Disclaimer: this will be long

There is a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Or, more widely known, the cortyceps fungus. And even more widely known, the “zombie ant fungus”. This fungus hijacks the ants motor functionality in an effort to expose it, in an attempt to increase its chances of being eaten. This way the cortyceps can gestate and propagate its next life cycle.

I remember thinking it would be absolutely awful if something hijacked my body and mind and used me to maintain itself in the larger community. Imbedding itself in me and forcing me to comply…..

LThere is a virus called Toxoplasma gondii. It’s found in mice. And it has a very niche audience. Cats. The virus in order to survive has to be consumed by cats in order to gestate and have any continuity. A very specific audience for such an important purpose. This virus is similar to the cortyceps fungus in that it alters the mind of the mouse to be bold and confrontational instead of heeding its traditional instinct to avoid predation. This makes the mouse standout and oftentimes gives disregard to nearby predators. This fundamental change stems from the reprogramming of the virus.

I had similar thoughts about this as the cortyceps. “This is awful, it took control of another living creature and twisted its very nature to ensure its survival. What purpose could this serve in the greater world?”

So what the fuck does this have to do with heaven and hell and religion?

Recently I deconverted. I have another post about it and I figured I would follow it up with some of the ideas that pushed me away from Christianity and really became concrete over time as “fallacious” or outright ridiculous. The virus and fungus above were the greatest irony to myself as I thought about how terrible and awful it would be to be controlled by something and have my mind toyed with and manipulated. And now I realize….. I was. I was under control of the virus of indoctrination and religion. Manipulated against my will and held in place, exposed, and consumed by my own emotions. Not just some predator, but consumed by my own faculties. Hostage by my own understanding of the world.

I gave a lot of thought to the ideas that seemed to hold me down more than others. Of course I felt guilty, I felt “sinful”, and it’s difficult to address those things but it didn’t necessarily hold me in place. And as I was navigating the plethora of religious tools that nailed me down I looked upon the ideas of heaven and hell. And what they meant to me, and what they actually were.

HEAVEN: THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF FALSE PROMISES.

I grew up thinking I could possibly go to heaven. This wondrous place with streets of gold and biblical mansions. Beautiful gardens abundant with fruit and olives and blessed with the greatest love, gods presence. I imagined a great big mansion, just for my family and all the family pets. I would see everyone I loved in life again. I dreamed about how amazing it would be to be in a state of eternal bliss with my favorite People. But is this what heaven actually is?

In my teens I started thinking about what eternity was. How long that was. I thought, I could count every piece of sand on my nearest beach shore, and I’d only just be starting. I could move to the other coast, and pick up every piece of sand there, and it would be nothing. How about if I went to every beach in north and South America, and somehow I could count every grain of sand and keep track of my progress. It would be quite a long time now. Probably many generations. Still not eternity. What if I went to every continent? Under the water of the oceans? What if I finished counting every grain of sand on earth? It would be insignificant to eternity……. I have to zoom out more. What if…. And this is a big jump…. I counted every grain of sand in our solar system. And then I moved into the cosmos. I’m sure if you wanted to you could continue this process yourself, finish this galaxy, finish multiple galaxies, all the planets, all the grains of sand. And you finally get to the end of this universe, somehow counting every grain on every planet in every system. You would forget everything about earth and anyone you loved it would be so long. And you wouldn’t even begin to have lived eternity.

This terrified me as a child. Heaven immediately became grotesque and a nightmare. My streets of gold became sand and existential dread. My biblical parable house built on sand crumbled.

Around this time the people I was around started making the fantastical mythos of the Bible into a more rigid system of worship. Now heaven was subservience to god. Constant prayer. Constant worship. Forever. An absolute nightmare. I realized heaven was not heaven. But an abomination, a field of zombified ants prostrating. This thought began the skeptical analysis of my theological views.

HELL: IS TORTURE MAN MADE?

I have spoken about hell before. Looked at the historicity. Contended with its multiple interpretations of ETC, separation, rehabilitation, lake of fire, etc…..

I want to approach this with a different idea. One i pondered on today. I want to talk about what torture is.

Noun: the action or practice of inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.

The act of torture is an act of people on other people, and invented by people. I doubt most theist would like the idea that torture is made by god. I think either way of looking at it discredits the premise of torture in hell.

If we take the perspective that people invented torture, then what is in hell? If torture is a tribalistic derived man made device of action to inflict pain and suffering. Then what does torture look like in hell? Is it even torture? Or is it more likely that while we developed religion that we superimposed our own ideas of suffering on a place that represents all that is bad? I recently read a book called “the better angels of our nature” by Steven pinker. Don’t be deceived by the title, Steven pinker is a renowned atheist and psychologist, who in this book describes the human journey of aggression over our history. It shows that over time we have become more peaceful, but it wasn’t always this way. While we were still young we exhibited characteristics of early tribal warfare for dominance. Much like how chimpanzees, even thought they are vegan, will dismember captives of other groups and devour it in order to show dominance. The intended message of this? “Stay away from our space”. This idea evolved with us and we saw the utility of pain and displays of suffering as a tool to be used and not just as a grounds of establishing territory. So torture was invented. A gross idea manifested in human nature. Not made by a god. So once again, are we the arbiters of hell? Did we create it? Of course we did. I have a post that outlines some vague creation of hell using scholarly references like Bart ehrman and others. Using this we can see its development over time. However from an introspective view the foundations of torture can be used to show its development as well, and can even assert that we have no information on hell since we made the ideas that support it.

