What Was The Pivotal Moment For You?

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

My pivotal moment was when I decided to take a critical look at my beliefs. For almost forty years I just accepted what I had been told by my parents and church. I did a lot of bible study during that time, but it was always within the context that the fundamentalist christian world view was correct.

 

When I decided to look at the bible's claims from outside that world view and judge the bible like I would any other set of claims it all began to unravel.

 

Some of the first blocks to fall were:

 

- The bible is not inerrant - it is full of contradictions and inaccuracies

- The concept of an all-good, all-powerful god can't be reconciled with the evil in the world

- The bible is full of evil itself. God ordering death to innocent children and animals, treatment of women as possesions, support for slavery, attacks on reason, etc.

- The problem of prayer. The bible makes claims that believers can accomplish anything thru prayer. Yet, prayer never seems to accomplish anything that can't be attributed to nature. Show me an answer to prayer where an amputee's leg is instantly replaced and I'll be impressed. Show me an answer to prayer during an airplane crash where the plane is supernaturally suspended in air four feet above the ground until everyone can be safely evacuated and I'll be impressed.

- Realization that evolution was more believable than the eternal existance of a supernatural being who could create universes.

[Guest Seachmall]

My pivotal moment was divided into two separate moments that each took body shots at my personal belief.

 

The first was merely a comment about how my belief of god was based on nothing. At the time I had rejected organised religion and the bible, I began building my own god based on what comforted me. Clearly there is a flaw there and the quote "Credo Quia Consolans" pretty much sums it up (roughly "I believe because it consoles").

 

The second one was when I was agnostic, I still wanted to believe but I was looking for truth not hope. After reading a bunch of essays I realised atheism was the right direction, I assumed it was as illogical as religion itself not truly understanding what atheism was.

 

Those two moments really knocked me back and forced me to look at myself and my beliefs.

[Guest goodfaith]

'2007. What a fucking year it was. I lost my virginity and my faith, the two best things I've ever lost. ;

 

oh dear, I had never met this kind of demon-touting religion until I came to America, what evil nonsense to teach people. Demons are purely and simply the bible's explanation for mental illness and impariment prior to greater understanding, and gothic fiction.

 

But people can literally send themselves crazy with fear after beign exposed to these teachings and the evil people who spread them.

 

'prayer never seems to accomplish anything that can't be attributed to nature'

 

that's what Carl Jung said, I wrote about it a few months ago http://ingoodfaith.wordpress.com/2008/11/2...no-coincidence/

'God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly, all things which alter my plans and intentions, and change the course of my life, for better or for worse.' Jung 1959

 

It's interesting how often it is study which has unlocked people's need for a single belief system, maybe that's why we are not encouraged to study in most churches, and people who read texts which are not approved get run down by thought-control!

[Vomit Comet]

oh dear, I had never met this kind of demon-touting religion until I came to America, what evil nonsense to teach people. Demons are purely and simply the bible's explanation for mental illness and impariment prior to greater understanding, and gothic fiction.

 

But people can literally send themselves crazy with fear after beign exposed to these teachings and the evil people who spread them.

 

'prayer never seems to accomplish anything that can't be attributed to nature'

 

that's what Carl Jung said, I wrote about it a few months ago http://ingoodfaith.wordpress.com/2008/11/2...no-coincidence/

'God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly, all things which alter my plans and intentions, and change the course of my life, for better or for worse.' Jung 1959

 

It's interesting how often it is study which has unlocked people's need for a single belief system, maybe that's why we are not encouraged to study in most churches, and people who read texts which are not approved get run down by thought-control!

 

Mental illness runs in my family, and one of the worst things you can tell such a person is that demons are real and that they're out to actively fuck with you. I'm deathly worried about my brother. He's still in the grip of that shit. I have yet to tell him of my deconversion; I fear that if I do, it might set him off totally over the edge from the shock. Fuck.

 

Where are you from? My girlfriend's from Central Europe, and she's just flabbergasted by the crazy ass shit that so many Americans believe. She thought that the Vatican was kooky enough, but at least the vast majority of European Catholics hardly give a shit what the Pope says when it comes to sexuality and any number of other things. American fundamentalism is as foreign and bizarre to them as cannibalism in New Guinea is to us.

