Faith: How it all came apart

[Bardia]

Theists often assume about non-theists, like me, that giving up our faith—our belief in the usefulness of the Bible, in the divinity of Jesus, in the very existence of God—was the direct result of some profound personal hurt or deep disappointment. Having been raised Christian, of course I turned to faith and prayer in hard times, as we were taught to do. And of course, it accomplished nothing. When I discovered that faith and prayer plus $1.50 would get me a Kit Kat out of the vending machine, yeah, sure, my disappointment and hurt were components of why I gave up faith and prayer. But these weren't the only, or indeed even the most critical, reasons. I think I mostly still tried to pray until about age 31 or 32—I'm  49 now—and that was mainly a second attempt at faith in order to appease a Christian now-ex-girlfriend, who was/is one of those “I’m not religious; I have a personal relationship with Jesus” types.

 

I was raised from about age 8 in a non-denominational, “Bible-based” evangelical Christian church. Why my faith in Christianity came apart was for me actually several things coming together, amidst steadily improving self-awareness and realization. Things started to break somewhere in the middle of my high school years; eventually you notice lies, falsehoods, and inconsistencies, and if you start to pull at the little threads, it all comes undone. Ultimately, there was no way I could accept the illogic and mendacity of Christianity and the Bible.

More or less, in order of my personal discovery, I came to notice:

• The utter, pathetic futility of prayer.
• The overwhelming evidence for an old universe, an old Earth, and evolution. My church taught young-Earth creationism; looking back, I now feel ashamed that I thought any of those ridiculous arguments were at all persuasive, but of course I didn’t know any better.
• The absurdity of so many events in the Bible that I was instructed to take as literally true and historically accurate.
• So very many people calling themselves Christians but not even trying to walk the walk, especially “leaders” in the Christian community. Sacrificing to help the needy, loving enemies, not being egotistical materialistic jerks, etc. “The Fruits of the Spirit,” “you will know them by their love”: forget it. Utter nonsense.
• The staggering degree of judgmental and hypocritical attitudes among Christians towards other “sinners.”
• The reeking repulsiveness of commercialized Christianity.
• That the most kind, moral, and consistently ethical people I met have generally been non-theists.
• The colossally immoral, vindictive, and capricious behavior of Yahweh and his “prophets,” as described in both Testaments.
• The uncountable inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible.
• The frankly illogical concepts of original sin, sacrificial atonement, “God become flesh,” etc.
• My growing advocacy of feminism.
• And at last my realization that, in the purported words of Pierre-Simon Laplace, “Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là”: “I had no need for that hypothesis.” If there is a God, or gods, there is no apparent requirement for their existence or intervention in the universe. This is not to say science has revealed all mysteries; only that the universe just works, without them.
   

Leaving my faith behind was a long process for me, lasting about 15 years, and definitely not easy. But I am much more content and in a much better place mentally and philosophically than I was when I believed. The church I grew up in was as wacky as you would expect, although it took me awhile to admit it. I tried to believe; I really did. That was a choice. I would say in the end giving up faith for me was not a choice; it was an inevitability.

[Insightful]

Well written!  Welcome

 

1 hour ago, Bardia said:

faith and prayer plus $1.50 would get me a Kit Kat out of the vending machine

 

I love this line!  Permission to steal it? 

[Bardia]

1 hour ago, Insightful said:

Well written!  Welcome

 

 

I love this line!  Permission to steal it? 

By all means!
(It's not 100% original to me anyway, although, I adapted it and changed it a bit for my purposes.)

 

And thanks for your kind words!

[nontheistpilgrim]

Welcome! I can relate to much of what you say, a similar story for me.

I think this " amidst steadily improving self-awareness" is a key for me, too.

[Myrkhoos]

       Good to know your testimony. I can truly testify to the not easy part in religious strughles, to keep, have, gain or lose faith in various degrees.

        

[☆ Tsathoggua9 ☆]

Hey, it is nice to have you on board! Enjoyed reading your post.

[MOHO]

Welcome aboard, @Bardia

 

That's a well thought-out and detailed but brief extimoney you wrote there.

 

15 years is a long time imhop to shake of the grip of xanity. I recon the length of time required is proportionate to time spent in the mind-control and how affected by it you were. Took me 2 years but I was never passionate. I supposed that's due to already having been exposed to Mormonism at a young age and giving up on that.  Also the singing and praising always gave me the creeps.

 

Welcome again and I hope to read more from you.

