Hello again! - 9 month update

[BarnOwl]

Hello again! Last time I posted here was for a "5 month update" thread when I was going through some stuff mentally trying to wrap my head around such a drastic change in theology.

 

Now, here I am 4 months later (so 9 months total), happily an atheist (or at least a skeptical agnostic, depending on the day) and finding comfort in that. I find moments where I consider the existence of a god, but no longer the Christian god and no longer do I feel the need to consider what "it" may think about my life. It's taken me a while, but I'm finally at a point where I can process things without considering 'god' first, lol.

 

That being said, I've noticed that despite my loss of faith, I find that the religious way of thinking has been much harder to get rid of. Not to mention, the more I learn about life and explore things I never used to, the more I realize how much I missed out on. Let me explain:

 

Quick recap: I've mentioned this previously, but I was raised fundamentalist Christian. Up until the age of 23, I accepted this as a way of life and despite the frustration, anger and depression I felt living that way, I never did anything about it, thinking I was just "bearing my cross" as a good Christian. When I hit the age of 22/23 though and realized that being gay could be a valid way of life, not just a cross to bear or a temptation to resist, my walls all started to come down. I fell deeper into depression as I battled intensely within myself, thinking that I was wrestling with God himself to get some sort of "answer" like I was taught to do. When nothing came, that was when I decided I was done and it was time to move on to something different. My curiosity finally got the better of me and I began to do research on what my alternatives were.

 

Fast forward 9 months, and I'm now an atheist and happy with it. Now as a 24 year old who just graduated college last week, I am struggling with some things emotionally that I didn't realize would persist once I had finally left the faith. Primarily, I still struggle with trusting myself to make decisions and to not rely on the morals of my "faith" or on the opinions of people who I considered "strong in the faith." I don't know how to move past this because it actually causes me such anxiety to think about.

 

In addition, when I look back on the past 24 years of my life, I realize how much my faith stole from me. I never socialized in High School because I was taught that Satan would use my classmates to turn me against God. That fear drove me to not only avoid having friends in High School, but I did my college years primarily online and at home. I look back now and realize that I missed out on so many experiences with my peers that my faith kept me from having. I have felt lonely and dissatisfied with my life needlessly because if it weren't for my faith and fundamentalist upbringing, I probably would have had experiences and relationships that I now wish I had.

 

I now have a boyfriend that I absolutely adore and who has been there for me every step of the way during this deconversion process and I see a lot of great things in my future now that I'm living life on my own terms. I am hopeful about the future and look forward to creating many new experiences, and I appreciate that I was able to do this at the age of 24 while I still have so much of my life ahead of me to continue growing and having new experiences (hopefully). However, I still wish I could have done this years ago and really enjoyed my college years. I wish I could have went out and dated more, met more and different people.

 

This was actually really therapeutic just writing this, to get it all written down and out there.

[sdelsolray]

Congratulations on your graduation from college.

 

As for your continued deconversion work, I suggest you consider researching/studying the following concepts/topics/subjects (if you haven't done so already):

 

teleology

burden of proof/persuasion

informal logical fallacies (learn a few at a time...repeat with more)

cognitive biases

Biblical textual criticism

codependency and enabling

emergence

 

That's a start.

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

CONGRATULATIONS!  HANG IN THERE!

[Aqualung]

It's good to see you again BarnOwl. It sounds like you've made alot of progress, And i'm glad things are going so much better for you now.

 

Keep it up!

[MOHO]

Welcome to ex-C, @BarnOwl

Congratulations on finding your way out of the mind control.

 

Also a programmer. I wonder if our profession has had an impact on our deconverstion. We must test our code and it better damn well react the same way each time! Unlike praying, eh?

 

    - MOHO (Mind Of His Own)