A Brief Summary Of My Story

[martynq]

I've been reading articles here for a while and lurking on the forum slightly more recently.  I think I really ought to have got round to posting my ex-timony by now, but here (finally) goes.

I became a christian while at university.  I really can no longer work out why I changed my mind about the atheist beliefs I held back then, but with hindsight I do know that I was poorly informed about christianity and somehow I perceived the claims as reasonable.  I was also surrounded at the time by a significant number of christians and, however much I might like to think I'm an independent thinker, I wonder whether I was too easily affected by the want to conform.  There is also the fact that the woman I married was one of these and perhaps subconsciously I knew that my only chance with her was to convert.  I then stayed a christian for just about the next 23 years and came out to my wife as an ex-christian back in January.

It took me at least two years to wrestle through my thinking before I gave up my beliefs, and that's only a guess.  I can see things some four years ago that was leading up to the deconversion point, but it is definitely the thinking I was going through during that period of time that contributed.  The things that caused me to question my faith were the following:

1. Lack of answers to prayer.  The death of a close friend who we all prayed for was probably the most significant, but after that I realised that I could not think of a single example of a prayer that I had made for which I could genuinely say had been answered.

2. The way that so many christians point to various examples of an answered prayer or miracle, but what actually shows up is a poor handling of probabilities.  They tend to underestimate the likelihood of the thing they are pointing to, over-specialise so as to make it look more rare, and then fail to sum over all possible instances.  (What I mean by the latter is that a particular event for an individual might have a very small probability, but when we calculate the probability that somebody we know actually experiences it, the probability goes massively up.)  As someone who has considerable mathematical training, I find this way of handling things both annoying and naive.

3. The way that various christians use whatever their Bible verses say to achieve whatever they want.  The statements about women teaching is a classic example.  My deconversion happened while my wife was training as a Baptist minister (we live in the UK, so this is slightly more acceptable than other places), but I still saw that a lot of churches were bigoted about women.  As someone who loves my wife very much, I couldn't stand to see her being treated so poorly.  (She is now working as an assistant pastor at a local church - well, I say working: she is unpaid, because they need two pastors but can't afford to pay her.)

4. I spent a lot of the time asking god to show himself to me.  I had been told that he is all-powerful and wants to speak to his children.  This never happened to me.  The final straw was at a particular event where we were all supposed to listen to what god was saying.  I heard nothing - I could recognise what my own thoughts were, but everything in my brain I knew was originating from me.  The people around me, however, were able to babble on about all the wonderful things god was saying to them.  At this point, my eyes saw clearly that these people were just deluding themselves and I couldn't partake of this delusion any longer.

5. My final conclusion was that if this god actually existed then he had every opportunity to show himself.  If he has this supposed power to create the whole universe, then only a small fraction would be required to produce something substantial that I could be certain about.  The only possible conclusion is that he doesn't exist.

I can no longer remember whether there were any other substantive reasons that got me to this point.  One of the things I did realise is that as an educator, I was trying to get my students to engage in critical thinking and ask all the "why" questions.  On the topic of my former faith, I was completely disregarding this and acting in an opposite way to my training and natural form of thinking.

Since deconverting, I've done various bits of reading and watching of sceptic conference talks and I am shocked by what I see.  Have I really been lied to so badly for all this time?  Why did I never enquire more deeply?  Finally I am thinking more clearly and actually trying to have substantive reasons for what I think is true.

It won't have escaped your notice of the serious complication in my giving up my faith.  My wife is a Baptist minister.  She was very upset when I told her, to be honest not surprising that one.  Right now we are getting on ok, but we've basically drawn a truce where the topic of faith is never discussed.  I obviously don't think faith is a good way to live one's life, but there is no way that I can see to help her down my route.  I've no idea where this will end: we seem to be getting on ok, but reading around I see plenty of examples out there of marriages that didn't survive this.

[amateur]

Welcome, martynq!  I lurked quite a while before joining in, too.  I don't regret joining this forum; it's the only forum I have joined on the internet and it's been a good place.

 

I'm in complete agreement with your points 1-5.  God never spoke to me either or influenced any decision in my life in a spiritual way.  Yet other people seem to chat quite frequently with god, and that's actually kind of disturbing, isn't it??!!??

 

I spent a long time (25 years?) being a church-going agnostic.  Pre-internet it was hard to find good answers to religious questions, and relying on ministers wasn't a good place to question my doubt.  But when I found solid answers to my questions, I was completely, 100% done with religion.  It's been nice.

 

Good luck with your wife.  There are people here that are much more helpful than me on here in that regard.  Just remember, you're the one that changed on her and that's always scary (regardless of who changes over what), so let her know in every way you can that, other than religion, you are still the same person you've always been, still enjoy her company, and still are in love with her.

[Margee]

Welcome to EX-c martynq. Thank you for sharing your story. Oh, how well we can all relate to so many points you have brought up. The same questions that brought us all to this board. Keep reading and posting all your concerns. Someone is always here to help you though this transition. Forming a new world beliefs can be hard on us when we depended on this invisible god to show us the way for so long......

 

We're here for you on this new journey.

 

Good to have you here with us!

 

 

((hug))

[HolyGoat]

Welcome! I really sympathize with your story, mine is quite similar actually. So I really appreciate that you shared it! 

 

I wish you the best on your journey and I hope that I and the other members here can be of some help/support/encouragement to you during this transition! 

 

I especially feel for you in regards to your marriage. My wife is a christian as well and my recent deconversion has hit her pretty hard too. 

 

I look forward to hearing from you some more! 

[martynq]

Thanks for the replies.  I probably won't post more for a few days.  I'm off to visit my parents (on my own as my wife is busy).  They aren't christians, so I'm quite looking forward to the bit of space.

[Mychainsaregone]

Hi Marty,

 

Thanks for sharing your story. My husband is a Christian and I came out to him a few months ago - it is certainly difficult but I hope not insurmountable if the love and friendship is strong enough.

 

Enjoy your breathing space

[Ellinas]

Welcome.

 

I also remain married to a Christian wife - though we've reached a point a little less advanced than you.  She knows I am disillusioned with Christianity but seems determined to enquire no further.  I'm not inclined to answer the questions she doesn't want to ask.  It's an odd position, but seems to be stable enough.

 

There is no necessary logic that requires this situation to end in a divorce.  Indeed, given the conservative Christian attitude to divorce, it amazes me that it appears to happen as much as it does.  Basically, issues needn't become insurmountable mountains unless you one of you chooses to make them such.

 

All the best.

[martynq]

Just a further follow-up... I think my main concern is for my wife.  I'm concerned that her work for the church may result in exploitation.  She is at times extremely busy and there seems an awful lot that she is trying to do.  I understand where the motivation comes from for her, even if I think it is not founded on something substantial.

 

She did comment just the other day that she felt that we related well.  (This was in the context of her having recently spent time caring for one of her congregation who was going through a difficult time in their marriage.)  I seemed to me a good thing that she was able to comment positively on our marriage even though I know that having come out as an Ex-C was painful at the time.