How Long Have You Been Out Of Christianity?

[greenhunter]

mine was just on and off through out 1999, then in 2004 i stopped going. i unofficially made the decision in 2005 while i was working at the "christian" bookstore. i'll explain what working there is like at some point. so now it's been 4 years now, but officially just recently.

[Guest HourglassStargazer]

I was working, helping, and donating as recently as just a smidge over a year ago. I was an atheist months before I left, but it took a while for me to get the nerve to break it to certain members of my family. I feel free, but now certain members of my family are ashamed of me for thinking for myself. It's like I'm supposed to keep it a secret or something, which really pisses me off. I kept my disgust with religion bottled up for so long to please other people, and now I'm expected to bottle up any opinions I have that might "offend" other members of the family because they are different.

 

I'm glad I was honest, but it hasn't been without an expensive personal pricetag. I think that is why I am very heavy handed in my own defense.I have not honored anone's wishes in terms of "playing along" as to not offend. I came out for a reason. I don't walk around debating religion just for giggles, but it it's pressed on me I am very quick to squelch it.

[AmIReallyThatBad]

I've been out for about a year. My non-Christian friends know. My Christian friends don't, though they might suspect. Both live in different towns, so they rarely see each other. That's how it works out. I plan to tell my Christian friends eventually, that I am an atheist. However, I want to do it when I am at peace with what I believe. Right now, I still am so unsure about so many things.

[Hungrydingo]

I've been out of Christianity since I was 16. It's been close to 9 years now.

[FiddlingAround]

There was a long period of in and out, back and forth confusion, but I think it's been a little over 2 years since the moment I realized I could never go back to believing - and that I didn't have the remotest desire to keep trying.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I've been out of Christianity since I was 16. It's been close to 9 years now.

 

Consider yourself fortunate. When I was your age, I was still in the grips of Christianity. I started questioning it at age 29, and began to realize that it was BS during the course of the following year, and have now been a nonbeliever for roughly 6 years.

 

Not only was I born into a religious family, but by the time I got out of religion, I was already married into another religious family. I'm surrounded by so much religion that it can be extremely annoying!!! Thankfully my wife still seems to think highly of me, despite the fact that we're on completely different wavelengths now. But sometimes I still just want to pull my hair out. Living life as an ex-christian would probably be a lot easier if I had left the faith before getting married.

[Aliix]

Very recently, the middle of the last summer.

[Obscurity]

About seven months, if I'm not mistaken.

[Macco]

Hard to say. Process has been very slow. But i think about 5 years.

[dB-Paradox]

I have been comfortably out for a few months. However, the process took about 4 years, maybe even longer, to get here. And the road is still paved with new adventures yet to come!

[smellincoffee]

I don't know if I was ever "in" Christianity. The doctrines of my Pentecostal church had an active hold on me until early 2006, but I started distancing myself from religion in 2005 and found Freethought in early 2006. It took free thought to batter down those lingering fears.

 

In 2005, what happened was that I grew to resent Jesus for being such a dick. I figured if I was going to Hell for not being able to follow the Pentecostal laws, I might as well enjoy life and do something with mine to help other people. That's how I went from fundamentalist Pentecostal to humanist.

[Non-Redneck]

Around 1 year. Though I left 12 years ago, went back for about 4 years during that 12 year period. So how you compute it is up to you, (could be 8 years, could be 1 year)

[Guest Free Thinker]

I've always struggled, having gone/left church activities repeatedly, along with being very sporadic in staying consistent with going. As a kid, my dad took me to a church near where we lived, but stopped when it came out that the senior pastor was sleeping with a female client who he was counseling in her marriage. I found this out as a teenager when I was talking to him about going to church with me and his reasons for not doing so. It seemed to always be evangelical churches I would attend, mainly because I really couldn't relate to the "please turn your hymnal to..." I attended numerous week-long retreats, and felt continual pressure from leaders to go to the alter and recommit myself. Several times, I did. As a teen and young adult, I attended Promise Keeper events, I think primarily because I felt like I needed to...to gain favor and acceptance.

 

My marriage has always had its ups/downs, partly due to our being married so young (me-19/her-18) and having a child at those ages. We met at a church youth group, when we were 15. The other part of our struggles surrounded our respective faiths. It seemed that one of us would be seeking, while the other was turning away. Our private life in the bedroom was also affected by both religious and societal influences.

 

Until a few years ago when we hit another rocky spot, did my wife talk about wanting to get help for our marriage and believing that help was (pointing to the Assembly of God church) across the street. I still know only what I've read here in this thread about AoG institutions, but told her that I wasn't going to stop her if she wanted to go, except that I wouldn't. She asked why. My response was that I was tired of having to become someone else to gain favor and acceptance within that community, and above all, that I wanted to be able to think for myself instead of having someone tell me what to think and how I was supposed to feel. I was direct about my belief Xianity controlled its followers through fear. That was the last time we talked about church, and she never attended anywhere after that. Without really talking about it, she has more-or-less adopted my philosophy on things, but it wasn't until this past weekend that I learned just how much she had changed. Talking to a good longtime mutual friend of ours (active, but confused Xian in my opinion) whom we met at a...youth group, she told him that she was done. She was tired of the living through fear, and that if she was going to hell, she was going there happy.

