Well, It's Happened - I've Announced That I Am No Longer Attending Church.

[L.B.]

Had a long conversation with Mrs. LB and told her that I would no longer be attending church.

 

She and the offspring shall continue.

 

Long, long story short - I am coming to the realization that my (futile) efforts to please and satisfy my parents have led me to make some seriously wrong decisions.

 

I realized that my involvement with church was a useless attempt at presenting myself as a person they could be proud of; ironically, it's my (fundamentalist Christian) mother's near-total lack of forgiveness toward me that finally brought me to this present state. It dawned on me that I had continued to chase the Zombie Jew for years because one day I would be established enough and successful enough at a life she could approve of that she would have no choice to but to want to have a relationship with me.

 

No matter what has happened in life, she has flatly refused - and beyond all the other bullshit claims in the bible that my wife won't consider rejecting, there was finally this way out.

 

I simply told my wife that I could not say with any honesty that I was in church and identifying as a Christian for my own personal reasons. I had to admit that I was doing what I did in an attempt to "normalize" myself and my life in my parents' sight.

 

I've told my wife that I am in the process of examining what I mean when i say (if I say) I have a relationship with, or understanding of, or belief in, a god.

 

It feels good not to have to force myself to push through on Sundays, feeling totally disconnected from the ideologies around me.

 

All that is coupled with the fact that I am as socially isolated and unwanted in this church environment as I ever was as "that kid" in grade school.

 

A new chapter of my life is beginning - I am looking around at the people and things I used to be, long before I needed Christ-inanity to define me, and i am trying to rediscover my purpose in life.

 

More to come as it happens. Glad I can share about it here.

[LifeCycle]

Well, congratulations on sharing a true part of yourself with your wife. It can really do wonders for your spirits (mood/motivation/not hocus pocus).

 

It's liberating... You get to define yourself. You get to be what you want to be. Not what some ancient dogma requires of you. Religion is tyranny. Enjoy your new found freedom. Your purpose doesn't need to have a measurable objective... It can be this and now...What you're already doing... Searching. There's enough purpose in that alone.

 

Stay positive.

[Chilledmilk]

Awesome stuff. Congratulations. I hope she took it well. I'm yet to do the same with my wife.

[florduh]

Congratulations! Living honestly is the only way, really.

[Vigile]

Now you'll find that church is bizzaro world, where everything is reversed. You're promised freedom and peace there, but the freedom and peace come from leaving it all in the wind. 

[L.B.]

Now you'll find that church is bizzaro world, where everything is reversed. You're promised freedom and peace there, but the freedom and peace come from leaving it all in the wind. 

 

Oh, I've known it for years now - it just took some deep introspection on my part to find a reason to leave that made sense without devastating my wife and confusing my children.

 

My wife knew I have a beef with church ever since we were on staff at a church (about 8 years ago now) and I got railroaded out of my job.

 

She has also patiently listened as I have explained various secular/pagan attitudes to my children and told them that these were values at the heart of every good person, not just (and sometimes not at all) the ones who claim to be "Christian". They've learned that what you do is always more important and real than what you claim; they've learned that doing the right thing is its own reward and that we shouldn't withhold our best selves from anyone, regardless of differences in culture or religion or lack thereof.

 

I've had very little problem disbelieving in the Magic Sky Man and his undead zombie "son" and the talking spook. I didn't even need to disbelieve because the bible is so wrong about so many things - all I had to do was watch the clear-as-crystal practical disagreement between what Xtians said and what they did (for the most part), and between what the bible said and what they actually formulated for themselves as "personal beliefs". Bat-shit-crazy is unfair to bats and their shit as a descriptor for most of these people.

 

Ultimately, I didn't quit church now because I just learned these things about CHURCH now - I quit now because I learned things about myself.

[Ellinas]

Congratulations.