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Goodbye Jesus

Deconversion Seems Impossible For Me


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I have an only slightly-unrelated-to-the-topic-at-hand question for you, directionless.

 

What was it about being psychologically vulnerable to which you attribute your descent into religiosity?

 

Was it the hallucinations? Was it full-blown psychosis? Did you just suddenly KNOW?

What was it that drew you to belief while you were (for lack of a better word) crazy?

 

Part of the reason I ask is because my ex, during her descent into paranoid delusion and schizophrenia, became... almost overnight... much more religious. She was consistently apathetic about any sort of spirituality for the 17 years I was with her and then, within a couple of weeks of her psychotic break, she thought demons were controlling me, was calling churches asking for exorcisms to get rid of the 'devils' infesting our house, believed STRONGLY in the divinity and historicity of Jesus, and other trappings of religion, but without the background that I had (she was brought up in an atheist household, so everything she knew about religion, she learned from me ranting about it). 

 

Are you on anti-psychotics? If so, perhaps a change in dosage would result in a paradigm shift in your belief structure?

 

For me, it started with hallucinations.  I was on a trip and it seemed like people were acting weird (in one case I was startled by a voice in my head).  I think all this was subconsciously bothering me.  Then finally one more weird thing happened and I instantly believed that I had inadvertently offended a secret global satanic group with zombie slaves.  After I started attending church, the delusion conformed more to Christian beliefs so it was demons instead of a human conspiracy.

 

The psychotic episode ended in a few weeks, but I kept having hallucinations out of the blue for about a year.  I was never comfortable believing in Christianity, but I was afraid the demons would bother me again if I quit.  Sometimes I wondered if I was supposed to be a Hindu instead.  Luckily I quit going and everything has been fine.

 

I think there is something wrong in a psychotic person's brain that makes it hard to distinguish plausible from implausible.  Probably religion is a common theme because it isn't as constrained.  I could have imagined the mafia was stalking me, but that story-line wouldn't be as flexible.

 

I didn't know about psychosis until several years after it happened, so I've never taken the anti-psychotics.  I'm o.k. now I think.

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Yep, but I only had a couple of years exposure to Orthodoxy.  Unfortunately I was messed-up psychologically at the time, so I was a bit silly about it.

 

Important factor here. Orthodoxy is much deeper, more mystical, and in odd ways more thorough and even rational than other branches of christianity. It has both western and eastern elements to it and is quite holistic in its approach to things. That's why it has physical aspects (fasting, prostrations, crossing...) and well as mental/spiritual ones (chanting, praying, Jesus prayer...). It gets into you more thoroughly and is harder to get out of.

Combine that with your personality (the need for housecleaning as you describe it, rather than just rationally selecting an explanation) and you've got something like a deep, intractable infection.

The treatment is akin to long-term antibiotics, proper diet, clean air and exercise, vitamin supplements, and regular checkups. Or looked at differently, it's a bit like cult deprogramming. You must identify the religious programming parts of your thinking, establish counterprograms, and then work at implementing the counter programs over time. It's not an overnight process by any means.

You've made progress already. Just keep going.

The Jesus Prayer is probably one of the hardest to replace. It's a mantra designed to get you out of yourself and your immediate situation and into a neutral zone to find peace. In that function, it's actually very useful. Buddhists have something like it. If you can design a different mantra fine. I never did replace it myself; never tried. It just faded over the years. It never comes up anymore.

 

I never got to the point where I understood Orthodoxy, but even with my limited exposure I can see what you are saying.  Sometimes I find myself unconsciously crossing, and it makes me feel silly. :)  I'm sure it is very tough for people who were Orthodox for many years to deprogram themselves.

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Thanks, everybody, for all those ideas. :)

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 Don't be too hard on yourself, deconversion is a process.. .

 Well put.  One thing I did not understand while going through the process of my own de-conversion, was that the vacuum in my life caused by leaving religion would be filled with much more real and enlightening truths. There is much more light at the end of the tunnel for the person leaving religion than there is for the person going towards it.

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It has taken me years to deconvert

 

years

 

I've gone from batshit Seventh Day Adventist through just about every other justification for christianity you can think of (except, weirdly, Catholicism and Orthodoxy)

 

The Universalism route was especially interesting... because it's so vague it's hard to argue with and everyone is just so.... nice.

 

Logic finally won over... and yet I can still not call myself a strong atheist, maybe agnostic atheist pagan with pantheist leanings is more accurate.