[Guest goodfaith]

'Mental illness runs in my family, and one of the worst things you can tell such a person is that demons are real and that they're out to actively fuck with you. I'm deathly worried about my brother. He's still in the grip of that shit. I have yet to tell him of my deconversion; I fear that if I do, it might set him off totally over the edge from the shock. Fuck.

 

Where are you from? My girlfriend's from Central Europe, and she's just flabbergasted by the crazy ass shit that so many Americans believe. She thought that the Vatican was kooky enough, but at least the vast majority of European Catholics hardly give a shit what the Pope says when it comes to sexuality and any number of other things. American fundamentalism is as foreign and bizarre to them as cannibalism in New Guinea is to us.'

 

yup, people who aren't quite sure what they're interpreting is real or not don't have the luxury of believing in demons!

 

Maybe just step away quietly not make a big deal with your bro, what can happen is people who are angry and upset want to pull others away from their faith and bring them along too...that's my experience and so just recently one of my friends hasn't told me, not knowing I would be called back to work at the church last week, after telling me last time we met that she doesn't believe any of it and isn't joining the church- there she is up on the 'new members' board. She joined the church!

At first I was upset and angry, then I thought, it's nothing to do with me. If she wants to give 10 % of her income and get up early on the weekends to go listen to all that, good luck to her.

She's probably been coerced anyway. they love-bombed me last week and I was very firm- I am not coming back.

 

I think the whole religion thing is easier if you don't really believe it, can take it all laid back and not fuss where you're being a hypocrite...it's the people who are sensitive about that who are going to have a hard time with the 'doublethink'. Every single religion is weird if it's not your training.

 

I've decided- like the good englishwoman I am- that no one needs to know about my religious beliefs, and I will simply step away from anything but open discussions- which you can't have with fundamentalists- until I have regained composure and perspective, I'm already feeling better than in weeks.

 

Yes in Europe people often don't really believe it like here: in the UK 2001 census 70 % of respondents said they were christian whilst 60% admitted they didn't believe in God or attend a church!!

People are more freethinkers there, will just take what they want from an experience, don't need so much to belong to a big group. But then they haven't been taught absolutism in church or from their parents, they are generally taught comparative religion in school.

 

Funny how they are happier to pay more tax and help the poor though, and all the so-called christians here get really angry when it looks like they might have to share their wealth! Took about being reinterpreting the teachings of Jesus- they can be taken many way but materialism and greed, that's just ridiculous!

[Foxy Methoxy]

Of course the UK isn't as religious as the US. Their religious fanatics came here to found our country.

[ShallowByThyGame]

Of course the UK isn't as religious as the US. Their religious fanatics came here to found our country.

 

It also has to do with all the open space here. The more you can detach from society the more you can get away with crazy beliefs because you will be less challenged on a daily basis.

[Guest goodfaith]

Of course the UK isn't as religious as the US. Their religious fanatics came here to found our country.

 

LOL!

 

I apologise for that but also,

 

Thomas Jefferson: Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

 

John Adams: The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.

 

Thomas Paine: I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

 

George Washington: The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.

 

Benjamin Franklin : When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

[RisenTree]

For me, the process had been building up for years--long story there, hopefully someday soon I will get around to posting it. However, I remember the summer of 2004, when I was a moderator over at Christians Forums (yes, that place), moderating the old Philosophy & Morality forum (now called Ethics & Morality). Two similar states of my mind had lined up: (1) I tried my best to, when moderating, read the text through the lens of whether the words abided by the rules or not, not whether I "liked" them or not, and (2) my mind was much more open to what was really true than it had ever been. During that time, I read through page after page, thread after thread, day after day of homosexuals pleading with the homophobes: This is who we are, you really are advocating something destructive, we are not out to cause harm or trouble. It dawned on me that what they were saying was true. Similar social matters were brought up, too: abortion, nudism (although I had already accepted that as morally acceptable), sex outside of marriage, and the like. After that summer, a change in me had taken place, one which I never looked back on.

