Hello, just got started here

[Tricia556]

I was thrilled when I came across ex-christian.net. I was born into a Roman Catholic family, but my mom had been Greek Orthodox. When she and my dad divorced we bagan visiting many other christian churches, from christian science to lutheran. I didn't think much of it because mom said they were basically the same and she was more looking for a group of people that she clicked with.

I began to question religion when I had to move in with my dad and go through the process of First Communion again because I had initially gone through it in the Lutheran church so it wasn't valid. WTF? I began to question my beliefs when I began the process of Confirmation, and realized that I just didn't believe. I finished the process because I still lived with my dad at that point and my mom couldn't take me in.

I fully believe that words have power and hated making a promise that I knew I wasn't going to keep. I swore I would never lie like that again. 

I explored paganism and witchcraft for awhile, and while much of it resonates with me, I can't bring myself to follow any one path as they all seem like the same thing but viewed through different colored lenses.

I still struggle a bit, as my husband is christian (though mostly ok that I am not) and we agreed to raise our children christian so they had a foundation to start from. I live in a smallish city about an hour south of Dallas so finding like minded people is a challenge. I hope to meet some people that I don't have to pretend with.

[disillusioned]

Welcome Tricia!

 

4 minutes ago, Tricia556 said:

I explored paganism and witchcraft for awhile, and while much of it resonates with me, I can't bring myself to follow any one path as they all seem like the same thing but viewed through different colored lenses.

 

I've also found that I can't quite conform to any particular "path"; not because I think they are all the same thing viewed through different lenses,  but because I think that they are antithetical to each other,  and there is equally as much (read: no) evidence for all of them. This seems to me to be very problematic. 

 

4 minutes ago, Tricia556 said:

I still struggle a bit, as my husband is christian (though mostly ok that I am not) and we agreed to raise our children christian so they had a foundation to start from.

 

For myself, I'm making damn sure that my kids are raised apart from Christianity, mainly because I find the Christian "foundation" utterly abhorrent. But then,  my wife is not a Christian,  so that makes things easier. 

 

4 minutes ago, Tricia556 said:

I live in a smallish city about an hour south of Dallas so finding like minded people is a challenge. I hope to meet some people that I don't have to pretend with.

 

Welcome again. I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Derek]

Welcome Tricia...you're among friends here

[♦ Fuego ♦]

The challenge in finding non-believers, particularly those with a Christian background who have left, is that we don't tend to form groups. Other than this website, my new crowd are jazz musicians and most are not believers. Among the musicians, there are a few cultural Lutherans, one very loose Catholic, three who are 3/4 fundamentalist (which is rare and I don't hang with them), and the rest are just humans who like to make music. It has helped with de-converting to get around regular human adults that don't have imaginary friends who control reality. It also is a great emotional release to pour myself into music and click-in with the vibe of the music. But I doubt many of them would understand some of my emotions surrounding the faith, or why I won't sing some songs that echo belief (and there are quite a few songs like that, esp around Xmas).

 

 

[MOHO]

Welcome to the forums, @Tricia556.

 

Kudos to you for having the strength and courage to extract yourself from the mind-control.

 

Finding like-minded people certainly helps with the deprogramming. My take on this is that humans are social animals who rely on others for all sorts of things - validation begin one of them. Even a screem'n introvert like me must admit this at some level.

 

Welcome again and hope to hear more from you.

    - MOHO (Mind Of His Own)

 

[DanForsman]

16 hours ago, Tricia556 said:

believe

 

16 hours ago, Tricia556 said:

I fully believe that words have power and hated making a promise that I knew I wasn't going to keep. I swore I would never lie like that again.

 

Good for you! This kind of self respect will serve you well. It seems to me like you are still early in your deconversion process so you may experience a number of spiritual shifts before reaching more stable ground. As far as your kids go just be aware that even though they are young they could have as many questions as you do and could find hell and the bloody sacrifice of Jesus (to name a couple) ideas that are particularly frightening. The church will not encourage them to discuss any ideas that might conflict with church doctrine so they could hold in some very significant fears. Consider asking if they have any concerns and/or fears about things the church teaches from time to time so that they have a real viable way to address these. You’re doing great and I think it is so important to respect your own mind and thoughts as you have clearly chosen to do. If there is a god the one gift it has clearly given us is our minds and our ability to reason and we should never sacrifice those for any tribal group think. Nice to have you here and be sure to comment. Helping others with their concerns can be very helpful for you in clarifying your own views and concerns. Thanks for your post.