 

It doesn't happen overnight. Read some of the testimonials... most of us took a long and arduous path, because the truth was important... maybe because it was the most important thing.

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It has taken me years to deconvert

 

years

 

I've gone from batshit Seventh Day Adventist through just about every other justification for christianity you can think of (except, weirdly, Catholicism and Orthodoxy)

 

The Universalism route was especially interesting... because it's so vague it's hard to argue with and everyone is just so.... nice.

 

Logic finally won over... and yet I can still not call myself a strong atheist, maybe agnostic atheist pagan with pantheist leanings is more accurate.

 

It doesn't happen overnight. Read some of the testimonials... most of us took a long and arduous path, because the truth was important... maybe because it was the most important thing.

 

I just wonder if I will ever make progress.  Half an hour ago I was thinking about various things when suddenly I realized I was kneeling with my face on the floor saying the Jesus Prayer. :)  I guess it's been less than a year since my therapist told me I was having hallucinations instead of religious experiences.  Then it took several more months before I accepted that psychological explanation.  So I'm getting there slowly.

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just be true to yourself, and seek the truth.. in your own time, and your own way.

 

there is no one destination

 

just as each of us here has our own take on 'spirituality'...(or no take at all)  it's a personal journey. Your mental and emotional well-being has to come first though.

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I just wonder if I will ever make progress.  Half an hour ago I was thinking about various things when suddenly I realized I was kneeling with my face on the floor saying the Jesus Prayer. smile.png  I guess it's been less than a year since my therapist told me I was having hallucinations instead of religious experiences.  Then it took several more months before I accepted that psychological explanation.  So I'm getting there slowly.

 

 

I have an idea for deprogamming this part, if you are interested. Try meditating. Sit on the floor on your butt, not kneeling. (Use a flat pillow under your butt, that helps me keep balance and comfort.) Cross your legs if comfortable, like you see the yoga folks do. Close your eyes and tilt your head slightly up, until you are comfortable. I like to do this facing a window to get even light on my face, since that is less distracting. (Light still comes through your eye lids, so keep it even.) Clear your mind as much as you can. Focus on the colors you see behind your eye lids. For me it's usually gentle swirls of dark brown/red, black, sometimes purple. (Purple usually comes when a part of me is relaxing for the first time in a while, and the energy is unblocked -- sounds crazy, but purple is a healing color in Eastern medicine for a reason, I suppose.) I sometimes get a swirl of a lighter color, which I consciously follow as it folds away into the dark swirls.

 

Once you have focused well on the nothingness and swirls, you are probably "there." (This takes me about 2-10 minutes now.) Now ask yourself a question in your mind, slowly. Try something like, What do you want to tell me? or Do you have a message for me? Ask it once and stay still. Then wait and slowly you will answer yourself. (YOU, not Jesus or god.) It will not be a voice, just a strong notion. For me the answer comes right away, but in a very slow delivery. Twice I have gotten the same message, "You are a bright and shining star." Sometimes I get, "You are well loved." I firmly believe this is my inner self, my inner child, or whatever, telling me what I really feel deep down, or what I need to hear on a conscious level.

 

This might sound a little out there, but it may help you realize a few things: You can get this effect by sitting up with your face to the sky, not just kneeling with your face on the floor. You can get a similar result or feeling or message that you might have gotten from the Jesus prayer, without the Jesus part. Once you realize that you can achieve these same things with your mind only, and not prayer to a specific god or Jesus, you will see that it is a physical or psychological thing, not a religious thing. I hope this will take the mystical and magical Jesus part out of it for you.

 

Well... I'm not sure this is making sense, but my intention is good. Program yourself to get the same feelings in an opposite way from what you are used to, and you will see that Jesus and god are not necessary to find the peace you used to find in prayer.

 

And by all means -- stop putting your face to the floor! Lift up your face and receive the light and energy the universe has to send you. No need for that groveling, humility-based position. You are a bright and shining star, so look up and breathe the fresh air and energy into your core. Accept that you are a precious life form, and you deserve to let the light flow down over your head.

 

Peace, my friend. Your journey is not in vain.

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I have an only slightly-unrelated-to-the-topic-at-hand question for you, directionless.

 

What was it about being psychologically vulnerable to which you attribute your descent into religiosity?

...

