Guest The Walking Fox Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Hi all. I figured for my first post I might as well give my "story", right? I grew up in a rather lax religious environment in the deep south (Mobile, AL). My mother was a Methodist, dad a Baptist, neither real religious, but with very religious families behind them. Despite my folks' lack of religiosity, they raised me like a "good christian child" - My bedtime stories were all straight out of the Children's Bible, I was taught all about dinosaurs being destroyed in the Deluge, all that sort of thing. Just as my parents were rather lax, so was I - We rarely went to any religious services, and I didn't really think too much about religion as a child. However, my folks split up when I was about 10 or so. My father got real religious for some reason, and my mother did as well, and guess who got caught in the middle of learning who the real christians are? Yup, me. I went to both Baptist and Methodist churches (depending on visitation), and out of curiosity, attended services with my friends at Presbyterian and Nazerene churches. These years were when I became a real little bible thumper - I would try to preach to kids at school about Jesus and avoiding sins (As children understand sin - lying, stealing, cussing, etc). I became real scared of not being a "good enough" Christian because as I looked around me I was sooo scared that all this sin in the world would rub off on me. My doubting started when I was around 14. Whether through just regular teen rebellion or what, I don't know, but i began to really read the bible - Not just the parts printed in blue, either. I read the whole darned thing, and nearly went blind doing it (such tiny script!). And then I discovered evolution. Yup, a late bloomer. Here was a theory that went straight against the grain of the bible, that actually made sense! "Creation" as a static, unchanging entity was hard to shake. Really hard, enough that I suffered serious depression about whether or not I would to to hell for thinking Darwin might be onto something. Once I accepted that the very beginning of the bible could be folkloric, it really opened the floodgates! Even more of my deconversion happened at the hands of public school, but not in the way that christian reactionaries today would have you think. Only in Alabama ciould a social studies teacher have children come up and tell us about their church, and a little bit about their denomination's beleifs. And it just so happened that one of the kids was Hindu. Imagine that, huh! Prior to this, I "knew" that everyone in the world was Christian, except for some mysterious group called Jews, and of course, "Satanists" (everyone else). So before me now was a kid I knew, was a friend of mine, who was from an amazingly different religion - and it wasn't satan behind this kid. This sparked me into seriously reading up on religion - christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, everything I could get my hands on (without my zealous mother noticing!) I devoured. Perhaps the toughest point in my young religious life came when my moither discovered I was an evolutionist. Oh man the screaming matches I had with her where she called me the most creative names for beleiving that i came from monkeys. I argued back, using all the evidence at my disposal. It took nearly 2 years of this sort of streess before it finally "clicked" into her mind how evolution, natural selection, ecology and the like all worked together... Her floodgates were open now, too. Aside from that, I haven't had too many "real" religious conflicts. The more I studied the worlds' religions and cultures, the more they seemed to trace back to a common source that was most certainally not Jesus - In fact there were gods just like Jesus way before Jesus. And with the realization that there were pre-Christian religions came the question, "Did everyone before Jesus go to Hell?" - Of course not. My deconversion into atheism was cinched with that simple realization. Logic had bested religion. Of course, there was one problem - My mother. Oh, SHE wasn't the problem, but rather people's reaction to her. She went back to the beleifs she had held before converting, herself - She went back to Wicca. I must say I was rather surprised to learn that my mom was every anything but Christian, but hey. But her family pretty much disowned her. After my grandmother died, mom and her three siblings got into a huge row about their respective religions - Imagine, two Evangelicals, a Methodist, and their youngest sister, the Wiccan. I had to get involved just to get them off her case. To do so, I simply announced the facts - that I had deconverted, and "led her astray". Well, that was that, we were out of the family. On my dad's side, things were a little more mellow. They still, to this day, ignore my mother and try to get me and my little sister to follow them to the Baptismal font, but they're not nearly as hateful as my mothers' side of the family - at worst they ignore us. That was almost a decade ago that all that happened. I continued my study of religions and currently regard myself as an amagalation of Paganism, but I'm not exactly what you could call "religious". I perhaps still have more in common wit hthe average atheist than the average pagan. I still have to constantly deal with people shoving Jesus up my nose under the assumption that I'm atheist - Or even better, "lapsed". They tend to avoid me once I clue them in that I am in fact, neither - I'm Pagan and quite certain of my idolatry, thankyouverymuch. Of late I've taken to attempting to convert these Christiand to Islam when they start prosletyzing at me. I regard all religions has having "some" truth in regards to esoteric concepts, but that more fundamental principles are best govorned by logic and thought. Due to this I'm a huge proponent of freedom of -and FROM religion, and have spent a good long while smacking my heads against "true beleivers" of one faith or another who beleive theirs is the only faith and that as such it needs to be state-endorsed. Hardly as rough a deconversion as some, and it was only after falling out that I could really notice the corruption and mind-control of organized religion, but there it is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dio Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Hi and welcome to the site. Enjoyed your introduction. I respect independent thinkers like yourself. Hope you contribute with further posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karissa Posted November 25, 2005 Share Posted November 25, 2005 Hardly as rough a deconversion as some, and it was only after falling out that I could really notice the corruption and mind-control of organized religion, but there it is I think it's interesting, makes sense, that we always realize only after having been brave enough to venture away from it and look at the whole thing objectively. I think anyone that did that would probably find the same thing we have. Though the xtians would say that it is because we have fallen away from god and satan has a hold of us....doesn't feel like anyone is grabbing me or forcing me though. I actually think that going away from the religion is harder than just staying in it, even though xtians would have you believe that the road to god is narrow and hard to travel or whatever. It's harder not to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 Welcome Walking Fox The coffee is hot and the company warm. Hope you have a seat and enjoy for a while. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightflight Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 What a weird and fascinating story! Sounds like you didn't experience too much turmoil with you parents and with the doctrine of hell; that's good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts