Galaxithea Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 I started following Christ a year ago but since I have a lot of mental disorders I took everything in the Bible literally and became absolutely convinced that I was being ordered to do insane things such as never do anything "fun" ever again, ditch all my non-Christian friends and even run away from home because my entire family was atheist. This combined with a bit of research and logic made me decide to stop being a Christian. However, I'm having difficulty deconverting because I've been trained to think that any ideas that push me to deconvert are from the devil and that I'm going to go to hell forever if I deconvert. Also, I've been trained in almost all the apologetics in the book. Can anyone else share stories of how they deconverted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qadeshet Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 3 members, 41 guests Know Yourself Welcome Galaxithea! We are certainly happy that you've joined us! We are here to help with deconversion; it is hard. I will post links that cover the Deconversion process that will help. The Church has indoctrinated you, probably from a very young age. Please browse and ask questions. We are here to help. Cheers! Please see my last Post(#63) on my "To Our Guests" Thread. Into the Clear Air Phases of Deconversion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 28, 2016 Super Moderator Share Posted June 28, 2016 Welcome. You are not alone. Read some of our testimonies. We're here to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted June 28, 2016 Moderator Share Posted June 28, 2016 Welcome to Ex-c Galaxithea. My fear of hell was one of the last things to keep me hooked into christianity. And of course, I also wanted to make sure that the bible was just a book written by the ancient men in the dark ages. I read and read and read all the posts and I posted like crazy. I watched you-tubes until the middle of the night trying to get answers about how the earth was really created and was there such a thing as hell? Besides all my own investigating, the gang here at Ex always came through for me to quiet all my fears down. So continue reading and writing and at some point it starts to make sense and the fears start to drop off. Then you can create a new world view for yourself without the fear of a tyrant god watching your every move. I'm so glad you found us. Hope to hear more from you. (hug) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austere Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 Congratulations on where you've gotten to. It's hard, I know, but knowing what your problem is is half the battle. That way you can start actually finding a solution. This might help. You've already made some decisions on what to believe, which means you trust yourself as decision-maker, even if only a little. Even if you believe what other people say, or what a book says, you had to make the decision to believe that. Even if you decide that you're not fit to make your own decisions and that what other people taught you is more important--if you're thinking about it, you had to decide that for yourself. Nobody else gets to decide that for you once you realise this. Clearly, you have the means to evaluate information and make decisions on it--even if that decision is "Other people are better at making decisions for me than I am." You had to trust yourself enough to believe your decision to hand over the reins was the right one. Do you see where I'm going? At the end of the day, every decision someone else makes on how you think has technically been approved by you. Which means you're already making decisions for everything in your life, even if you don't think about them first and just do them because someone tells you. Doesn't this mean you must trust your own judgement? They might tell you not to trust your own judgement--but if you didn't trust your judgement, why would you make the decision to listen to them when they tell you that? If they told you to only trust their judgement--don't you still have to judge that that they are right when they say that? You are already making decisions for yourself. It is not wrong to make your own decisions, otherwise deciding to become a Christian in the first place would be wrong. You could never have judged it correct if you didn't have the ability to take information and weigh it up. All of this just loops back on itself in an infinite regression that will never make sense until you see that relying on your own understanding is necessary to decide that people who say 'don't rely on your own understanding' are correct. So even if you don't think you trust yourself--you must trust yourself! Your whole way of life right now doesn't make logical sense unless you trust yourself in some measure! And if you trust yourself--maybe you can start making your own decisions. And maybe that decision might include that people who say that you can't trust yourself are wrong on a fundamental level. Because if they were right the world would make even less sense than it does now. *** I hope that helped and it wasn't too tangled and convoluted. My mind gets comforted by the strangest things. But anyway, acknowledging that some kind of reliance on my own judgement had to happen for me to believe anything at all helped me in my deconversion. It taught me that since as we get older, we get wiser, maybe I had to start from the beginning again, and re-evaluate things with a clearer eye, in light of what I knew now. And that it wasn't wrong to do so, since my own judgement was the only thing that could make me believe in anything, especially the 'right' thing. Whatever that turned out to be. As for being trained in every apologetic thing in the book... *raises hand*. I devoured those apologetic arguments as a kid and teenager. Two pieces of advice: 1. read about Socrates and how he did his thing. Not Wikipedia, google 'intro to socrates' or 'socrates for kids' or something. Kids pages always have the best explanations. The chapter in 'Consolations of Philosophy' by Alain de Botton is also good, short, readable intro, and all you need to know. He basically went around asking people to tell him their beliefs and what they thought was common sense, and then went 'but why?' So he was basically that annoying five year old who has a very uncomfortable point Start applying that thinking to your apologetics knowledge. 'why are they saying this?' 'what is the reason for the argument they're putting forward?' 'why is any of this true? What are they relying on?' (do they rely on the bible? why do they think the bible is reliable? because god said so? how do we know what god said? because it's in the bible? well, how do we know the bible is reliable? because god said so? wait, is there anything outside the bible to back its reliability up? is the bible even internally consistent enough to know that any given verse is reliable?) 2. read more about apologetics. Look at it not with the eye of someone who needs it to keep believing, but someone who needs proper answers. true answers. if it is the truth, it'll stand up. If it's not the truth, why keep it? And read the main site these forums are attached to. Discuss what you find with us if you need to. Best, and many hugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 Welcome! You are not alone. I'm struggling with this very thing right now, too. I agree with austere! Read read read That's what I'm doing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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