[joD]

I think it's interesting, Toll booth, how it was moderating a xtian forum that you started seeing things differently. That has been said so many times on here, how when people really started reading their bibles, and digging deeper into the faith, it actually led them out! That was also my experience leaving rlds church (small mormonism sect) in the early 90's. But when I left xtianity, it was more of change of heart, looking for answers elsewhere and personal growth.

And, the issues around sexuality will always be problematic with xtians, since so much of our society and western xtiainity is based on puritanical ideas, that have never really been disposed of.

[Vomit Comet]

Benjamin Franklin : When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

 

Which is precisely why the aggressive American sects, such as the Southern Baptists, are so aggressive.

 

Survival of the fittest. Without state support of any kind, the American sects that made it past the early 19th century out there in the frontier are the ones that learned how to rope in and retain enough people who were willing to open up their wallets. And you don't manage this by preaching fuzzy wuzzy all-inclusive peace-and-love, which is why liberal/mainline Christianity in America has been declining fast since the 1970s shortly after they began to take that turn, thinking that young people would be attracted. It backfired: if God doesn't give a shit that you're smoking, drinking, fucking, dabbling in Buddhism, engaged to a Jew, etc., then why would God give a shit if you sleep in on Sunday and keep your money?

 

The Church of England, on the other hand, has grown so soft because it can afford to be soft. It doesn't have to worry about declining into extinction even though its pews are emptier than they have ever been. The same goes for the Lutheran state churches in northern Europe.

[GeneralJet]

Hi all. This is my first post. I was born into Catholicism, attended Church weekly, taught CCD, worked for the Church and even considered the priesthood. Ultimately it was my very human need for sex that put that calling to rest. I have always been an all or nothing person so to speak. When i get into something, i really get into something. This was true of my religion and faith. My first major stumbling block was in fact reading the Bible from cover to cover. Talk about a well intended act blowing up in ones face. I was horrified at what i read. So disturbed that i went to my priest for counseling. His response was basically to give me a set of encyclopedias to read in order to help me study the bible. He was actually quite cold about it, looking back on things. I knew in my heart that the Creator of the universe did not say or do the things i was reading about particularly in the Old Testament.

My second, and final hurdle comes in the form of animal suffering. Not only did i find a disturbing lack of concern for Gods other creatures in the bible, i saw that He actually could not get enough of tormenting them. This was truly alarming, mostly in the form of senseless animal sacrifice. The Creator wants us to slit the throats of His creations and burn them to smell the pleasing aroma? I have always been very animal sympathetic, and take great exception to dominion over the animals, a teaching found in genesis.

But it was not just that. Where is this all powerful, all loving God when millions of dogs and cats are horribly abused and neglected every year? What did THEY do to deserve the cruelty of this world? Why did He design a system of nature so very ruthless and brutal? Animals are eaten alive every day in the wild. Caught in traps and left to die. There is no great need to go into more detail. Just watch Animal Cops or the likes on television. I cannot get the picture of God standing there with folded arms watching this suffering. And then, like others on here have brought up, some brave soul steps in and saves one, and who gets the thanks and praise...you guessed it...God.

I laugh anymore when people say awesom, powerful God. Where? What does He do? And seriously, what kind of a God would want ANYBODY nailed to a cross, much less Himself or His Son? I would hope that a God of such love and wisdom would despise the very concept of crucifixion, or torture. I could go on and on, but these were my Major reasons for becoming agnostic. I am still kind of new to it, and almost hope for some kind of new perspective or understanding, but for now it truly feels right and makes sense.

My girlfriend is a devout Christian, and i am smart enought to know that this will cause problems for us sooner or later. To sum up, i actually hope that i am wrong. I want to see my deceased loved ones again. I want to know that people and animals that suffered(oh wait, animals do not go to Heaven since they have no souls, nice huh?)are in paradise and happy now. I want there to be justice. i do not want to die, ever. But unfortunately, i think it is what it is, and that as i see it, this cannot be right, or even close to right. Thanks for listening to my rant!

[Seeker630]

I want to know that people and animals that suffered(oh wait, animals do not go to Heaven since they have no souls, nice huh?)are in paradise and happy now.

 

I know someone who deconverted over this issue as a young girl. When she found out her puppy would not be in heaven with her, is when the wheels started turning in her mind. She is quite atheistic now.

