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Goodbye Jesus

The War In My Head


paul34

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Hi, Paul, and welcome to ExC. Many (probably almost all) of us are veterans of that same war (in our heads). I look forward to hearing more from you.

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Thank you, overcome.

 

I also wanted to apologize to everyone for all the typos in my post. I should've proofread before I submitted. I realize that some of my writing may be unclear because of incorrect tense usage and such.

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One thing I notice for my case is that I can't really find any single issue that really led to this point.

 

 

 

 

Also, I doubt evidence or prplfox will read this, but you two made some extremely great video sets that helped me in such a significant way. Thank you so much.

 

You're welcome, and this meant a lot. I'm the same as you in that I can't point to any one thing and say "That is my objection to Christianity." Someone I was talking to about the series with on youtube, when I told him about that question said "My objection to Christianity is that it ruined me."

 

I'm glad you're sharing your story.

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Welcome! Thanks for sharing all that. :)

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I'm feeling the "no going back"/"this is for real" feeling now. I haven't really felt this before. It seems quite irrational, because I don't know how I could ever return to believing. I simply do not believe. However, taking the step and joining a community like this and meeting other atheists in person has a real "official" type feeling to it. But, you know, this needs to come. A full acknowledgement of my new self. Feeling all sorts of "vestiges of baseless doubt" should be a given. It is really strange, though... almost as if at times, especially when I am tired, a part of my mind just wants to "forget" everything I've learned and thought about. But I'm guessing that is what you all also experienced.

 

If anyone has any other insight, I'd love to hear it. I picked up a used copy of an older edition of Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell, based on someone else's recommendation here on the forums, as well as some good reviews on Amazon. I have several books I have purchased that I will be devouring this week.

 

Thanks for the kind words, prpl.

 

Don't worry, Paul, your feelings are normal. Take it one day at a time. You don't have to have all the answers or get rid of these feelings anytime soon. There is no timetable.

 

One thing you might want to do, if you haven't already, is to read a lot of the extimonies on this website. You'll see a lot of what you expressed above and learn how others have dealt with it.

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I'm feeling the "no going back"/"this is for real" feeling now. I haven't really felt this before. It seems quite irrational, because I don't know how I could ever return to believing. I simply do not believe. However, taking the step and joining a community like this and meeting other atheists in person has a real "official" type feeling to it. But, you know, this needs to come. A full acknowledgement of my new self. Feeling all sorts of "vestiges of baseless doubt" should be a given. It is really strange, though... almost as if at times, especially when I am tired, a part of my mind just wants to "forget" everything I've learned and thought about. But I'm guessing that is what you all also experienced.

 

If anyone has any other insight, I'd love to hear it. I picked up a used copy of an older edition of Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell, based on someone else's recommendation here on the forums, as well as some good reviews on Amazon. I have several books I have purchased that I will be devouring this week.

 

Thanks for the kind words, prpl.

 

You can't choose what to believe. You only believe what makes sense to you.

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Nice story, thanks for taking the time to write it up. I see a lot of parallels with my own.

 

 

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I realized that man did not have the "fingerprints of god" on them, but that these gods clearly had the fingerprints of man on them.

Exactly. This was a very well done testimony, paul34. It makes me want to type out mine on here, which I've been meaning to do. All those youtubers you mentioned have helped me as well. I have a similar deconversion story. I went through it over the course of years, and man, if I'd read a book like Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell seven years ago, I would be so much better off! But, yeah, all I can say is keep reading and communicating with others about your beliefs and doubts on here and in real life, and it will get better.

youtube.com/user/HistorySkeptic

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

 

Acknowledging other religions really waters down Christianity for many people.

 

I found a site awhile back that deals with ex-Muslims, I don't know why but I stuck around that site for months. Maybe because some of the deconversion story's were mind blowing. Anyway,I think you will enjoy the read, below is the site if you're interested

 

http://www.faithfreedom.org/mcommets.htm'>http://www.faithfreedom.org/mcommets.htm updated site: http://www.faithfreedom.org/

 

I was under the impression that Buddhism was an Atheistic religion too, but actually its not.They believe in a god, but not one ultimate expression of god, pantheist I believe.

 

I really enjoyed your post, it brought some important things into prospective. I'm reminded that ultimately it is honesty and a hunger for the truth that frees people from Christianity. And even after leaving it, we all struggle with the fear of being in error. Those fears haunted me long after I left the church, but they did go away.

 

For awhile, the only problems I've had were a bad hell or Jesus dream. I mentioned one of those dreams in my testimonial, and a awesome ex-Christian responded with “fears and guilt about leaving Christianity are still residing in your sub conscious mind.” Perhaps that is your case too, but it manifests itself in your daily life. In time it will go away, it has for me, even the dreams.

