Poll - How Intense Was Your Christian And Exchristian Experience

[Overcame Faith]

This is part 2 of a poll concerning when you became a Christian. This one seeks to try to determine whether there is a correlation between when you became a Christian and (1) the length of time you were a Chritian, (2) the intensity of your beliefs, (3) and the difficulty of your deconversion.

 

As with the last poll, when I say Christian, I mean when you actually believed in the religion. Also, please read the questions and choices carefully. The first three questions are directed at those who became a Christian as an adult (but if you became a Christian as a child or teenager, you should respond to the first three questions with "Not Applicable." Questions four through six are directed at those who became a Christian as a child or teenager (but if you became a Christian as an adult, you should respond to questions four through six with "Not applicable").

 

Once enough time has passed, I will correlate the results and post my interpretation.

 

Finally, if you haven't already, please also take the time to do the poll I entitled, "Childhood/Teenage Christians."

 

Thank-you.

[XcaliburGirl]

I chose moderately difficult on the last question because, although the process of losing my faith has been difficult, it is nothing to the anguish of when I actually believed it all.

[HRDWarrior]

I chose moderately difficult with fears lasting over a period of more than a year...but it's actually hard to define. My deconversion was a very slow eroding of my faith over a number of years...slowly, one thing after another was etched away until I was left with nothing. There were very few points where it was extremely difficult other than coming out to family and friends, but overall it was a painful process, but at very few specific points was it all that bad - mostly just the accumulation over time. Once I officially moved from agnostic to atheist I can pretty confidently say there were basically no fears left...my "fears" were manifested in the standing of my "spiritual life" at that point (fundy, to liberal Christian, to christian with buddhist leanings, to non-practicing buddhist, to agnostic and finally atheist). So I never was really claiming to be an atheist while still having a fear of hell...

 

I hope that makes some kind of sense!

[Vomit Comet]

A bit of nitpicking here. Lumping "child" and "teenager" together is a double-barreled question. A strong distinction ought to be made between the two. I would venture to guess that most who got converted as teens weren't raised with it, and vice versa was true for those who converted as children: they were very much raised in it.

 

I got saved as a teenager in large part because I did not come from a family that could be considered 'Christian' by our standards. I was saved at age 15 by a youth group that specifically targeted teens who came from "unchurched" backgrounds and I most certainly fit that profile. As late as age 13 I ignorantly thought that Jesus was some cool mystical hippie dude from back in the day, like Buddha or something.

 

That's pretty different from someone who had it drilled into their head from infancy and got slaved at age 5, spending their entire childhood in an opaque Christian bubble. Whereas I was susceptible to conversion because of sheer ignorance and lack of exposure to it; that's what happens when you grow up 'unchurched' in Los Angeles as opposed to Alabama. Had I been 15 in Alabama and raised in a more-or-less non-Christian family I would have known from a very early age how shitty and crazy that fundyism is.

[par4dcourse]

My deconversion was a very slow eroding of my faith over a number of years...slowly, one thing after another was etched away until I was left with nothing.

I hope that makes some kind of sense!

 

It does to me. That mirrors my experience. A long stretch from questions to agnosticism to atheism.

 

 

 

[TheSecretAtheist]

I consciously and actively "accepted Christ" at the age of 8. At that time I believed everything wholeheartedly.

 

I began questioning by the age of 12, and for the next 18 years I questioned more and more. While I believe I actually stopped believing by the age or 20 or 21 I didn't admit that fact to myself until the age of 30.

 

I didn't have fears so much as just a ton of questions and doubts. I wasn't ready to let go of my beliefs because of those questions but I never feared the fires of hell or any such thing. I think I dealt with that by assuming that if I made it through my doubts with my beliefs intact then I had always been safe since the age of 8, if I made it through my doubts without my beliefs then there was never anything to fear in the first place. The hard part for me wasn't fear but acceptance. I am a pastor's kid, and work as a music director at a Baptist church. Almost all my family and friends are Christians (though there are a few atheists or non-Christian theists, and many casual or liberal Christians) so it is not an easy position to take, standing apart from religion. I still haven't come out to most people, especially not to my family.

[Guest wester]

(1) the length of time you were a Chritian,

 

Around age 8, when I started to make cogent thoughts

 

(2) the intensity of your beliefs,

 

Moderately intense...Less intense when old Star Trek reruns were on TV on Sunday mornings.

 

(3) and the difficulty of your deconversion.

 

The first gulf war killed it for me.

I saw all the churches my family were involved with go marching off to war.

After 20 years of Thou Shalt Not Kill forcibly shoved down my throat, this was spitting on the whole tradition I had come up with. Seething that horror made it pretty damn easy to walk away and say "Screw that and screw them."

 

The whole program I was subjected to was obviously a transparent fraud and an excuse for a ladies knitting circle and local fashion show after that.

 

I still have great respect for Christians like Phil and Dan Berrigan, as well as John Dear, and also Martin Luther King for their anti-war activism.

[ClaraOlive]

I was saved as a child, so believed everything wholeheartedly because I had no other frame of reference. I started having doubts around the age of 10, but there wasn't a single person in my life to give me any validation. I wasn't allowed to do any secular activities whatsoever. Even after I'd almost stopped believing (around 15), I continued TRYING to be a Christian. My entire life started centering around the question "there must be some way to believe (like everyone else in my life) so how do I find it? I didn't let go of the attempt until I was 25.