The other side to this is if god created torture. It does say he creates evil after all. Many theist dance around this idea since it harshly contradicts the idea of god being all good. Some say “well…. It’s a matter of justice. God has to be just and so punishments deserve justice, infinite justice even, since god is infinite and sin is an affront to god”. Quite the gymnastics to make on behalf of a god who can’t talk. However, if god did create all of experience and made torture for its intended purpose, that seems incredibly malicious and vile. Upon further study of the old testament god you probably wouldn’t put it past yahweh to invent torture since he was an obvious fan. But this is a problem for me. Hell only appears after the introduction of the New Testament. At least in the old testament after god was finished killing you and everyone for miles for looking at his commandments you were actually dead. But in the new testament, the savior of mankind, the most humble, caring, and loving messiah gives the ultimate prescription for eternal torture. Seems uncharacteristic and certainly uncharitable. It’s almost like these ideas were used to justify the actions and disposition of the old testament god to make the selected gospel canon make sense.

THE OUTRO: FINALLY…..

I write this to hopefully help expose some of these ideas for what they are. Easy to accept on the surface, but with just a bit of thought become scattered and incongruent. I have to be honest and confess that even as I write about these concepts I still actively struggle with them sometimes. Even after leaving the faith. I find myself staring at the ceiling at 4am thinking about hell. Again. But now I have this information along with all the other information I have researched to help put these ideas to rest with their fathers. I sincerely hope that this reaches an audience that needs it and that the ideas are helpful is showing our blindness to the sickness and predation of religion. And that some of these fundamental ideas of fear and control can be beaten, with time and thought.

I grew up as a Jehovah Witness and It took a long time for me to first stop going to meetings to break away from the religion. Guilt is a powerful thing. It sneaks into your life, attaches itself to your thoughts, and twists your actions until you don’t even recognize yourself anymore. For me, guilt was the constant companion of my journey away from religion. Even as I began to question the teachings I’d grown up with, the guilt remained like an echo, reminding me that I was somehow doing something wrong. Even after understanding that religion is a construct and a way to control us by believing in a book full of fairytales, the question that eats at you is "WHAT IF I AM WRONG?" Not that I think I am wrong anymore but for many years I would have nightmares on how I would miss out in living in paradise, because when the end came I would be on the wrong side. Yes I am an adult and that is only a dream but it is a very much a real fear that religion has engrained in your core and it is hard to break from that even if you logically know this is ridiculous.

I am working on a book on my journey in breaking from religion. I honestly feel you have to deprogram your brain. That can look different for everyone.

I guess I want to hear your story, Are you in the middle of it, or are you on the other side and what helped you get there. What thoughts, what helped you break free not just from religion but from the guilt, and that icky tickle that creeps up in the back of your mind, "what if you are wrong"? I think figuring that out is the key for a healthy life. People need to be able to break free from the chains of religion and guilt.

Trigger warnings: there is some talk about self harm, and sexual abuse. I will put those sections in as spoilers (hopefully I do that correctly). If you wish to skip them, that will be your sign.

Throughout my life, I've been on and off with Christianity. I've battled self doubt and depression/anxiety for all of my adult life as well. Much of which stemmed from "being a sinner."

This time though, this is the final off (as in I'm never going back to the church). It may mean the end to a marriage of 13 years, only time will tell, but I refuse to do it anymore. I am at a point in life where I can't stand the hypocrisy, the nonsense, and the general vileness clothed as "God's love."

I was raised Lutheran. My family went to church every Sunday and my brother's and I attended Sunday school afterwards. There was never any back talk about going. We had to get ready and we had better be ready. I am the second child of 3. I remember when my older brother finished catechism and confirmation, he was then given the choice of whether or not he would continue going. As a young kid, I was excited for that, because then I could play games or watch football instead of going. It wasn't so much about not going to church as it was just a young kid wanting to be a kid.

When I started in confirmation classes, we had just gotten a new preacher. At first, I actually liked him. He brought history into his sermons, and applied it to real life, and I thought maybe I will keep going. That came to an abrupt halt. I was about 10-12 at the time, and I don't remember all of what was said, but the words "and Hitler was right to do that to the Jews" were uttered from his mouth at the pulpit. Even then, it was blatantly obvious to me that anyone who could say that, was a reprehensible piece of human garbage. The church elders did not remove him.

We were poor rural farmers from a rural town and didn't have another church to go to. I was told I had to stick it out and finish confirmation and then I could choose to stop going, which is what I did. >! I found out many years later that this pastor was also making inappropriate comments to the young boys. I was too old for him at the time, but my younger brother remembers feeling not right around him. !< He, fortunately, did not have to complete confirmation at this church. This was my first break from church.

Fast forward a few years, I'm now around 16 with a car and an after school job. One of my friends convinces me to go with him to a youth group on Wednesday nights. This is where the worst of it starts for me. It was an assembly of God church (think Joel Olsteen, just not huge and not on TV). I was getting to a point where I wasn't really a depressed teen. I had been the fat kid most of my life. I got made fun of all the time before highschool. Some of that was still in the back of my mind at 16. I wanted to fit in, be liked, and make more friends.

I eventually got "saved" and baptized in the river, the whole 9 yards. This church became my life. Their ideals and thoughts became mine. I was accepted and liked, but I wasn't happy. I was a horrible sinner in constant need of prayer and repentance I didn't realize it then, but as I put on a smile and sang the songs, and kept showing up, my self value kept declining.

