Tell Me Your Story

[roman]

In my teen years and early twenties, two HUGE events stand out (other than sexual discoveries):

 

1. I realized and admitted that I did not love my father and he did not love me;

 

2. I realized and admitted that Xianity was an absurd crock of shit that excluded me anyway, so why bother with it.

[Legion]

NobleSavage, you have a good moniker in my opinion. I can sum up why I left Christianity fairly briefly. Was it gradual? That's a relative kind of thing, isn't it? Once I really accepted the following facts I was out of there. It took maybe 2 or 3 years.

 

1.a.) Message from the Church: "Lust is always and everywhere wrong."

1.b.) Message from everywhere else: "Lust is a natural and neccessary part of being a sexual being."

 

I realized that the church was trying to CONTROL my sexuality. I realize without them that there are appropriate and inappropriate times and expressions of sexuality.

 

2.a) Message from Church: "We are not mammals that have evolved."

2. Message from everywhere else: "We are mammals that have evolved."

 

I realized that the church lived in DENIAL of our essential nature. I realize without them that we have a special place and responsibilities here on planet Earth (i.e. we are de facto caretakers and stewards of Earth).

[Lorena Rodriguez]

My deconversion was extremely slow because I didn't want to listen to my subconscious mind.

 

My subconscious was gently telling me that the stuff was bullshit, but I quieted the voice. Why? I don't know. I can only speculate.

 

- Perhaps the strictness of fundamentalist christianity resembled my family of origin so much that I was comfortable there.

- I finally went to a non-christian psychologist, who helped become more confident and more self-assured. Then I started to see more flaws in the christian doctrines.

- There were people there I admired and thought of as intelligent. I couldn't believe that these people would be wrong, so part of my deconversion involved the realization that these people were smart but somewhat wacky or naive.

 

But to me the main one was:

 

I had never spent any time calling the bluffs of christianity. They had said that if I prayed and read my bible and I witnessed and gave money, I would be happy. I had never really done all of that, so I was sure my unhapiness was my very own fault.

 

Well, I lost my job and not needing the income, I decided to stay home and read the bible and pray and volunteer do all that was supposedly required of me. Then during my lengthy prayer times, I started to listen to my subconscious, and I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

 

During my first few months away from church, I would tell people that "god" had led me away from the church. Now I realize that it was my subconscious. So to me, my subconscious and god are the same thing.

[Groggen]

OK, follow up question:

 

Many of you described some of the reasons you deconverted. What do you feel were some of the reasons your transition was so gradual?

 

For the transition away from faith to be so gradual, there had to be something you were holding on to. Some of the reasons I've heard before are:

 

1. Fear of possibly being wrong and going to Hell.

2. Fear of going through life without a friendly sky-god watching over you.

3. Social pressures and fear of judgment from others.

 

Are there other factors? What made you so reluctant to let go?

For me it was the mind being cautious and taking it slow- not letting the truth become conscious all at once because it would've been too painful, too sudden. Rejecting Christianity involves the upheaval of an entire worldview so it will be gradual for many. At some point I realized that my foundational belief was gone and there was no going back.