Part of the reason I ask is because my ex, during her descent into paranoid delusion and schizophrenia, became... almost overnight... much more religious.

 

Jose, yes... heightened religious experiences do appear to be related to abnormal firings in the brain (temporal lobe and limbic system). If you do a search for "epilepsy research religion," you will get all kinds of information on how the brain fires up a specific region that convinces the patient that they have seen a great light or been touched by God. You asked about schizophrenia and paranoid delusion, not epilepsy, but I would surmise that it is a similar brain function that led your ex to her religious zeal.

 

This is not to say that religion is a mental disorder. On the contrary, some researchers propose that religion is a higher brain evolution as a societal need for order, ritual, morality, human interaction, and social benefit. But for some people with mental disorders, this appears to go a little haywire. (I like to think that atheists have evolved even farther than that, no longer needing religion for such societal ordering, but I digress...)

 

Here is a short video of Ramachandran (the guy who was incorrectly credited by the media as having found the "God module" of the brain) explaining a little of what happens with temporal lobe epilepsy patients, and how their brain misfirings cause enhanced religious experiences.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDrVZfvDbM

 

To get back to the topic of the OP, I also surmise there is a part of your brain that is triggered or comforted or whatever by your past religious practices. Undoing these associations and neural pathways will take time (reconditioning, new associations, etc.).

 

I guess my overall point is that what you are struggling with also has a physical component, not just emotional or spiritual. What you are a experiencing is real and will take some time to un-do, if that is your goal.

 

I hope this helps in some small way.

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I have an only slightly-unrelated-to-the-topic-at-hand question for you, directionless.

 

What was it about being psychologically vulnerable to which you attribute your descent into religiosity?

...

Part of the reason I ask is because my ex, during her descent into paranoid delusion and schizophrenia, became... almost overnight... much more religious.

 

Jose, yes... heightened religious experiences do appear to be related to abnormal firings in the brain (temporal lobe and limbic system). If you do a search for "epilepsy research religion," you will get all kinds of information on how the brain fires up a specific region that convinces the patient that they have seen a great light or been touched by God. You asked about schizophrenia and paranoid delusion, not epilepsy, but I would surmise that it is a similar brain function that led your ex to her religious zeal.

 

This is not to say that religion is a mental disorder. On the contrary, some researchers propose that religion is a higher brain evolution as a societal need for order, ritual, morality, human interaction, and social benefit. But for some people with mental disorders, this appears to go a little haywire. (I like to think that atheists have evolved even farther than that, no longer needing religion for such societal ordering, but I digress...)

 

Here is a short video of Ramachandran (the guy who was incorrectly credited by the media as having found the "God module" of the brain) explaining a little of what happens with temporal lobe epilepsy patients, and how their brain misfirings cause enhanced religious experiences.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDrVZfvDbM

 

To get back to the topic of the OP, I also surmise there is a part of your brain that is triggered or comforted or whatever by your past religious practices. Undoing these associations and neural pathways will take time (reconditioning, new associations, etc.).

 

I guess my overall point is that what you are struggling with also has a physical component, not just emotional or spiritual. What you are a experiencing is real and will take some time to un-do, if that is your goal.

 

I hope this helps in some small way.

 

Thanks, that is very true.  A person on another forum directed me to a website with information on psychosis.  It helped me understand the bigger picture including the causes and long-lasting symptoms.  I find I get exhausted mentally so I often lay my face on the desk or the floor and hold my head.  I get a repetitive phrase in my head (like the Jesus Prayer) and after a few minutes I finally calm down and can go back to work again.  Other times I just blank-out and stare at patterns on the wall.  I've always had tendencies like that, but it's more pronounced after the breakdown.  The worse symptom is when certain things trigger my paranoia and cause silly worries.  It's frustrating.

 

Here is the website that I've found useful in case anybody else might benefit:

http://www.psychosis-bipolar.com/understanding-psychoses-01.html

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Deconversion was a very tough process for me, but a necessary one. It's painful realizing the absurdity I so strongly believed in but it only would have been worse if it continued to knowingly follow a flawed doctrine. It comes down to how much you want to seek the truth. Shedding all the religious guilt will come in time...

 

Thanks.  How long did it take you to deconvert?