I at one point thought I was called to ministry. Maybe it was really all the people I looked up to telling me I should go to a Christian school and become one ( /s of course it was. I was young dumb and impressionable). That's what I did. I first went for a pastoral degree, but then switched to psychology and counseling (and that irony is not lost on me now).

At college is where it really starts to fall apart for my mental health. After my sophomore year, I decided to stay at the town I went to school in for the summer and work up there. I was going through a bout of depression about never being good enough. About being a sinner. >! That summer, I was so depressed at my constant state of failure, I came very close to suicide. I owned a couple of firearms, and I was sitting on the couch in the trailer I was renting for the summer with a loaded gun at my temple. I was pleading with God to talk to me. I was so desperate to hear a voice that wasn't there that I nearly killed myself. The only thing that stopped me was hearing my roommate pull up. Had he not got home from work, there is a good chance I would not be here typing this out. !<

My jr year, I was an RA in the men's dorm. One of my guys was going through some stuff and was getting blackout drunk nearly every night. I had no idea. I didn't know the smell of alcohol induced vomiting. I had never drank. But now I know that I was smelling it every morning. I had no idea it was a cry for help. >! One morning, his roommate knocked on my door. He had tried to kill himself by taking literal bottles of every pill he could find. He had a suicide note and left it under his pillow. !<

Thankfully, he made it. I started down another spiral in my own mental health that day. I didn't know it then, but many of my future actions were because of this incident. I blamed myself for not seeing it. I was supposed to be the man of god. I should've known. What is wrong with me that God didn't tell me to intercede? I wanted to talk about it. I tried to talk about it. No faculty was there for me. "It was fine. It all worked out. These things don't happen here. Just put your trust in God. Pray. Seek his face." That was all I got. One of my friends almost died, and all I'm left with is talking to someone who isn't there?

It wasn't long after we had a "revival" ceremony. One thing about assembly of God is "speaking in tongues." Essentially they believe it means you are filled with the very spirit of God and as you speak, it will be in a language known to no one but God. It is the literal word of God being prophecied by man.

I had never experienced this. I assumed there must be something wrong with me. That this is why God couldn't have me intercede with my friend. I wasn't filled with his spirit. Spoiler alert. It never happened. I was never "filled with the spirit." I was laying face down on the floor of the chapel pleading with God for hours. I literally turned the rest of the lights off when I left, because everyone else had gone. At this point I started to check out. I was angry. I was depressed. I was constantly worried that something else terrible would happen under my watch.

That year for spring break I went home and cut loose. I drank for the first time, lost my virginity, started smoking, and decided I didn't want to do this. But, I was just "rebelling" and I'd be back. This behavior went on for the rest of the year and all of the summer. I had decided that I'd go back and get my degree. I was so close anyway, and then I don't need to worry about it if I decide to go back to school for something else.

About 3-4 weeks before school is set to start, the RD comes up to me and says you need to stop this or you're not going to be allowed back. I had been partying pretty hard with a few friends who were rebelling too. We weren't exactly quiet about it and the school caught wind of it. I decided I'd just tone it down and keep it quiet. I never did stop.

The first day of my senior year comes around, and I walk into the commons. I make eye contact with a girl that I thought was my friend. It had quickly spread about all the drinking and smoking we had been doing and the whole campus knew first day. She looked me straight in the eyes, sneered in disgust, turned away, and never once talked to me again. A professor, who I had admired, who I had had dinner with at his house with his family, snubbed me in the hallways. We had gone hunting together, we always talked about scouting good spots for duck season and pheasant and deer. Now, wouldn't even look at me when we crossed paths in the halls

It was then I decided that if this is how the leaders treat someone, I'm done. No one came to me and asked why I was acting out, what's going on, this isn't like you. They gave me the cold shoulder and wouldn't even look at me.

Shortly after is when I got together with the woman who is now my wife. She was rebelling a bit too but really just drinking. We dated all of my senior year. She graduated the fall after I finished and we got engaged that summer.

It's been mostly good between us. In 12 years we never went to church unless we were visiting her parents as that was easier than the guilt trip we would receive. We never talked God or religion at all until our daughter turned 2 and I got off of night shift. Then she decides she wants to start going to church. I said no. I haven't been in 12 years and I'm not starting now. Eff that. It's been a year and I still haven't joined her. Now, she is actually going to the church that I was indoctrinated by at 16. The exact church.

I don't know where to go from here or how to end my story as it's still being written. If you've read this far, thank you. I glossed over a lot of what was on my mind, but this is really the first time I've opened up about a lot of this. It's more difficult than I thought, but also more cathartic.

And it's the first time that I've said this: it's not that I just don't want to go to church, it's that I don't believe in it.

I used to be a devoted non-denominational Protestant. I was raised into Christianity from birth. I fully believed that science and religion were compatible, and I did not deny science, e.g. evolution, age of the earth. I attended Catholic school and Protestant church. The church I grew up in heavily emphasized that Christianity is true, and there is good evidence for it. Doubts should be used as a launching point to do more research on why the doubt isn't actually a problem. There are good answers for every "doubt", and ex-Christians are just people who gave up without actually seeing the Christian response to their doubts (and this is why they deserve Hell). As a result, I was really into apologetics (defense of the faith). Emphasis on the defense part. I got really good at finding ways for Christianity to still be possible regardless of the arguments that attempt to disprove it. But I didn't spend a lot of time focusing on why it was true in the first place (though I was taught many of the basic arguments). I just believed it because I was raised to believe it from birth (read: indoctrinated). I decided that once I graduated high school and became an adult, I would be old enough to properly understand the arguments for Christianity. I purchased Lee Strobel's Case for Christ, since it had always been heralded as containing the best arguments. I also planned to get some more books, e.g. by Josh and Sean McDowell, and Tim Keller. I got really busy with university, so didn't have time to read it at first.

