Habiba Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 I thought I'd follow on from the "First moment of doubt" post to this. I know, at least personally, it can be a long journey from those first niggling doubts, to realising you are no longer a christian, By "identifying" I don't mean coming out to nearest and dearest, but rather when you realised in the quietness of your own mind, or ticked the 'No Religion' box on a form, or casually came out with something that made you realise you'd truly left it all behind. For me, the first realisation came almost 10 years after my first childhood doubts and 3 years into living away from the family home. It was near Christmas and a friend and I were sitting around with some drinks, exchanging presents. She'd labelled mine "safe" and "unsafe", so I wouldn't open the "unsafe" ones in front of my mother and risk them seeing the bin/hellfire. We hummed and ahhed about when to open the presents, as we wanted to see each other's reactions. I remember my friend saying "We might as well open them now, it's not like we're Christians or anything!" and it hit me like a ten ton brick, whoa, she's right, I'm NOT a christian. I'd been carrying on pretences of it to keep family happy, but that moment was a truly enlightening and liberating moment. A few months later, I was filling in the online census with my flatmate. She laughed out loud when the religion section came up and asked if I was going to choose Christianity or Islam. I instantly chose "No Religion" and said that while I'd been raised with both, my choice was neither! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 If identification as non-/ex-christian instead of atheist counts then... ...that was a bit more than 9 years ago. I had compiled quite a list of books I wanted to read and finally had the time to do so. Among the books was the Poetic Edda. So I started to read and before I was done with the first page... well if I hever had something you can call religious revelation in my entire life it was at that moment. I took the time to "meditate" about it for a few days then cut the chord with my German mainstream christianity. The official leaving the church took place a bit later but that was the moment for me. Of course you can hardly compare my leaving German protestant church with getting out of an actively brainwashing reality-denying cult but oh well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chikirin Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 For about two years I felt like an unbeliever but didn't want to admit it, then I went to a drug rehab last year and felt like I needed to admit it because the stress about who I was probably fed my problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeelHappy Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Well I was actually an agnostic before I was a non-christian. I took the title of Progressive Christian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 I first identified as a non-christian a couple months ago. I was talking to an online friend in IM, and we were bitching about religious right wing people and going on about how their views would ruin the country... then I thought about it was like "Why am I associated with these people at all when I don't agree with anything they say?" ... I didn't tell anyone I wasn't a christian anymore until later when the church I was going to was getting more annoying to me, and I was like "all right, I have to come out now, this is too much" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaiser01 Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 When i picked up a bible, read 1rst Samuel 15:3, i read that and i realized i didn't want to be apart of this anymore. I called myself an atheist for the first time that day, and i became proud of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GardenerGal Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Easter Sunday, 2012, after skipping church because my mind was at war with itself over the Resurrection story and logic. I googled something about God being real or not, hoping for a convincing statement, and came across Christopher Hitchens. I found his debate against the popular Christian debater commonsense enough that the reasoning part of my brain won the battle. I found ex-C a few hours later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzy Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 It was about November, 2010. I had been struggling for a long, long time. I was a Christian for about 20 year but in the last 10 years I did not attend church, but I still considered myself a Christian. Read the Bible, prayed every day etc. But for the last 10 years it was really only the fear of Hell that kept me in. In the autumn of 2010 for the first time I allowed myself read science books and they destroyed all my fears by showing what a lie Christianity is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leith Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 I don't know anymore. I tried to look at my browser history to see when I first visited this site, but I couldn't find it anymore, too long ago apparently. I know I started seriously doubting in january 2011. I came out as an atheist in september that year. I was struggling with the historicity of the bible. I knew the creation story was basically bullshit and I discovered that Noah's ark was even more insane. I googled "archeology and the bible" and everything fell to pieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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