 

I've probably been in the process of deconverting for most of my life, as I always wavered on how I felt, and could never fully commit to the church. But probably 3 years ago was when things really started to wane, and my belief structure entered it's darkest period of confusion. We were all attending a mega church in town, and I was active in the Friday night activity we called X-Games. It was an activity at the church, which provided the kids a safe place to go, without any Bible instruction requirements whatsoever. We had more than a dozen X-box machines setup, they were networked and kids played Halo throughout the evening until around midnight when it would let out. I really enjoyed the activity, but a parent expressed concern over the M-Rating of the game, which existed for the single player version and not multi. The activity was shuttered, and never to occur again. My problems grew when I attended a leadership workshop related to my activities in X-Games, when I was pressed to become more of a spiritual leader, leading Bible studies, prayer groups and the like. I never went back after that Saturday.

 

I still find myself struggling though, not with the desire to return to church (as I don't see that ever occurring again), but with how to sometimes explain traumatic moments in my life, manifested through stress and confusion regarding a particular life situation or series of events. Instinctively, when I start seeking a way to deal with the problem at-hand, the first thought which has been part of my world for so long, is to pray about it. But I recognize this flawed path rather quickly, and scuttle the thought as quickly as it manifests. Still, I see it as a long process to eventually purge so many years of indoctrinated beliefs and understand where my true nature belongs.

[ShallowByThyGame]

I first considered the possibility that my church didn't know everything at 16...by 18 I was only going for the music. I left for college and with the freedom never looked back. Yet I struggled with death for awhile after that, being some sort of deist where I believed all religions worshiped the same spirit, I had previously used heaven to assuage my grief. I stumbled across the Invisible Pink Unicorn Ministries when I was 21 one day while reading slashdot, and that helped a lot to see people fleshing out the problems of my logic about the supernatural, and came out of the closet that I wasn't a 'Christian' about then. I then dabbled in Animism (Nature worship) and Taoism before embracing pure science-based rationalism about two years ago. I am 28 now. I used to think Jesus was a great guy, even when I did not think he was a God, but with more bible study I began to see him more like a doomsday cult leader, assuming he even existed and was not a tall tail that went awry. I then studied cults, like Scientology, and realized many religious experiences were dangerous and that religious delusion left people very vulnerable to acting against their own interests, and that only by facing up to reality can we optimize our chances of making good decisions.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I was certainly a deist (theist? Not sure what the distinction is...)

 

deism

1. belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (distinguished from theism ).

2. belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it.

 

theism

1. the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism).

2. belief in the existence of a god or gods (opposed to atheism).

[Guest bell]

I quit the whole thing about 3 years ago I struggled with it for about 2 years. Glad to be out never want to go back. I was an atheist most of my life and should have stayed that way.

[Oldblackfox24]

I have been a closet atheist for about 4 months and these and have been some of the worst four months of my life.

[FreeLily]

I've been out for about 17 years, and am only recently getting far enough past the regret and bitterness to forge a new spiritual path. I've been going to a UU church for about a year now, and the fairly-traditional service combined with openness to spiritual discovery has really been a source of encouragement to me.

 

I wish something like these forums had been around when I was deconverting! It probably would have taken me a lot less time to find some degree of peace.

[Shyone]

I have been a closet atheist for about 4 months and these and have been some of the worst four months of my life.

Being a closet atheist is actually more difficult than being in the open, except for the "coming out."

 

Sometimes you hear things that just make you cringe, but you can't say anything. In a sense, I'm still in the closet because my wife's friends and relatives send me religious shit and I just swallow.

 

Makes me gag.

[Guest DigitalGhost]

I began having doubts when I was 12. I read a book by Michael W. Smith from the church library (lol, I know) that basically said that any form of entertainment (it focused specifically on music for some reason) that wasn't specifically Christian was evil. It was around that time that I thought "Maybe Christianity isn't for me", and those thoughts tormented the hell out of me. I was terrified that if indeed there was a God, I was definitely going to Hell for even entertaining such doubts, and I would be forever separated from my family and friends (who would of course be in Heaven). I "came out of the closet", so to speak, a couple years ago to my father, and he referred to me as a heathen. He's a real piece of work, but that's another story. The rest of my family members (except for my one sister-in-law) just thinks I'm "not religious".

[Seeking]

I come from an extremely fundamentalist family and area (and I swear my parents are getting nuttier by the day - their idea of a good family vacation is a visit to the Creation "Museum"). I began having doubts around age 20, but I didn't allow myself to really question until 15 more years had gone by. About 6 months ago, I actually started to face my questions honestly, and as of a few weeks ago, I now consider myself agnostic.

[RJT]

Officially? Someething like three years. But I've been doubting it for many, many years. It's good to be free!

[Guest I Love Dog]

55 years.

[thefriendlyghost]

I walked away almost exactly 3 years ago. I'd stopped going to church pretty much, anyway. Plus, I had convinced my self I'd commited the Unpardonable Sin, so I just thought, "Fuck it. God hates me, He hates my druggie uncles, my alcoholic aunt, my unsaved grandmothers...might as well hate me, too. If it's true, I'd rather be with them, anyway." Now I'm Agnostic, and that gives life a beauty and mystery that Christianity never did. I can think whatever I want now. It's liberating.

[Guest redheadedskeptic]

A year this month! Yay!