[Guest goodfaith]

I really think we are not meant to question...our religions.

Someone worked it out I guess- a free spiritual mind is not subversive or submissive; to other people I mean not God.

 

It's been a strangely happy week though, I recovered my spiritual equanimity, and am starting to make peace with my decision to leave the church.

 

If I have a ministry it's in the world, my choice how I live my life.

 

'My girlfriend is a devout Christian, and i am smart enought to know that this will cause problems for us sooner or later'

 

yes, it did in my marriage. I think in today's times though we have to adapt to lots of cultural and personality differences between people- religion is just another hurdle, we can't assume that everyone is going to be from ( or join ) our tribe any more!

[joD]

Just relax and be yourself! One of the biggest realizations for me was to finally "get it" that I don't have to be what everyone else says. I can think for myself. That was a huge step!

[Guest erik the awful]

My Pivotal Moment occurred when I finally stopped reading apologists and read "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong. I think I de-converted before I managed to finish the book.

[Guest erik the awful]

My Pivotal Moment occurred when I finally stopped reading apologists and read "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong. I think I de-converted before I managed to finish the book.

 

One of these days I've got to get the whole thing down on paper... Some additional notes:

- I didn't really start asking questions until age 14. When you are fed the whole thing from birth sometimes you don't ask questions...

- I had problems with the old testament. The whole book of Job does not show a just God. For that matter not much of the old testament shows a "just and merciful" god. And it goes on from there...

- I had problems with the concept of "the aprocropha." Why did humans think they were qualified to create a cannon of books called the bible? Why were Seventh Day Adventists (who are deeply skeptical of the Catholic church) so concerned about being following the bible that the catholic church canonized? If interpretation of the bible is Divinely protected, why did I have so many damned questions? Why didn't other things get Divine protection, like wars in the name of God?

- The whole trinity concept seemed a little strange. Christians are not polytheists! But their god has MPD, and that's got more truthiness then what the hindus and the rest of the polys believe. Right.

- I "semi-de-converted" during my senior year in high school, but let my self get dragged back into to "non-demonitional Christianity" a couple of years later.

- I spent a number of years begging God to help me and or force me to believe.

 

...

 

Then I found Ms Armstrong. Things really really clicked. I had suspected for years that this God was invented by humans just like Christians say humans invented all the other gods... So when Ms Armstrong mentions the below points, things started making much more sense.

- Job was a story borrowed from the Babylonians. Hell, that jerk named God in Job probably wasn't even El, Eloheim, or Jove.

- There are lots of different and probably separate Gods discussed in the OT. El, Eloheim, Jehovah and more that I'm forgetting. Christians Jews and Muslims like to merge all these guys into one personality. But apparently close study of the original text shows separate personalities. El was the god who comes walking down the dusty road, sits down has dinner with you and talks with you. Jehovah was your typical fire and brimstone tribal diety.

- Apparently early Israelites BELIEVED that the other Gods worshipped by their neighbors were REAL. And Jehovah was OK with this as long as he was their "first" god in some cases?!? We skipped right over that in Bible class for 12 years somehow.

- Someone else came up with the idea of a virgin birth of a god before the Jews did. But only the Jewish / Christian version is correct. Oh dear, so do non Jews and non Christians have diving inspiration?

[Vixentrox]

Oh wow. Pivotal moment. For me it was mostly a long term erosion than any one thing, though reading and studying the bible and church history were major factors. I guess the final break was when my faith was already slipping fast, and I prayed for hours for some sign, some guidance about what I should do. Praying for god to restore my faith and there was nothing but silence. The last act was praying to a brick and praying to god. There was no difference. Silence from both.

[Skeptic]

Mental illness runs in my family, and one of the worst things you can tell such a person is that demons are real and that they're out to actively fuck with you.

 

I can definitely attest to this. I have a family history of mental illness and I got sucked into the whole demon thing at around 2-3 years old by my mom, who I'm convinced is either lying or completely whacked out. I could rant day and night about this but I don't particularly want to. I'll just say that it is quite possibly the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. I'm really sorry about your brother, VC. I hope he can get some kind of psychological help (though, from what you described, maybe he thinks it's perfectly normal, like I did). I'm sincerely considering it because of this and another issue I'd been repressing until now, because I'm sick of getting triggered and ending up there again. That's not somewhere I want to be ever again. If someone wants to PM me about it, though, that would be fine.

