Admin webmdave Posted October 1, 2008 Admin Share Posted October 1, 2008 Sent in by Anton The last year has seen me slowly de-convert from Christianity until, like others, I one day realized I just don't believe it all any more. I grew up in a loving Christian home, both my parents were active in church. It was to be expected that at the age of 12 I had a "jelly-in-my-legs" experience at a sermon one morning, went forward and gave my heart to Jesus. What followed was a life that has been both happy and sad at the same time.Happy because I wasn't raised fundamentalist enough to be ostracized from the world completely, but sad because I was just Christian enough to never quite feel at home in the world. It's hard to explain, but if you met me today you would think me a confident individual, and in some ways I am. I just feel, however, that Christianity kept me from developing a kinship with my fellow man. By being Christian by definition I was different, and any common ground was ruined because "they" weren't Christian and I was. I think it's all impacted on my identity, and I now feel a bit lost. So although I wasn't a fire and brimstone type, I nevertheless have spent almost my entire life (31 years) serving in the church and hanging out with Christians. The turning point came when my wife and I joined a charismatic church and I started investigating "speaking in tongues". When I realised what a load of powerful self-deception THAT was, everything started to fall to pieces bit by bit. If Christians could be faking tongues, what else could they be faking, consciously or not? I am songwriter and songs about life. Heartache and disillusionment with church have always been a prolific source of ideas for songs, but I always really struggled to write worship songs. It's as if from somewhere deep inside I just had nothing to say about God! Similar to being in a relationship and then realising how platonic it actually is. Anyway, no one knows apart from my wife. (I think she will follow where the facts go and she loves and trusts me unconditionally.) I don't know if I will ever tell my parents. I know WHY people choose to believe, they need it like some need food and water. In this case I can't give them the heartache and pain of thinking I am going to hell. I'd rather they not know! Besides I am still on this journey.I consider myself agnostic but not quite atheist. Things like our human morals and being able to create and appreciate art are still issues for me, as well as a feeling deep down that maybe there is more at play than our living and dying. (A last remnant of my upbringing perhaps?) I would love comments and pointers to info on some of the things mentioned above. Thanks for letting me get this of my chest! http://exchristian.net/testimonies/2008/10...l-bit-lost.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jimF01 Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Hi Anton,you don't have to be an atheist not to follow Christianity.I'm an agnostic myself and former christian.I find i just don't have all the answer's to every question life can throw at me just yet. There are civilizations that once existed(Aztec to name one) that had a very different idea of what god is and what he wants from his followers as far as conduct.They also came up with a moral code as well as rituals to aid the religion and everyone in the society.Just because a civilization makes up a god to explain why things are the way they are,doesn't mean said god is real.Even if they make a functioning moral code for the society the religion functions in. Welcome to the board. Besides I am still on this journey.I consider myself agnostic but not quite atheist. Things like our human morals and being able to create and appreciate art are still issues for me, as well as a feeling deep down that maybe there is more at play than our living and dying. (A last remnant of my upbringing perhaps?) I would love comments and pointers to info on some of the things mentioned above. Thanks for letting me get this of my chest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Anton, we have a somewhat similar experience. What we share is that I also was Christian for over 30 years, and I slowly progressed into a realization that I didn't believe anymore. I has taken me a while to figure out what really happened to me and why, but I think I know now. I grew up in a Pentecostal family, and all my relatives are Christians. In my teenage years I got into a fundamentalist (word of life, faith-movement) organization, and one difference between you and me is that I was pretty hardcore, spoke in tongues and all that stuff. What I've realized about my de-conversion is that I went through many years of disappointments in life. My family was hurt in an accident, and it has been a struggle ever since to keep things together, financially, health, family relations, job career, kids school work, ... pretty much everything has been under pressure. And what happened to me was that I turned very cold. To be stressed to the limit tends to do that; you lose the normal emotional grounds and everything has to be solved with the best rational reasons. That's when my de-conversion happened. All my belief and faith were only based on emotions. I had my "rational" arguments, but they weren't solid enough to carry my belief. It was all really about what I felt, and not what I could reason to. And I think every de-convert can agree that the conflict between religious belief and reality is exactly that, the difference between reason and emotions. You really don't believe because it makes sense (some Christians keep on telling themselves that they do), but you believe in spite of the it making sense. After all, that's exactly what the Bible says faith IS!! Like the verse, that he [God] would make fools out of the wise etc, it all points to: Don't believe because it is supported by any evidence, but believe because it's lunacy. And only through a process of "waking" up from this long sleep of intoxicating emotionalism, you can see the truth and understand how wrong it was. (just some quick thoughts in the morning while drinking my coffee. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HellboundAlleee Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Hm. OKay, as I see it, you don't need to be lost. Look down. Are you there? Hello you! There you are! So now you're self-aware. Good. You have emotions, memories. You feel things. Nothing supernatural about that. You think of melodies and words based on those feelings. They bring you joy. That's the universe. That's what human beings can do. It's really, really cool that we can bring ourselves pleasure, that we can feel the way we do about our values and our memories. We don't need to denigrate these lovely, real things by saying that it can't be real. It's real, because it's right here, in the universe. We don't need help to do wonderful things, because we're looking at them, hearing them, feeling them right now. Don't let those who denigrate humanity (remember the old "we are all sinners and deserve to go to hell" bullcrap? That's what that means) tell you that you are not able to bring about great beauty without magic or gods. Sometimes I think that we humans can be so prideful that we think our own creations are otherworldly. Our beauty must have been touched by the hand of God. Pu-Leez. Oh, they're quite worldly. Why? Because this is the world, baby. Love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lost in space Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Well, I put the word "lost" in my user name because that was the biggest thing I felt at the time, so I definitely know where you are coming from. I am still struggling to find my grounding, since my Christian beliefs framed how I viewed everything in life. I am also working through how my loss of faith affects my view on ethics, and other experiences. So, I can relate. ...what happened to me was that I turned very cold. To be stressed to the limit tends to do that; you lose the normal emotional grounds and everything has to be solved with the best rational reasons. That's when my de-conversion happened. All my belief and faith were only based on emotions. I had my "rational" arguments, but they weren't solid enough to carry my belief. It was all really about what I felt, and not what I could reason to. And I think every de-convert can agree that the conflict between religious belief and reality is exactly that, the difference between reason and emotions. You really don't believe because it makes sense (some Christians keep on telling themselves that they do), but you believe in spite of the it making sense. After all, that's exactly what the Bible says faith IS!! Like the verse, that he [God] would make fools out of the wise etc, it all points to: Don't believe because it is supported by any evidence, but believe because it's lunacy. And only through a process of "waking" up from this long sleep of intoxicating emotionalism, you can see the truth and understand how wrong it was. Hans, this is just so neatly stated, and bang on what happened in my de-conversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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