talented. I tell you, it's harmful to let a child believe that. Even in university (which i started late, at 25) I was panicking when the physics was NOT effortless at all and I had nothing to give despite everyone thinking I had talent. After my burnout and some other unfortunate happenings that worsened it (sudden death in the family, for example) I moved away from my studying town to do God's plan. Well, as I said already it went horribly wrong, and it turned out trying to study once more was the only thing I had left in life. So I came back in the middle of my faith crisis hanging on to maths for dear life, and I knew I was by myself. And I started to get better. I knew it was me learning, me failing, me re-reading the books, eventually me succeeding. On my own. I was getting much better grades than I was when I thanked Jesus for every breath I took and I knew I was the only one to take credit for it too. It was pretty strange really. That's the thing. It's you doing the work, it's not anyone else doing the work for you and putting ideas in your head. Not a god, not your teacher, it's really just you. The people who make advances in science have been working really hard at all the boring things first and only then they can go forward. Religion is this toxic thing that teaches people they can't do ANYthing "in their own power" but rather should float along a some kind of river of grace and just watch miracles happen around them, and that everything good ever is "given" from above and every human effort is filthy, stained with sin, and as such, will fail. I wonder how many great minds could have been if they hadn't been fooled to think their own efforts are worthless, when in fact putting effort into things is the only way to get to eventually do exactly what you want. On top of that, it is in fact not guaranteed to fail at all - the only rule is that those who quit don't win, and those who win didn't quit even when things weren't easy. It gets hard for everyone at some point, a person who always succeeds is a myth. Also, people's intelligence quotient is not a constant. It can go up when it's worked on. Our brains make new connections when we're exposed to new things enough many times, and they become able to do things they couldn't do before. If physics is what you really, really want, then keep working hard at it. I'm thinking of switching to maths myself once I've completed the first degree. it's just so beautiful! It's okay to change your mind too if it seems there's something that has more appeal to you. All the best to you, and I hope to see you on the forums! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCW Posted August 13, 2015 Author Share Posted August 13, 2015 thank yunea! Yes, religion wasn't to blame entirely for my insecurities but the those teachings that tell you that you insignificant without God certainly accentuated it. I am sorry to hear about some of the hardships you have had to face but am thankful to be able to be able to find people who can relate so much. It is comforting to realize you are not alone. I love math! I think it is the purest form of logic mankind has been able to develop, but I am set on taking physics all the way through and getting my PhD in it. After that I may do something completely different like go into the financial market, I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Welcome! Yes, of course (and thankfully so!) we are more than what our religions have made us. Self esteem is largely learned, which is good news because it also means you can learn a new one. I regret having to leave the chat so quick. Talk to you more soon I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted August 14, 2015 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2015 Beautiful ex-timony! You hang out here and I guarantee you will soon understand that you are not alone. Thanks you for sharing this great letter that I thoroughly enjoyed because I could relate to soooo much of it. These letters continue to help me so I am very grateful to all the new-comers. It was an awful thing to join this website almost 5 years ago thinking I was the only person in the world that had these thoughts that you also had in your letter of struggle to come to terms with the fact that christianity may be a big lie.. .....and a big, warm welcome to EX-c, my friend!! sincerely, Margee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duderonomy Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Hi JCW, Welcome to Ex-C! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EyesOpened Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 I must have missed this. So much energy and time put into this. Great job and Welcome to Ex-C JCW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinas Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Firstly, welcome. Secondly, your years have not been wasted. They have made you what you are, and you would not be the person you are now without them. The fact that you can no longer accept the ideas that made you the person you once were does not mean there is waste. Let go of the regret - it's the present and future that matters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCW Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 Thank you Ellinas ????, I really needed to hear that. And thank you everyone for the warm welcome, this is really a fantastic community on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Greetings! I never thought I'd stop believing either, but here I am! I wish I'd realized the truth as young as you have, but I guess it's better late than never. Welcome to your new chapter, and I hope you enjoy the journey ahead of you.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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