[oddbird1963]

Oh wow. Pivotal moment. For me it was mostly a long term erosion than any one thing, though reading and studying the bible and church history were major factors. I guess the final break was when my faith was already slipping fast, and I prayed for hours for some sign, some guidance about what I should do. Praying for god to restore my faith and there was nothing but silence. The last act was praying to a brick and praying to god. There was no difference. Silence from both.

 

 

I was going to write my "pivotal moment" comment, but Vixentrox, your post could be word for word what I was going to say.

 

First came the Evolution/Creationism issues. I could not shake the belief that scientists were right about evolution. This was long before de-conversion. I worked out some kind of harmonizing personal belief system and labeled myself a theistic evolutionist who believed Genesis was mostly mythical and legendary literature. This got me by.

 

Second, was the total lack of a "god factor" in churches and christians. While I love many of the people I have known through churches and many are wonderful compassionate people, none of what churches do requires any special heavenly intervention outside of the usual social, psychological and economic factors that explains the endeavors of any human organization.

 

Third, just like Vixentrot, " . . . I prayed for hours . . . nothing but silence."

 

At some point, unless you are so tightly bound up and vested in family, social status, personal psychology, etc. you have to let the delusion go. I reached that point in early Jan. '09 because of the three factors noted above.

 

I have always enjoyed a close family life with my wife and son. But except for them, there were basically no real friends in my life - churched or unchurched. I suppose had I been active in a close-knit church I might still be a believer today.

 

But without any payoff factor and no influences pressuring me to stay in the fold, I was able to finally see reality for what it was - a godless universe where humans have only themselves to rely on , individually and collectively.

[L2K]

Pivotal Point, I'd say my pivotal point was around 2005.

 

I was raised as a Christian via being taken to Church every sunday ever since I was 4 or 5 and being told that it was the right thing to do. So as the years went by, I tended to see plotholes, and started questioning authority figures in the church but never got answers.

 

Around 2005 I started really thinking into Science, made a slight theory of my own about different planes of existence. I thought, and still do, think that there are an infinite number of different planes of existence that only spirits can access, that contain the afterlives. Hades, Valhalla, Heaven, Niflheim, etc. I mean, why couldnt they all exist somewhere?

 

So I went back, then about 14 or 15 years old, and still got no answer. I started asking why there couldn't be more than one path, and even my family told me not to ask about it again and that other paths of faith weren't possible, that God is the only God, that they didnt need proof that there weren't others, and that Satan was making me ask those questions.

 

At that point, people at Church started to avoid me, and would also avoid conversing with me, including my two sisters. Sometimes wouldnt even show signs of noticing me when I'd wave to them if I saw them at a store. Then I thought "This isn't the right place for me. These people always said they and God would always care about me, but now look at them. They're all ignoring me, like I'm carrying a plague or something"

 

So at that point, I started thinking alot about Christianity, my own morals, and they just didn't seem to fit together anymore.

[ShallowByThyGame]

The last act was praying to a brick and praying to god. There was no difference. Silence from both.

 

I love this imagery for some reason. It's such a wonderful challenge of the 'god' concept to compare his performance to that of a brick.

 

At least nothing coincidental happened that would have answered your prayers to God and make you think you had done with prayer.

 

Or even worse if the Brick *had* answered your prayers!

[RisenTree]

I think it's interesting, Toll booth, how it was moderating a xtian forum that you started seeing things differently. That has been said so many times on here, how when people really started reading their bibles, and digging deeper into the faith, it actually led them out! That was also my experience leaving rlds church (small mormonism sect) in the early 90's. But when I left xtianity, it was more of change of heart, looking for answers elsewhere and personal growth.

And, the issues around sexuality will always be problematic with xtians, since so much of our society and western xtiainity is based on puritanical ideas, that have never really been disposed of.

 

Yes, I can relate to quite a bit of that. Someday perhaps I'll post my ex-testimony on here.