How I Left God In 29 Easy (and Sometimes Even Fun) Steps!

[Guest Sophia Rox]

 

1. I was (luckily) born to parents who, although they believed in God, were skeptical of religion.

 

2. Also luckily (for me anyway) my Mom resented having to sign a paper saying that we kids would be raised Catholic (so we wouldn't suffer eternal damnation just because my Mom's parents were stupid enough to raise her to be Episcopalian). Even though she converted out of convenience to Catholicism, she always retained that slightly bitter, but in my opinion, very healthy taste in her mouth about religion and the Catholic church from that experience.

 

3. My Mom, especially, was patient in answering and encouraging us kids to ask questions about God or religion. Sometimes she just simply told us she didn't know. Sometimes that was the answer that impressed me most.

 

4. I learned that even really intelligent people like my Mom would reject dogma like the Catholic stance on birth control but would embrace just as moronic concepts such as foregoing meat on Fridays. Picturing her face when I told her I had 'accidentally' eaten a Big Mac on a Friday during Lent still cracks me up to this day. I learned her beliefs didn't have to be mine.

 

5. When my sister and I were little (around ages 6 & 8) we had a discussion that I've never forgotten: How could God punish someone like Hitler if Hitler was mentally ill? On the flip side, how could God reward someone like Hitler even if he was mentally ill?

 

6. When I was in fourth grade, I used to be fascinated with our Nativity Set and used to play with it (I'd always wanted a dollhouse as a kid and this was probably the closest thing I'd get to actually owning one). My parents had friends over one night and my Mom was joking about how I always crowded everyone around baby Jesus. I was embarrassed but I figured, 'Hey! Isn't that what they were there for?' Sheesh, it only seemed logical they'd all try to elbow each other out of the way to get a look. Anyway, there happened to be an angel and a Wise Man missing (my little brother used to play with them too and had left them somewhere under the tree) and when my parents' friends asked what happened to them, I innocently told them that maybe they were 'having an affair'. They roared with laughter at my joke but the next day my Mom wanted to talk to me. She had me sit down and in a low, very serious voice told me how I'd 'blasphemed' against God. She never told me what blasphemed meant exactly but I knew it was serious. The odd part was, at that age I didn't know what 'having an affair' even meant--it was a phrase I learned from my MOM's soap operas! Lol. It was a really creepy discussion and kind of haunted me for a while since my parents weren't literalists or fire and brimstone types.

 

7. I convinced myself one day that if I was God I'd be bored stiff listening to the same crappy, monotone chantings and uninspired muzak every week, which leads me to Number:

 

8. The day I could skip church and do something fun for an hour and a half was certainly a milestone for me. Stopping by the church after mass to pick up my bulletin (my 'evidence' to 'prove to my parents that I'd been to mass) was like picking up a ticket to freedom until next Sunday when I could, hopefully, pull that same scam.

 

9. My Dad was a teacher and my Mom stayed at home or worked part time for years; it always galled me that even though he did have to put in a lot of time for his career, he'd do something asinine like leave a dirty diaper soaking in the toilet for my Mom to clean when she got home from her job. When we had supper, my Mom always offered my Dad the last of everything: The last piece of dessert, the last pork chop, the last dinner roll. My Dad never thought to tell my Mom to take it for herself. My Dad DID help out around the house but I learned, early on, that my Mom was telling me through her actions that what my Dad did was more important than what she did. And there was always this kind of very subtle martyr type of superiority about her sacrifices that shone through her actions. All I knew was if I came home and ever found a dirty diaper still soaking in my toilet, my husband better make a run for it because he'd find that thing somewhere he'd rather not--like maybe in his car so he'd have to deal with it before leaving for work. Hehe.

 

10. I paid attention in church the times I did go. While I still believed in Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit, I rolled my eyes about the bullshit about man being 'the head' of woman. Following that logic, basically, boiled down to as soon as you saw your brand new baby son or daughter, you based their leadership qualifications on their genitalia. Yeah...how logical.

 

11. My parents believed in evolution. They had no problem reconciling an omnipotent, omniscient God who creates things that evolve over time. Guess they didn't put much thought into that one. I always wondered what happened to those poor saps that were the 'in betweeners' like those Geico cavemen. Not quite ape, not quite man--what the hell happened to those guys?

 

12. I met, fell in love with and married a self proclaimed agnostic who really was bored by the whole God question period.

 

13. A year or so later, we had a son that we made a point of not brainwashing him into a Christian--we thought he should choose for himself when he was an adult.

 

14. My husband and I decided we weren't going to tell our son about Santa Claus. You're probably wondering what this has to do with God but I honestly do believe this had a lot to do with my son's ability to think critically and to be able to trust our judgment in things. Our reasoning at the time was, we didn't want to start out our child's life by telling him a story that wasn't true. Much later on, we both have come to the conclusion that the Santa myth kind of creates a fertile ground for children to accept other myths like the Christian god. Your mileage may vary, of course. But we feel this decision worked out well for us and even helped to pave the way for me to be able to finally break free of Christian superstition.

 

15. In spite of my beliefs in a Christian God, I made the decision to not have (or pressure my husband into going along with) the ritual of baptism for our son. This was another milestone of freedom, even bigger than my skipping church milestone. Interestingly enough, this was the only parenting decision my Mom ever questioned. When I asked her, 'Do you REALLY think God would send a BABY to HELL?', she replied, 'Ummmmmmmmmmmm...noooooooo...it's just SO ingrained, I guess.' I can't tell you how much I appreciated my Mom's honesty in that moment.

 

16. Number 16 here was a HUGE turning point for me--I made friends with a former fundamentalist Christian who was, at that time, trying to find a spiritual path to walk. Just like me.