In my first year of university, I took a psychology course. As is pretty standard for a science course, it began with a unit on the scientific method. To this day, it is the most comprehensive explanation I have ever received. One of the things explained in the textbook was the concept of unfalsifiability, and why a proper hypothesis needs to be falsifiable. I realized that this must be why people say that God cannot be scientifically proven. But I also realized that any interactions made by God which are detectable can involve falsifiable claims. I pictured God as being in an "unfalsifiable bubble", disconnected from earth. To prove his existence, I needed to find connection lines between God and earth. Over the next year, I began thinking about all the ways that God interacts with the world, and whether these could prove his existence.

He created the world: problematic because all the arguments I was aware of could be responded with "then who/what created God?", and also this would only be enough to get to deism anyway, so I put a peg in it to come back to later.
Bible and prophets: Cannot tell the difference between revelation from God, and someone just making it up or hallucinating or something, so cannot be used to prove God.
Prayer: I was aware that studies done on it showed that prayer worked on the level of chance. The apologetic for this was that God couldn't be put to the test. This made it unfalsifiable.
Miracles/faith healing/speaking in tongues/NDEs: I didn't believe those happened in today's day and age. All investigations have come to natural explanations. As with prayer, it could be argued that you can't put God to the test, but this also makes it unfalsifiable.
Jesus: He was a real guy, so that must mean that his life, death, and resurrection are falsifiable! I decided this was the best course of action to prove God (since it passed the falsifiability test), so I would look into the arguments in more detail later.

Going back in time a little, when I was 18, I had gotten engaged to a guy at my church that I thought God was telling me to marry. A year later (after the falsifiability questioning), I found out that he didn't believe in Christianity anymore. He hadn't told me because he was scared of my reaction (and he was right tbh). I knew it was wrong to be "unequally yoked", and the thought that he wouldn't want to raise our children to be Christian concerned me (I couldn't risk my children ending up in hell!). I also didn't want him to go to hell (and reconciling my care for him and my belief that he must deserve hell was not easy). So I decided to prove to him that Christianity was true. I asked him to let me read Case for Christ to him, and he agreed but with the reminder that I should think critically about it. I agreed, since critical thinking is important, and I was confident that the arguments would hold up. (Spoiler: they did not). A few chapters in and there were already major problems. I tried to console myself that just because one argument for Christianity wasn't good, didn't mean there weren't good arguments or that it wasn't true (though my confidence took a hit given how much praise this book had been given by my church).

At this point, my fiance asked if he could show me some videos from his point of view, since he had been listening to me reading the book to him. I agreed, since I figured I could handle it and that knowing where he was coming from would be helpful for arguing against him. He showed me Genetically Modified Skeptic's deconversion video. GMS had also linked in his video description to a Google Doc presenting the actual arguments. I was expecting a bunch of videos attempting to disprove Christianity (which I felt well-equipped to handle), but what I found instead was a bunch of videos going over arguments that were meant to prove Christianity, and explaining why they didn't hold up. This confused me.

I decided to pray to God to give me the insight and resources I needed to prove his existence, so that I could remain a Christian. Except, for the first time in my life, I actually considered the possibility that there was no one listening to my prayers. I pictured myself being viewed from a 3rd person perspective, then zooming out, past my house, past the earth, and into the inky darkness of space. There was nothing there, and I had only been thinking/talking to myself. I felt a little silly, followed by the immediate pang of guilt that I was even considering that God wasn't there. I finished my prayer despite the intense feeling of loneliness I had unlocked.

I couldn't take it anymore. I needed answers. It was April, almost a year after my fiance had confessed that he no longer believed, and exam period had started. Between studying for exams, I started researching the historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection. I considered the possibility that there just simply wouldn't be enough evidence either way (proving or disproving). I considered the meaning of the word "faith", and felt that I truly understood it now. Faith was when you just choose to believe anyways. I disagreed with that option because it was inconsistent and dishonest. Easter passed during this time, and it was a very different experience. I felt sad and scared. I considered the very real possibility that I might not be a Christian ever again. I didn't like that thought.

Because I had been watching atheist content, my YouTube had been recommending me more of it. In particular, a channel called "The Atheist Experience" was showing up quite often. The name scared me. I had begun to trust that GMS, RationalityRules (RR), and Cosmic Skeptic (CS) (those last two being the channels linked to by GMS) were genuinely trying to find the truth, and were applying critical thinking properly, but I was still wary of other atheist content. As an Easter special, RR and CS were brought on to host an episode of the Atheist Experience. I began to see it in my recommendations, and decided to watch it. Matt Dillahunty explained the premise of the show as being a place for theists to call in and explain what they believe and why. I liked this, since it included discussion from both sides. One caller, named Greg, presented a typical historical argument. I was surprised when the hosts explained that he was committing an argument from ignorance fallacy. They also explained that he was shifting the burden of proof, which I did understand. I realized that I could reformulate the argument in a way that didn't shift the burden of proof, but I needed to understand the argument from ignorance fallacy.

I found a video by RationalityRules which explained the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. Suddenly, it clicked for me why those videos GMS linked to had been debunking Christian arguments. If Christians couldn't prove Christianity to be true, then there would be no good reason to believe it, and the default should be to not believe. I was well aware of the null hypothesis and that you can't just assume something to be true until it is disproven. I realized that the intellectually honest thing to do was to withhold belief until I could prove it (since I had already dismissed faith as an option). I also realized that, while I had some historical arguments in mind (based on what I had been taught growing up and my own research), none were fully concrete and developed. I would need to formalize them first. I decided that while I should technically consider myself an atheist, I was still fully confident that Christianity was true. All I had to do was formalize my argument and back it up with research. This wouldn't take long, and then I could go back to being a true and honest Christian, and I could bring my fiance back to Christ.

Shortly after Easter, Matt Dillahunty debated against Mike Winger, with Capturing Christianity (Cameron) as the moderator. YouTube recommended it to me after watching the Atheist Experience. I decided to watch the debate. Mike Winger presented a pretty standard Minimal Facts historical argument. I expected Matt to challenge the historical facts presented. Mike and Cameron must have also expected that, because they looked just as baffled as I was feeling when Matt didn't do that. I didn't even understand what he was saying the first time I heard it. So I rewatched the debate. Then I rewatched it again, but only Matt's parts (since I understood Mike's argument well), and took notes. He explained epistemology, which I understood. Then he explained that Mike's argument was committing what he referred to as "Doyle's Fallacy" (which I now know is also called the Sherlock Holmes fallacy).

He explained that Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, has Sherlock say that "when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". Matt explained how Doyle had used this logic to conclude that Houdini really was phasing out of his ropes, since Doyle couldn't come up with something else that explained it. Then he explained that this reasoning is faulty because you may not have properly accounted for all possible explanations, and there may be no way of knowing. Instead, we should conclude with "I don't know" until a probable/proven explanation is presented. I realized that this faulty reasoning was inherent to all historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection. They all followed the format of coming up with all possibilities, then showing that they all failed, leaving Jesus being God and resurrecting as the only remaining option. This completely defeated the only remaing line of reasoning I had left, and was the final nail in the coffin for my Christianity.

As a last ditch effort of looking for comfort, I looked up to the poster on my wall (this one). It contained a lot of quotes relating to Jesus, one of which was by Josh McDowell. I had always taken comfort in it as giving me confidence that Christianity was true. The quote was "After I set out to refute Christianity intellectually and couldn't, I came to the conclusion the Bible was true and Jesus Christ was God's Son." I read it, and the argument from ignorance fallacy screamed back at me. It was over. I felt a surge of anger looking at the quotes on my poster. All about some random guy who died and never knew about the massive religion that was created about him.

What followed was the most intense fear I have ever felt. What if I'm wrong? Am I really going to risk eternity in Hell for this? I recognized that I had no good reason to believe Christianity was true, and that I therefore should not believe in it. But it felt terrifying to risk hell based on a lack of belief rather than disproving Christianity. But I also realized I couldn't go back. I tried praying to God, but I could no longer feel his presence, and I realized I no longer believed he was there. I thought about Pascal's Wager, how he had argued that people should believe in God to avoid Hell. As a Christian, I had thought that this was a good starting point, but that salvation comes from a loving relationship with God, not just belief. You need to actually love him. I realized that I wasn't capable anymore of experiencing a true love for something that I didn't even think existed. Then the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. I deserved hell. But I didn't think I was a bad person. I was only trying to find the proof I needed so that I could be a good Christian and lead others to Christ.

I thought about the apologetics as to why unbelievers deserved hell. That there was no such thing as a "nonresistent nonbeliever", that unbelievers really just hate God, and that nothing would convince them, even if they saw Jesus face-to-face. I realized that if Jesus appeared in front of me, I would assume that I was dreaming or hallucinating before considering that he is real. Did that make me a bad person? Was all of this just because I hated God? No, if there was evidence, I would believe again. But all the evidence we needed to believe was supposed to be already here. The only ones who don't believe are those that supress the truth in unrighteousness. I went around and around in my thoughts like this for a while. I would try to focus on other things, but would suddenly be hit again with "What if I'm wrong?", and it would start all over again. I had nightmares of hell. I didn't even know what to do with myself. Christianity had been everything to me, and was the core of my identity. And now it was gone. If I felt happy, I would suddenly be hit with the fear that I was only happy because the Devil had led me astray. If I felt sad, it must be that I'm getting what I deserved for abandoning God.

Then I felt a sudden appetite to learn everything I had been avoiding out of fear that I wasn't going to be prepared and thus lose my faith. That wasn't a worry any longer. Since exams were finished by this point, I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands. So I started watching a ton of atheist content (I had defaulted to atheism since I had no evidence to support any religion at all, and all of the ones I was aware of suffered from the same problems as Christianity anyway). I also started learning about the academic study of Christianity. In particular, I began to learn about the historical development of Hell and Satan, and about a lot of problems with the Bible that I had never encountered before. I began to see the manipulation tactics and patterns of abuse that had kept me locked in. I began to see how Hell was developed as a very effective manipulation tool, even if that had not been the intent. I opened a notepad on my computer and wrote out all of my old beliefs about unbelievers (the stuff I talked about above), and named the file "Toxic". This allowed me to move past it, and over time, my fear of hell began to fade. By the time a month had passed, I was no longer having nightmares of hell.

After that intense burst and the fading of my fear and guilt, depression began to settle in. I realized that I didn't really know who I was anymore or what I believed. Much of my identity, beliefs, and morals had been based on Christianity. I had a lot of work to do to build my beliefs and morals back up. I also wasn't sure how I was going to explain to my parents that I didn't believe anymore. They would be devastated. They would think that their daughter is going to go to Hell to suffer for all eternity. I wasn't even sure anymore whether I wanted to get married. The only reason I had agreed to the engagement was because I thought God wanted me to. But now I didn't believe in him anymore. What did I even want in life? My life's purpose was no longer to evangelize for Christ. Should I just focus on doing things that make me happy? Isn't that sinful? What do non-Christians even call "sins" anyway?

Now, 5 years later, I can confidently say that I am doing so much better. Leaving Christianity was one of the best things that ever happened to me. A lot of my guilt, anxiety, and perfectionism started to fade. A huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders now that I didn't have to rationalize or justify my former beliefs and the Bible. I have continued to learn about Christianity and the Old Testament from a scholarly perspective, and I recently started reading the entire Bible (which I hadn't done before). Fortunately, my parents fully accept me as an atheist. I learned that my mom didn't even really believe in hell anyway. My dad wasn't sure he believed it at all after the way a member of my church had been treated years earlier when he came out as gay. Neither of my parents have been back to church since the pandemic. I found out that I'm actually aromantic asexual, so my fiance and I broke up. Fortunately, we hadn't gotten married. Since learning that I'm asexual, the thought hasn't escaped me that I narrowly avoided a marriage in which I would have believed that it was my Christian duty to "provide" for my spouse. It's a terrifying thought. I still get angry sometimes about what I went through, and my recovery is an ongoing process. But I don't regret leaving.

My initial reason for beginning to post on multiple threads was because of an initial fear I have that lingers. I have an irrational fear of hell that keeps me from getting over the hump. As well as the feelings of internalized guilt and sin. It’s a weird place as, I cannot reconcile with the religion I was born into. The god I believed in is evil. The stance of god on women, slavery, and the general bloodthirsty slaughter he endorses is grotesque and demonstrable.

As an atheist or agnostic. (Only using this phrasing cause this will be posted on multiple subs). How did you overcome these feelings? If you’re an ex Christian how did you let go of these feelings? If you were always atheist, what is something interesting about this topic that you know that could help people overcome this fear.

A little bit about the purpose of this thread. This isn’t necessarily about me. I have already done a good bit of research on hell and it’s origins as well as read the Bible cover to cover and watch a LOT of media concerning this topic and I have for the most part decided it’s I want absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. I see it as harmful, and the political side of Christianity is destructive. I still have fear even though I have a lot of the information I need to make a rational decision. It just proves that I was indoctrinated and I have some issues to work through. But I hope sincerely that this thread can be a place for people struggling to gather information and connect with people.

Here's my story of religion and converting to atheism:

As a religious person, I always loved nature in the name of God, I even used to look up at the sky, smiling at God, as he was "all-loving, " I loved him too. I still love nature but not in the name of God, though.

I even tried to repent from my sins, but that was an exaggeration, apparently. Anyway, I never really intended to do any religous work. I guess I didn't know the term "agnostic". So, here's another aspect of my religious life: I never really knew what religion I wanted to be on. I used to swap between being a Muslim or a Christian. Muslim, Christian, Muslim, Christian, just couldn't decide! Though, I did watch videos about Christianity and Islam. But now, I have unsubscribed from all the religious channels I have known.

But I didn't know much about the beliefs I had, only the founders and their lives, maybe also a few rules, but still not much.

About Islam, I learned much about it only through school. As for the conquering history of it, at first I was like "Oh, that's great! What a good prophet my religion had!" But now, I'm like "Seriously? Those delusional f**ks conquered Mecca and offed non believers? That's wretched." Like really, just why? Why? WHY?! And in my opinion, they even have absurd rules like "Eating pork is haram"... What?

It actually was recently that I became an atheist. It was this year I was having a conversation with my grandma. She told me a lot about it. She told me that the prophets were paranoiac and God doesn't exist, etc. I even thought that prophets had mental, psychological problems.

As an atheist, I am even working on a book called "God Is A Delusion". Though, I'm reading the Quran in order to talk about religion. I even write down my theories about the existence of God, my perspective of the evolution theory, etc. So right now, I just think religion as a pile of mess that humans have created because they couldn't understand the universe and the Earth. As for my motivation of being an atheist, the absurdity of the "holy" books takes the first place. So here I am, an atheist.

I think I have thought about it a lot and now I want to make a quick good decision.

If I try to be honest with myself, I just can't accept the theistic concept of God. For the context, I'm a moderate Muslim (18M) and the only thing that is keeping me Muslim is the fear of getting killed by people cuz I live in Pakistan.

Even as a Muslim, I don't believe in many of the things in which most Muslims believe in.

I don't believe in any of the miracles. Religious people say that God will burn you for rejecting the truth and accepting the miracles is also rejecting the truth (reality of the world) so why should I believe in it?

Prayer just don't make sense to me. Humans believed in thousand of Gods and prayed and worshipped them but for the most human history, they made almost no progress which is the evidence that prayer and worship did no significant good to the humanity. As David Deutsch says that there is only one way to make progress in any field, conjecture and criticism which should also be applied to God and religions. I strongly believe in realism and I don't understand why will God interfere in the universe matters for any reason.