 

The doubts began to creep in about 3.5 years ago. I had just joined the military and was away from my strong Christian support back home. Just little things at first, doctrinal stuff...As I gradually grew further away from the way I was raised I sank deeper and deeper into depression. This was around 2.5 years ago. I even had suicidal thoughts. I was very unsure about my salvation and stuff. About a year later my depression had subsided and I was no longer calling myself a Christian although I still kept my morals (no drinking, sex, etc.) that I was raised with and I did believe in a sort of universalist god and in a heaven in the afterlife. Up until a few months ago I didn't really think about my religious beliefs or anything. I guess I just remained sort of agnostic. I reevaluated my beliefs about 2 months ago and realized I am atheist. My life is going quite well now! It was very tough going through the depression and all the questioning, but it has brought me more peace now that I don't feel guilt for my inquisitive thinking. It's nice to be a god free human being that is able to use reasoning and logic without fear of eternal consequences. smile.png

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Deconversion was a very tough process for me, but a necessary one. It's painful realizing the absurdity I so strongly believed in but it only would have been worse if it continued to knowingly follow a flawed doctrine. It comes down to how much you want to seek the truth. Shedding all the religious guilt will come in time...

 

Thanks.  How long did it take you to deconvert?

 

The doubts began to creep in about 3.5 years ago. I had just joined the military and was away from my strong Christian support back home. Just little things at first, doctrinal stuff...As I gradually grew further away from the way I was raised I sank deeper and deeper into depression. This was around 2.5 years ago. I even had suicidal thoughts. I was very unsure about my salvation and stuff. About a year later my depression had subsided and I was no longer calling myself a Christian although I still kept my morals (no drinking, sex, etc.) that I was raised with and I did believe in a sort of universalist god and in a heaven in the afterlife. Up until a few months ago I didn't really think about my religious beliefs or anything. I guess I just remained sort of agnostic. I reevaluated my beliefs about 2 months ago and realized I am atheist. My life is going quite well now! It was very tough going through the depression and all the questioning, but it has brought me more peace now that I don't feel guilt for my inquisitive thinking. It's nice to be a god free human being that is able to use reasoning and logic without fear of eternal consequences. smile.png

 

 

That is interesting, because it's so different from me.  My reasoning isn't so disciplined and decisive.  Rather than deductively moving towards an answer, I seem to circle around and around. :)

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This is not to say that religion is a mental disorder. On the contrary, some researchers propose that religion is a higher brain evolution as a societal need for order, ritual, morality, human interaction, and social benefit.

 

This would be a good topic worth exploring. My unprofessional oppinion is that using religious beliefs to determine or understand the daily events of one's life represents lower or more primal functions of the brain. I think of it as the caveman mentality.  On the other hand, using facts and reason requires much more intellectual and emotional skills.

 

One current example. I'm dealing with a couple of family members who are strong Baptists. I can't even have a rational conversation with them because they think because they follow god and god gives them their ideas that they are right. As far as their skills at "human interaction" go, they lack higher level reasoning skills, empathy, understanding, and tolerance for people that believe differently than they do.

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I'm beginning to think I'm never going to be free of Christian beliefs.  I wonder if there are some personality types that simply can't yield to reason.  I've had over 20 years to make progress, and the best I can achieve is a watered-down, apathetic Christianity.

 

Anybody else feel that way?

 

 

 

I did just a few years ago.  You don't have to deconvert.  I take it that you want to badly but just don't know how.  If prayer is holding you back you can try what I did.  I started praying to Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.  I'm not crazy.  I fully know that Kirk is fictional.  However the prayer works just as well as it did when I prayed to Jesus.  When I lose my keys I pray to Captain Kirk and then later I find my keys where I left them.  It really helped me see what prayer actually is and gave me an outlet for my emotionally-driven habit.

 

You're supposed to use a communicator. smile.png  Besides, the protocol is to call the Enterprise and ask Lt. Uhura to transfer you.

 

Seriously, I don't think that would work for me.

 

I think you should try it, and here's why:

 

When you pray to Jehovah or whatever you call him, on those occasions where you get what you ask for you are subjected to something called "confirmation bias". I don't know how simple or complex your prayers may be, so I don't know what the apparent success rate is, but it doesn't really matter. One "prayer come true" out of 1000 is enough to reenforce the belief system. In fact, from what I understand, the fact that confirmation is rare makes the confirmation greater. Why? Because it's that much more noticable. The doubts are suddenly dispelled.