    - MOHO (Mind Of His Own)

[Bardia]

Thanks , everyone, for the kind words of welcome!

 

43 minutes ago, MOHO said:

15 years is a long time imhop to shake of the grip of xanity. I recon the length of time required is proportionate to time spent in the mind-control and how affected by it you were.

I can't say I disagree. Basically, the timeline for me works something as follows:

Age 8-17 definitely Xian
Age 17-21 wavering but nominally Xian

Age 21-26 generally but not explicitly non-theist

Age 26-31 tried to be an Xian again for a girlfriend

Age 32-now fuck that shit

 

I think your hypothesis that it takes about as long to get out of Xianity as you were in it applies in my case. I count about 18 years in in the definitely, trying, or wavering categories. Yikes!

 

[nontheistpilgrim]

Quote: MOHO .... I recon the length of time required is proportionate to time spent in the mind-control and how affected by it you were.

 

Arrgghh!!!! I was in it from aged 8 to 68. Please, I don't want to live 'til I'm 128!

Not that I'm completely free yet, you understand, but I'm happily getting there.

[MOHO]

52 minutes ago, nontheistpilgrim said:

Quote: MOHO .... I recon the length of time required is proportionate to time spent in the mind-control and how affected by it you were.

 

Arrgghh!!!! I was in it from aged 8 to 68. Please, I don't want to live 'til I'm 128!

Not that I'm completely free yet, you understand, but I'm happily getting there.

 

WOW!

That would have an unusually high suck-factor.

 

What I meant to say is not that the time to heal is EXACTLY the same as the time in the faith. Just that the longer you were in it may be a factor in how long it takes to heal from the mind-control.

 

I am not a mental health professional. That opinion is a reflection of reading people's extimonies here.

[Weezer]

Life circumstances can also effect how long it takes.  I began to question our church doctrine at 13, the inerrancy of the Bible between 35 and 40, and literally walked out the door in middle of a sermon at 50 years of age. 

 

As I look back, I think there were periods of time where I unconsciously, and at times consciously, shoved things to the back burner due to my employment situation, which was church related.

[nontheistpilgrim]

Weezer, I can relate to that, though I still believe that I was not being hypocritical when preaching and pastoring.

What I would say is that when I stopped believing I had a quite overwhelming sense of joy, of escape. So I suppose I had had doubts. The joy has 'shortened' the escape period, I think. Still working on it, but then the whole of life is a 'pilgrimage' it seems to me. (But never walking backwards!)

[BobCu]

Welcome to the 21st century where normal people live.

 

"The universe just works" without the magic god fairy of the gaps. Some people are never able to figure this out.

 

I recommend this video about faith and why it's a mental illness:

 

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/2019/08/pat-condell-published-on-december-16.html

[older]

On 8/16/2019 at 11:51 PM, nontheistpilgrim said:

when I stopped believing I had a quite overwhelming sense of joy, of escape.

 

^  ^  ^  

 

No more guilt.

[Myrkhoos]

16 hours ago, BobCu said:

Welcome to the 21st century where normal people live.

 

"The universe just works" without the magic god fairy of the gaps. Some people are never able to figure this out.

 

I recommend this video about faith and why it's a mental illness:

 

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/2019/08/pat-condell-published-on-december-16.html

I do not think faith is a mental ilness. 

  even matt dilahaunty does not think so, and he is one of the most active atheist speakers. The issue is not so simple. I mean, by the way, THERE IS NO unified theory of psychology , what is mental health and / or ilness is still highly debatable. The DSM V , the so called bible of modern psychiatry looks nothing more than language manipulation, as in describing symptoms with convoluted specialized jargon makes it automatically right. Plus they keep tweaking it. Psychiatry has its own share of very Very shady history, and much of its modern form is influenced, like all else, by vast interests of Big Pharma. This is no conspiracy theory, recognised specialised who were there when it was developped, like Bessel van der Kolk, testify to this.

[Weezer]

The thinking of mainline mental health workers is that religious teaching and practice can contribute to mental illness, but in, and of itself is not mental illness.  And I believe mental illness, and drug use, may have influenced the development of some religions.  Even as a Christian I came to the conclusion that Revelations was written by someone who was hallucinating.   That contributed to my questioning the inerrancy of the Bible, and eventually leading to my being on this forum.

[MOHO]

14 hours ago, Weezer said:

 Even as a Christian I came to the conclusion that Revelations was written by someone who was hallucinating.

I hear, 'ya, @Weezer!