I think Sam Harris once said this,

Religious faith, on the other hand, erodes compassion. Thoughts like, 'this might be all part of God's plan,' or 'there are no accidents in life,' or 'everyone on some level gets what he or she deserves' - these ideas are not only stupid, they are extraordinarily callous. They are nothing more than a childish refusal to connect with the suffering of other human beings. It is time to grow up and let our hearts break at moments like this.

My family made some poor decisions in life but they just say that a person only gets what God wills.

You are in this universe for just a few seconds and then thinking that God will judge you based on your life looks very childish. If God will give you an infinite hell or heaven based on finite life then the finite life compared with an infinite life is almost non-existent and again it looks like such an illogical thing to believe in.

I'm not rich or very talented so it feels good to believe in a God who listens to your prayers and thinking about an eternal life in heaven. But again it's just blind optimism like the man who made Titanic ship and said that this ship can't sink in any way. So it looks nothing more than a wishful thinking. I may have atheistic beliefs but still I have to look like a Muslim in my society. Atheism is very far, there is not even a non-muslim in the town I live in and you can get killed for just asking a simple question on Islam so I'm feeling very odd.

There are many Muslims I respect who are trying to make some reforms but I just don't want any religion label. It's better to be always in doubt instead of a blind belief. I try live with good values cuz it's good for me and it's the type of person I want to become not because I'm fearful of hell. If any God wants to give me heaven for the good then it's a bonus point but there is no point in speculating about it.

You don't need religion to be a good person. But as a good person, you need a religion to do bad things. Morality is a very subjective thing it changes with respect to different societies and times.

Some of my doubts are that if religion is false then why are there so many mystical figures in the history? Why so many stories of miracles are attached with it? Many of the prophets or messengers were pious people of their time so how all of them can be liars? What about ghosts and paranormal activities recorded on camera?

If anyone can recommend some books then I'll appreciate it. Especially on morality. I'm thinking of starting with Richard Dawkins books.

Why is this post being deleted on r/atheism? Is there any problem.

Hello. I am known amongst my friends and family for having a kind, sensitive heart. Maybe a little too much for my own good, but nevertheless.

I hear a lot of times, people in Christian circles say that people who leave were never Christians. That they faked it. But I’m here to tell you that isn’t true. Because from the age of 12 up until recently, I was trying so hard to have a relationship with this god. Prayer, church, daily devotions…I did it all. But even at a young age, I felt so repulsed by the way god and his followers acted, past and present. The war, the torture, the forced conversions…I made excuses for this behavior because I was afraid.

But I’m not afraid anymore.

I’m not afraid to speak out against the cruelty. Or the god they so love and place above everything.

This god, who commands absolute obedience.

This god, who created hell and sends people there.

This god, who values his “glory” over the suffering of others.

This god, who subjugates women, whose followers spew hate and whose book is fairy tales at best, but evil at worst.

I finally have the courage to stand up and say, no! This is wrong. Not only is this god evil, but the religion bids people to do evil in his name.

No more. If I am to be a kind person with a healthy mentality, I must unlearn and deconstruct the toxic faith I grew up with.

I’m glad to be out. ❤️

I don't know what decisions the whole world or God have made, I only know that after death I will never look at Islam again despite reading the three monotheistic religions for historical reasons without harming the whole world, it is horrible how God and the world decide against my will and destroy my destiny and I don't agree. Why have I supported Palestine and Islam for several years? the reason is simple: the genocide of the Arabs is horrendous and the history of the leader of Hamas,Ismail Haniyeh is horrible and horrendous, he was already born disastrously weak. God and the whole world have gone against me because they don't agree that I study Islam,Muhammad and Arabs despite the fact that I like them, is it a dangerous and limited desire? I disagree, everyone has the right to look at these things. I despise the world and global religions, if I die and resurrect, practically the things I have seen now,disappear forever violating my rights. I hate afterlife now and this world has no right to violate my rights. Should I take the long life? maybe if it existed so I avoid death and losing my legal rights and if science fails me? It is useless to look at what is there, just a useless afterlife that does not deserve to exist.

#God Only Wants To Be Worshipped

In college I worked at a hotel. The manager of the hotel had two kids around 8-10 years old that hung around the front desk with me all the time. I'd help them with there homework when it was slow. They were really nice kids.

But they were Hindu.

Growing up in a small town in the South, everyone I knew was Christian.

I asked a couple of different preachers what would happen to these really nice kids when they died. What if they were the Mother Theresa of their generation? Devoting their life to help the less fortunate. Would they go to hell because they weren't Christian?

The answer was, yes, they would go to hell.

This is what took me away from religion. Once I realized it had nothing to do with being a good person and everything to do who you worshipped I was out.

A loving God wouldn't care who you worshipped. He wouldn't need his ego stroked. He would judge you by your actions alone. A dictator needs to be worshipped to feel validated.

So I step away from religion but still think that most of the nicest people I know were Christians and it was still a force for good in this world.

#Benny Hinn's Cult-Like Following

But then I went to see Benny Hinn in concert at the request of my religious mother in law. It was so surreal. He actually said out loud, "If you only have money to feed your children give it to me now and God will repay you tenfold in the future."

And then a random lady stands up, a mic is rushed over to her, and she tells everyone that she did this the last time Benny Hinn was in town and she was afraid of how angry her husband was going to be at her and she was worried about how she was going to feed her kids but as soon as she got home she had an unexpected IRS refund of $10,000 in her mailbox. The crowd ate this up. The stadium was suddenly flooded with people in the aisles passing a hat for donations.

