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Goodbye Jesus

Struggling with Leaving the Faith Again


Moxie

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For many years I've identified as pagan, but there's one thing that I can't seem to shake that has me wondering if there's any validity to Christianity. It's a silly thing but I need to share it somewhere.

 

My brother is a former pastor and now an atheist. What bothers me is that he takes things a step farther and wants to proselytize for atheism instead of living and let live. What also bothers me was how angry he got about people even saying the word "God."

 

The only way I can describe what I'm experiencing is like when a parent catches their kid in some mischief and the kid reacts in a way that lets the parent know something is up. That's not the best comparison, but I just get a feeling sometimes that if someone gets that angry about something not existing, then is something up?

 

I hope this ramble makes some sense.

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I understand what you're saying.  But I think there's a simpler explanation.  Many of us experience the stages of grief upon deconversion.  Anger is one of the stages.  Some people get stuck in the anger stage for long periods of time.  Your brother is likely one.  Give it time and he'll mellow out.

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When the light bulb finally comes on some folks realize that they’ve been fooled. That leads to embarrassment and that leads to anger. And it takes a long time for the anger to go away, and for some people it never does go completely away.

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Also, when a person feels like they've discovered something important (like 2000 years of an ongoing scam that duped them for a while), they often want to let others know about what they found. And as Geezer and RNP mentioned above, there is a natural reaction of anger to being tricked into believing a lie and dedicating your life to it and THEN finding out it was never real. I wrote a book to let my own emotions flow out, and that helped me process the nuances of anger/sadness/relief/wanting to let others know. It sits on my computer waiting to be edited severely and re-processed someday.

 

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6 hours ago, hello said:

 but I just get a feeling sometimes that if someone gets that angry about something not existing, then is something up?

 

 

 

People can get fired up when they feel their deeply held beliefs are being challenged. It happens with religion and it happens with politics. 

 

It does not mean God is real, nor does it mean the opposing political party are evil. The anger comes from within, imo.

 

(Ex-Christian and lazy pagan here)

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There is a strong desire, once a believer finds the real truth, to educate and tell others what you’ve discovered. Unfortunately, attempting to educate a brainwashed believer is usually a real life, “Mission Impossible”. Their minds are simply unable tp process anything that challenges their “beliefs”. This is true regardless of the level of education they may have. 
 

A Graduate level educated mind, once indoctrinated, is just as closed and bias as a high school dropout’s mind. You might as well be talking to a brick wall, and essentially you are. 

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After 30 years of being out of the cult, I still feel the odd tinge of anger whenever I hear someone talk about how great god is or if someone posts some nonsense on facebook about God answering prayer. I just try to ignore it...not always easy but it works. 

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18 hours ago, hello said:

My brother is a former pastor and now an atheist.

  

Also consider that being a pastor was his career as well as his self-identity. Now that's gone. That's big stuff for a guy.

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Years ago I heard it compared to the pendulum on a clock.  The further it is pulled to one side, the further it swings when you turn it loose.

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