 

17. My new friend and I would argue and argue about religion. She still clung to some literal beliefs from her church that I was astounded by. Such as the idea that homosexuals are perverted deviants that Jesus denounced in the Bible. I remember her challenging her to prove it but she learned later that was something her church made up--that particular belief was never attributed to Jesus.

 

18. My by now, not so 'new friend' had become my 'best friend' and taught me about cult thinking and fundamentalist dogma.

 

19. Thanks to my friend, I learned the chilling fact that there were tens of millions of people in the United States that didn't believe in evolution!

 

20. My friend and I start to realize our beliefs are actually becoming more and more similar as we both begin to imagine God as more of a force than the Bible God.

 

21. My friend and I read The History of God by Karen Armstrong. If you can imagine us at a fork in the road sizing up the path that leads to what is probably a made-up god just like the thousands of others that have been invented by humans, and for the first time really seeing the path to somewhere else that, while unknown, seems much more logical, you can imagine why we both chose the path we did. I'd say this book was the catalyst for both of us.

 

22. I stop saying prayers.

 

23. I start to call myself agnostic.

 

24. My (at the time) 15 year old son happily and proudly proclaims himself to be an atheist.

 

25. While having a discussion around a campfire one night, I admonish my son for trashing God, reminding him that this is arrogance as none of us know if there is a God or not. My son goes into our house, comes out with one of his favorite books Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams and has me read a passage on the arrogance of believers that totally changes my perspective. I realize that I had been a lazy thinker because I had accepted the premise of God as something that actually had validity in spite of a complete lack of evidence--something I'd never do in any other area of my life.

 

26. I commit to studying more about atheism. I realized that after Number 25 had occurred that in any other facet of my life I had always tried to look at more than one perspective. I realized I had never even looked at the reasoning behind atheism. I'd read the Bible, listened to pastors preaching, read my Mom's Catholic Q and A books on Catholic dogma, read about other sects of Christianity and the history of the church, and even some about other religions but never thought to even look at the arguments from the other side.

 

27. I become an atheist/rationalist committed to stamping out superstition. I used to think that if religion helped to comfort or support others that we should respect that. Then came the Intelligent Design movement. I learned that we cannot allow others to foist their ignorant superstitions upon us. Superstitions that fly in the face of facts--unbelievable!

 

28. I do some research online and conclude that it's reasonable to conclude at this point in time that Jesus probably never even existed.

 

29. Here I am now...I've been enjoying exChristian.net for about a year now in lurkdom but always kind of wording my own Anti-Testimony in my head. By the way, I've been around on this site enough to state this mandatory disclaimer:

 

Just to head off any troll posts by the pathetically desperate: A. Hell is a bunch of made-up bullshit, so don't even bother threatening me with it. B. No, this testimony doesn't sound 'familiar' or 'fake'. You didn't read it anywhere else so if you really are a Christian, you might want to think about bearing false witness against your neighbor before you accuse me of making this up. 3. Yes, I was a 'true believer' so don't try to use my story to alleviate your own fears by using the psychological defense mechanism of distancing yourself from anything that rings familiar in my testimony. 4. I don't care if you think I'm angry, rebellious, unhappy, defiant--that's YOU projecting. Try reading about logic and critical thinking instead of mental masturbation that apologetics provide simply because it feels good...

 

To all of you exChristians--see ya in Hell, my friends! Sophia

[SWIM]

It's getting late... The type in that post really "jumped out" at me... (rubs eyes) I think I need to go to bed, words are starting to look larger and bolder to me for some unknown reason...

[garrisonjj]

 

What a beautiful, heart felt piece of writing! I admire you. Fuck the nonsense of religion!

[R. S. Martin]

I like success stories. Yours is one. Thanks for sharing it. Regular (not bold-faced) type is easier to read, but otherwise, great story. Thanks for writing it. I like how you follow your mother's humble attitude and learn from your son. If all parents were that humble this world would be a better place.

[Guest Sophia Rox]

It's getting late... The type in that post really "jumped out" at me... (rubs eyes) I think I need to go to bed, words are starting to look larger and bolder to me for some unknown reason...

 

I'm on a message board that has a similar format so I know how annoying this is--it was just an 'oops' on my part. My apologies--I thought I had previewed this before I posted!

[Guest katoi B]

Wow! It's almost like looking in a mirror. I pretty much went through the same steps. Started with doubting, and then skipping church and basically ending with the very doubting of Jesus's existance which is something I could have never dreamed of doing even one year ago.

Unfortunately my parents were really dogmatic and evangelical with faith healing and speaking in tongues to boot. However I was able to escape when my father began questioning his faith and let us choose for ourselves whether to go to church or be baptized or whatever. It wasn't until then that I really begun to let go of my beleifs and stopped being afraid to doubt.

[Luke Wolf]

Yes, I shall see you in Hell for sure. And when I have my own region of hell, I might consider making a separate wing of my castle for you. I promise, it will have A/C.

[Oldjew]

I loved the bold print as my eyes are failing and was easier to read, but the story was the best I ever read on atheist forums and I loved your closing to trolls, that is a true classic line that I hope you do not mind I use myself in the future against theist.

 

I became an atheist in 1991. Before that I was agnostic from 1977 onward.

 

Before that I was a brainwashed theist and an ordained minister. I raised my children to not even go to church until they were able to decide for themselves rather or not to believe or not to believe even though at the time I was a believer, but I have always thought it wrong to force one's beliefs on children and consider it in the same category as a child molester.

 

Religion should be a choice which one should be capable of knowing rather or not it is what they want, and unless one's brain has developed to that point one should not be force fed religion, choices or have their free will compromised.