What Was Your Final Hurdle?

[Journey]

I began on a quest to find out the truth and history behind the bible and where it came from. My  original objective was to prove to a friend (agnostic) that she was wrong saying it was just written by a bunch of men. Even though she isn't highly educated as far as the academic system is concerned, she really challenged my thinking and I thought, ok, I will find the answers to her questions and be able to intelligently respond to her criticism of the bible. Of course, you know what happened! Instead of me being able to prove the bible as true and inerrant, the opposite occurred and I became agnostic. Once I realized the bibles origins and the many contradictions in it, it was like pulling one thread and the whole thing fell apart for me!  I believed that god must be 'big enough' to handle my questions and wasn't afraid of them so felt the go ahead and pursue understanding. I can't believe that after reading (for at least an hour a day) and meditating on 'the word' for 35 years that I didn't see the many contradictions and injustices of 'god'.  I know there were things that I found hard to swallow but I excused them with the common cop out , 
"GOd must have had a reason even if I don't understand it"  

How utterly weak!

[RaLeah]

This is a great topic, and I'm really enjoying everyone's answers. 

 

In the order of what made me see the cracks:

 

The sick treatment of women in the Bible. (And God seems okay with it.)

The terrible concept of hell--its cruelty, unfairness. 

The ugliness of the Old Testament in general. (Unprovoked war, slaughtering babies, taking slaves, etc.) 

In college, the history of Christianity. (Origins of the stories like Job borrowed from other religions--and hey, some are older than Christianity!)

I stopped believing in any OT myth story as anything more than mythology. (Garden of Eden origin story, Noah and the flood, etc.)

I realized science was right on evolution.

I stopped believing in hell. 

I learned more about psychology and stopped believing in "sin" as a concept that made any sense.

Which meant no Satan or demons either. 

Explored other religions, especially regarding God, angels, ghosts... looked for any real, hard evidence for an afterlife at all. Lots of research.

Let go of expectation for afterlife of any kind--heaven or reincarnation or ghosts. (I know and respect plenty of people who still do though.)

Stopped believing a God existed at all. Everything about the world and the universe suddenly made a lot more sense. 

 

Then... how to tell friends and family. 

 

Moved to New York City in my 20s. Still visit family on some holidays. Little by little, always as respectfully as I can, when discussions of religion come up, explain I don't believe the same as they do, but keep it vague and hold my boundaries firm if anyone gets too pushy. It's good for my boundaries actually, because it taught me I don't owe anyone an answer to anything about myself that I'm not comfortable giving. It made me appreciate privacy. It made me more respectful of other people's privacy. It made me less judgmental when people DID choose to share something. I don't attend church services with them anymore. I smile and say no thank you when they invite me. If they attempt a guilt trip, I say, I'm sorry, but I can't. But that I hope they really enjoy it themselves. They usually don't push anymore, now that they know my boundaries and that my boundaries are firm. 

 

Found this website. Love the discussions and the feeling of community. Very happy with my belief in reality. 

[RaLeah]

Oh--one more thing. I owe my courage in leaving to all the great and kind people I encountered in life who either left Christianity or never believed it who were still capable of being good and happy people. Since I grew up in the bubble, I hadn't seen enough examples of it until I started working and then when I went to college. They showed me it was possible to still be a good moral person at peace with myself. Christians are so fond of thinking they've got the only true morality, because it comes from God. And without God, you have no choice but to be wicked and selfish, because without God, man is lost in sin and depravity and darkness--that God is the only thing helping us overcome our sinful nature. That turned out not to be true at all. But I did buy into that growing up, and I still feel a little ashamed of how judgmental I could be at first with non-Christians. It gives me empathy for the people still trapped in it, and it gives me more courage to "come out" myself as an ex-Christian. Good people are good people regardless of their religion or lack of same. Sociopaths are not nice people whether they're Christians or not too. You know? People are people. 

[SRS]

 

 

There was no hurdle for me to not believe anymore. When I was fairly young, I just didn't believe. But the final hurdle keeping me in the church and lying about being a Christian was being afraid that my parents would regret adopting me if they knew I wasn't a Christian. I didn't think I could take being abandoned twice by two sets of parents, even if one was only emotionally.

 

I didn't overcome it. Even though I left and came out, it hurts me a lot.

I find it interesting that a lot of individuals who leave Christianity are worried about hurting their parents or other family members. It shows empathy. This wasn't a big hurdle for me, but I was fearful of their rejection.

 

So why did you name your dog and cat Sam?

 

 

If I thought even the most evil person was going to suffer like that for all eternity with no way to ever have the punishment be over, I'd try to save that person.

 

 

What you say here is what I think to be the best arguement that there is NO hell.

 

Most believers admit that God represents the ulimate in mercy and forgiveness. Yet, I do not believe there is a human alive today (except an insane one) who would invent as punishment a way for human beings to burn forever. The contradiction is quite simple: if the doctrine of hell is true, than humans are far more moral and forgiving than the biblical god, because we would not throw our fellow human beings into hell.

[BendyLine]

I think for me it was pride mixed with fear of the unknown. I don't think it was a fear of hell because I'd stopped taking that seriously years before. It was more of a fear of not having that Christian system to rely on anymore. My faith had been in tatters for years, but I'd sworn to myself that I would never stop believing in God. I sort of slipped out of Christianity like slipping into a tub of hot water. It took me a while, but here I am, about a decade after I started having series doubts, a full blown atheist. 

[dona_priscilla]

Being surrounded by Christians; even those around me who did not go to church held some religious belief.

 

People in my family who I loved and held in high regard were strong believers with so many experiences... Confirmation bias did the rest.

 

Apologetics. When I finally started inquiring about my beliefs my intention was to become a better Christian and be able to share the word (which I never did and was a source of inmense guilt and anxiety). Apologetics helped me remain a Christian for a bit longer but never gave me the information I thought I needed to be able to convince anyone. See, I always liked to pretend to be a skeptic, put myself in the other side, and in the end that was my undoing as a Christian...

 

Not ever knowing of anyone leaving Chrstianity for intellectual and moral reasons. Every time I knew of someone who stopped giing to church, the impression was that they were backslidden. Most of the time this was true in my case because as they became older and wiser (ha!) I saw them going back to the fold.

 

I still don't personally know an ex christian- that I know of. When I dscovered this site I was sort of an agnostic stuck with the label of Christian and not able to move on. Just knowing of the existence of ex christians gave me the final push towards atheism.