 

I remember reading Revs for the first time and assuming that the version of the Bible I was holding took some serious creative licenses in order to hold a certain audience. So I obtained a different version (the Bible is the inerrant word of God...but there are several versions?) of the Bible and re-read Revelations. Same incredible story. Perhaps a little less illustrious descriptions but the same story with horns and demons and angles and scourges and mayhem and so much hill heading.

 

So the whole Jesus "died" for "sins" thing was hard to swallow. Throw in Revelations and it becomes clear that much of the Bible are simply stories. But then how much is fiction? How much coincides with actual history? What parts were added by whom and for what purpose? At that point I was done.

[MOHO]

Anyway, back to the vid.

 

In short Mr. Dillahunty makes the argument that since we can think and reason our way out of religion that it is NOT a mental illness. He insists that only some form of treatment can deliver someone from true mental illness.

 

We were once all diluted in our beliefs and thought processes and is that a type of mental illness? There was treatment involved but that was, for the most part, self administered. We read the Bible with an open mind. we researched various other sources. We removed ourselves from the religious stimulus and we sought the input from others (Ex-C anyone ???)

 

I do get his insistence that we not run around calling religious folks mentally ill and am in full agreement with his reasoning.

[Myrkhoos]

12 minutes ago, MOHO said:

Anyway, back to the vid.

 

In short Mr. Dillahunty makes the argument that since we can think and reason our way out of religion that it is NOT a mental illness. He insists that only some form of treatment can deliver someone from true mental illness.

 

We were once all diluted in our beliefs and thought processes and is that a type of mental illness? There was treatment involved but that was, for the most part, self administered. We read the Bible with an open mind. we researched various other sources. We removed ourselves from the religious stimulus and we sought the input from others (Ex-C anyone ???)

 

I do get his insistence that we not run around calling religious folks mentally ill and am in full agreement with his reasoning.

Well the problem is of course in the definitions, but my gut feeling is that he thinks being wrong/ being brainwashed/being disinformed or just plain lazy in your thinking is different from stuff like severe trauma or stuff like psychosis/ schizophrenia where the reasoning/ perceiving faculties are damaged regardless of your belief. But like I said I would not hasten to make a clear opinion as this issue is highly debated even between specialists.

[TEG]

I could have dealt with the existence of a segment of the christian population who were ignorant (young earth) or hypocritical (televangelists).  And I had some doubts about the facts contained in the bible; but maybe I did not understand it correctly, or maybe it was more metaphorical than I had been taught.  What did me in was stepping back and looking at the big picture; the christian religion, down through the ages, has not made people better, as evidenced by war, slavery, and genocide.  (Christians are supposed to be transformed by the holy spirit; into what, one must ask?)  And how could a rational god “choose” a little splinter of a country from the whole face of the earth, and send his messiah to this little splinter to save man, while everyone else on all the other continents were doomed to perdition.  The concept defies belief.  Once I had let go of the idea that this faith was based on reality, the blinders fell from my eyes, and all the contradictions and just plain evil contained in the bible became obvious.  And now I too have no need for that hypothesis.

 

And, from an alien’s point of view, I do not believe that religion can be considered a mental illness because it is a universal human behavior, like sex and politics.  That doesn’t mean that it makes any more sense than the other two, it just is.  As to mentally ill religious people, check out Isaiah and Ezekiel.

 

(I would like some of the posts above but they say I can’t until I have 25 posts.)

 

 

 

 

[MOHO]

11 minutes ago, TEG said:

And how could a rational god “choose” a little splinter of a country from the whole face of the earth, and send his messiah to this little splinter to save man, while everyone else on all the other continents were doomed to perdition. 

"That is God's plan and YOU, you worthless little sinner, are not privy!"

 

13 minutes ago, TEG said:

 

(I would like some of the posts above but they say I can’t until I have 25 posts.)

 

Well get ON it!

 

 

 

[TEG]

O.K.!

[Weezer]

3 hours ago, TEG said:

O.K.!

1 more down!  How many to go ?

[TEG]

Twelve.

[Weezer]

There is something that many "normal" people do that is not considered mental illness.  Denial.  It runs rampant in religion, and with childhood abuse, especially sexual.  Their mental "vision" has blind spots that do not allow them think about some things.  Some times it is deep in the unconscious mind, like with severe childhood abuse, and sometimes just below the surface. 

 

Several times in religious discussions (and other topics) I have had, people seem like they were about to see reality, but then, like someone flipped a switch, went back into the denial.  Their psyche is more comfortable there.