 

Now, if you choose to pray to someone or something else, either real or fictional, and make a habit of it, you'll see that the confirmations still come. Pray to your cat, or to your favorite chair. Once in a while, the prayer will be seemingly answered, just as it always has been when praying to a god. But now, when you get the confirmation, you won't think that your cat is a god, because you know better. Instead, you'll see that god is no better than your cat at answering your prayers.

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I'm beginning to think I'm never going to be free of Christian beliefs.  I wonder if there are some personality types that simply can't yield to reason.  I've had over 20 years to make progress, and the best I can achieve is a watered-down, apathetic Christianity.

 

Anybody else feel that way?

 

 

 

I did just a few years ago.  You don't have to deconvert.  I take it that you want to badly but just don't know how.  If prayer is holding you back you can try what I did.  I started praying to Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.  I'm not crazy.  I fully know that Kirk is fictional.  However the prayer works just as well as it did when I prayed to Jesus.  When I lose my keys I pray to Captain Kirk and then later I find my keys where I left them.  It really helped me see what prayer actually is and gave me an outlet for my emotionally-driven habit.

 

You're supposed to use a communicator. smile.png  Besides, the protocol is to call the Enterprise and ask Lt. Uhura to transfer you.

 

Seriously, I don't think that would work for me.

 

I think you should try it, and here's why:

 

When you pray to Jehovah or whatever you call him, on those occasions where you get what you ask for you are subjected to something called "confirmation bias". I don't know how simple or complex your prayers may be, so I don't know what the apparent success rate is, but it doesn't really matter. One "prayer come true" out of 1000 is enough to reenforce the belief system. In fact, from what I understand, the fact that confirmation is rare makes the confirmation greater. Why? Because it's that much more noticable. The doubts are suddenly dispelled.

 

Now, if you choose to pray to someone or something else, either real or fictional, and make a habit of it, you'll see that the confirmations still come. Pray to your cat, or to your favorite chair. Once in a while, the prayer will be seemingly answered, just as it always has been when praying to a god. But now, when you get the confirmation, you won't think that your cat is a god, because you know better. Instead, you'll see that god is no better than your cat at answering your prayers.

 

Even when I have faith in God, I have always considered prayer to be an exercise - a way to teach us to care about other people.  God should do what He thinks is best from His perspective.

 

My problem is feeling directionless (like my screen name).  What's the point of life without God?  Prayer was my way of getting some comfort and peace of mind.

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It's more like worry about disappointing God.

 

God is in the business of disappointing. I wouldn't worry about offending him by emulating him.

 

Of course since the god you're imagining doesn't really exist, it's a moot point anyway.

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What's the point of life without God? You actually answered that question before you asked it. Not that there's an ultimate, larger than the universe point to life, but caring about other people is one of the main things we should, philosophically speaking, be doing.

 

And "god" is just erroneous philosophy. The question about a point in life calls for philosophy, and what separates us from other animals is not something eternal inside of us, but the intelligence we have that allows us to even ask the question. That intelligence gives us the power to destroy, but also the power to think about the greater good, and to understand that intelligent cooperation is the reason our specie thrives.

 

There is only a point to life if we designate one. Life is imposed on us, but purpose is not. Some people think that is nihilistic, that without a "point to life" external to ourselves, we might as well all commit suicide. Well, that's one option, but a better option would be to do our part to make the world a nice place to live. If there was a god, it's evident that he/she/it isn't bothering to do anything to make life nice, so we should adopt that as our purpose.

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It's more like worry about disappointing God.

 

God is in the business of disappointing. I wouldn't worry about offending him by emulating him.

 

Of course since the god you're imagining doesn't really exist, it's a moot point anyway.

This is something I need to remember during the process of deconverting. I still visualise a God with consciousness and opinions and preferences and feelings. With a boundary or a location (ie heaven)

Those times are harder to go through because I feel that I might offend him when there is no'him' to offend.

It's better when I can appreciate nature and talk it through with people- which I am doing on here!

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It's more like worry about disappointing God.

God is in the business of disappointing. I wouldn't worry about offending him by emulating him.

 

Of course since the god you're imagining doesn't really exist, it's a moot point anyway.

This is something I need to remember during the process of deconverting. I still visualise a God with consciousness and opinions and preferences and feelings. With a boundary or a location (ie heaven)

Those times are harder to go through because I feel that I might offend him when there is no'him' to offend.

It's better when I can appreciate nature and talk it through with people- which I am doing on here!

 

That makes sense, but it's hard to learn to be sensible after being religious.

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