 

Thank your for your story

 

Jesse

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Hi

 

Acknowledging other religions really waters down Christianity for many people. I found a site awhile back that deals with ex-Muslims, I don't know why but I stuck around that site for months. Some of the deconversion story's were mind blowing. Anyway, below is the site if you're interested

Jesse

 

Bingo. Take it one step further and immerse yourself within the culture of another religion to see just how devout (if not more so) members of other religions are compared to yours, and it all begins to look downright silly. Take for example the bible belt in America. It is probably the most uncultured segregated portion of our country.

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Hi, Paul. I wasn't surprised to read your most recent post of how your orthodox training came back to haunt you. You had that training as a child and it was reinforced by your parents. That kind of training doesn't go away easily, most especially when you get it as a child. There are some pearls of wisdom concerning human nature in the bible. And this is the one that came to mind when I read your post:

 

6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

 

Proverbs 22:6

 

This verse from Proverbs speaks to how training, or one might say "brainwashing," is most effective on children. And this is what happened to you when you were confronted with the orthodox training of your childhood. It's not easy getting past it, but you can do it.

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Hi, Paul. I wasn't surprised to read your most recent post of how your orthodox training came back to haunt you. You had that training as a child and it was reinforced by your parents. That kind of training doesn't go away easily, most especially when you get it as a child. There are some pearls of wisdom concerning human nature in the bible. And this is the one that came to mind when I read your post:

 

6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

 

Proverbs 22:6

 

This verse from Proverbs speaks to how training, or one might say "brainwashing," is most effective on children. And this is what happened to you when you were confronted with the orthodox training of your childhood. It's not easy getting past it, but you can do it.

 

I was about to write something similar.

 

I left the church when I was a teen, after growing up in it. I thought I was immune to the early indoctrination, and for many years, I was fine. Then circumstances sent my head spinning similarly to what you describe, and I came here. I finally decided that, if it was all true, I was clearly irreparably rebellious and a hopeless case and I was going to suffer forever and ever for it. And if it's not true, then I am doing a pretty good job at life my own way. I was shocked at how deep the indoctrination went, and I attended liberal churches until junior high. Sometimes it can be overcome, but I think I just have to live with my situation. I can't seem to knock the early training completely, so I just accept the crap in my brain. Now I'm less stressed, but sad about the whole situation. Sometimes that's how it goes.

 

Phanta

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I think my concern over this issue was some concern in my head that perhaps I was choosing atheism as a position of faith. Intellectually, I knew that was absolutely absurd, because I specifically aggressively answered my questions during my deconversion and made sure to approach the topic rigorously, not "just because I didn't want to believe" anymore. That wasn't it, at all. I know that, but there's still that part of my brain that seems to try to throw out stupid, irrational thoughts to make me doubt myself despite the fact that it has no real reasons for doing so.

 

I think that's normal. Most of us deconverted because we were willing to face these questions, no matter what the outcome. Being the type of people who are concerned with truth instead of happy lies, I think we admit to ourselves that it is easy to use "motivated reasoning" and so we worry that we are trying to deceive ourselves. IOW, we are skeptical even of our own motives because we know our capacity to fool ourselves when we want to. So I think some of us have these doubts when we realize we no longer believe. We ask ourselves "am I just leaving so I can be free of christianity because I don't like it? (I realize some really did "like it" but I wasn't one of them). We know that Christianity isn't false just because we might want it to be, so that we can escape it. So we look again at the lack of evidence for the biblegod, and for an infallible bible, and we see the irreconcilable contradictions in christianity, and we remind ourselves that even if we're happy to leave, it really is for a good reason and not just because of our "feelings" about it. Does that make sense? I mean I think our doubts stem from truth seeking, and not wanting to fool ourselves. It's a healthy attitude. But most of us reach a level of trust where we realize yes, I have examined my "motives" and come to these reasonable conclusions and it's not just my feelings fooling me.

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That does make a lot of sense. Thank you, ILMB.

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It seems you have been rigorous, Paul. This quality should serve you well in all aspects of exercising your adulthood.

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And hell. So some Catholics believe hell wasn't created by God for people, but for lucifer and his followers. Or at least, it was originally designed that way. I guess God decided to use it for us, too?

 

Well, c'mon... who can let a nice big space go to waste? :shrug:

 

***************************

 

Paul, if you were turning away from being a drunkard you'd have these kinds of episodes, only they'd be alcohol-related. The same with any pattern or addiction that's being replaced by a healthier one. So, yes, get good sleep and don't overtax your ability to juggle/present/apply all these issues. Take some time out just for fun, too, okay?

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During this time I was really a fundie. Evolution is a silly lie, the Earth was young, there is no problem with preaching politics from the pulpit (in fact, the pastor at my church ran for mayor when I was attending, although he did lose), abortion is a great sin, homosexuality is an abomination, the rapture was incredibly imminent, god personally guided all of our lives, and everything in the bible was super literal. Also, we had to be friends with the Jews because they were God's chosen people. We weren't allowed to criticize Israel because that meant going against the nation of Israel, something god warns against in the bible.

 

 

this is exactly what i belived. it astoundes me to know how much of this has changed. especialy about israel.

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