Benny started to pray. Music was playing. Benny started to speak faster. The music kept up. The crescendo was building until suddenly the volume was jacked up to 11, Benny yelled something (amen?), and there was an incredibly loud boom.

And then it was on. Men in black suits surrounded the stage, the audience started swarming the stage, it was chaos.

One of Benny's handlers brings one audience member to the stage. Benny asks him what he wants healed. You hear his story, Benny prays, and then hits him hard on the forehead with the palm of his hand. He falls backwards and then claims he has been healed.

The handlers bring a couple of more people up one at a time for a similar performance but then they start bringing 10 at a time and you don't hear there stories. Instead, Benny just hits them in the head and they fall backwards as though they had been healed. A few people didn't fall when they got hit. Those people got hit again. You quickly learned it was in your best interest to fall when you got hit the first time.

This event made me realize how fully hoodwinked these people were. They failed to see obvious nonsense because they were so deep into the cult.

#A Preacher Reveals Dark Secret

Back at the hotel, a co-worker kept trying to get me to go to her church. She loved there preacher and his sermons and thought I would enjoy him too.

Eventually, I agree to go to church with her one Sunday. She promised this sermon was going to be great because the preacher had just gotten back from a retreat that culminated in a barefoot walk across hot coals.

The preacher tells about his week at the retreat. He tells about how well he got to know the others at the retreat that were strangers when he arrived.

He says that before the walk across hot coals the facilitator told everyone that they had to reveal their secrets in this safe place. You can't have things weighing you down as you cross the hot coals else you will get burnt.

The preacher says he shared his secret. A secret he had never told anyone. He felt such a relief and everyone in the group was so supportive. He felt so much love that he now knew it was safe to share his secret with the congregation. He says, "As a teenager, I had a consensual incestual relationship with my mother."

I'm not sure how this effected my turn against religion but it's just a wild story. I never went back to that church.

#George Bush and Kissing Hanks Ass

Up until this point I still felt Christianity was a force for good. I was a Republican through the 90's. I felt like they were trying to reduce the deficit and doing the right thing.

But George Bush immediately took a budget surplus and turned it into a deficit, started a war with a country that had not attacked us, and was torturing POW's that he conveniently called Enemy Combatants so he could pretend like the torture didn't violate Geneva conventions.

I left the GOP but was amazed that my friends and family didn't. I thought they chose the GOP because it is aligned with their beliefs but really it was just another cult that they would follow anywhere no matter how often their position flipped.

The fact that Christians were supporting this was the final straw. I could no longer believe they were a force for good. Add on top of that there vocal opposition to letting people marry the person they love unless it fit there very narrow definition of acceptable and I was completely out on religion.

It was about this time that I ran across Kissing Hanks Ass which at first I thought was just a weird story. But it's really a story about religion and how people can be convinced to believe anything.

It made it very clear how cult-like all religions are.

Original Story https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/hank.htm

Video https://youtu.be/zaFZQBb2srM?si=Kl1i7kgBQWzA4ndn

As someone who was born Muslim raised as Muslim in a Muslim community that is taught to reject any and every foreigner ideas and stick with our teachings, I'm a person that never limits my questions and i like to have freedom of asking regardless of the restrictions in islam to not ask anything about god's existence.

Today i have finally decided to leave the religion because of many thoughts I've had throughout my 21 years of life

For these that say i may not be educated enough in Islam, I have been attending Islamic classes since i was 4 years old and for 12 years, I have read and memorized over 25 verses ( that's over 500 pages and 60,000 words ) from the Quran out of 30 verses

• 1 It's taught in islam that our purpose of existence is purely to worship god and only, The only way for you to hell is to stop believing in god or worship something other than Allah, To put it simply if you bring an atheist that does all the good things in life ( saving people, feeding the poor, taking care of the orphans, etc ) But he doesn't believe or worship Allah, on the other hand a Muslim that does all the terrible things including taking innocent lives, but he still worships allah fully, The atheist will be permanently set in hell while the Muslim will get his fair portion of punishment and then will be sent to heaven eternally because in the Quran it says god will forgive everything except for not believing in him, That seems to be unfair.

• 2 The idea of religion doesn't seem to give everyone fair chance of believing in god, For example these who lived during the period of prophets or gods have much better chance of believing in god because they got to witness all the miracles and stuff ( although i believe all the miracles were faked in the books and they didn't really happen but let's say they did ), so they got visible evidence of god's existence while we people thousand years ago are expected to believe in god through a book ? What's the difference between me and for example muhammed or Joseph why they got to see all the miracles and a guaranteed path to heaven.

• 3 I believe the idea of god and religion came from the fear of the unknown and the fear of death, Humans are too afraid of " not existing " anymore so they had to find something to cope with that, when u look at animals they don't seem to worship anything that's because they don't have the intelligence to think of something as religion.

• 4 Seek power, History is full of religious blood and each religion fighting to expend their influence and spread their ideologies, How to make someone die for you ? By implementing the idea of reward after death in his mind, And that's another reason for religion's existence to have an army that will not fear death because they believe there's a big reward awaiting them afterwards.

• 5 When you debate with religious people they always bring up the topic of universe existence and that the only logical explanation of it is some magical being sitting on top of everything and he just though about universe and tara it was brought to life , Meanwhile when u ask them who created God they will simply answer god have no begging and no end, Why shouldn't the universe also have no begging and no end ?

These were the main reasons i dont believe anymore, do u think I'm bringing up fair points, and what's your point of view, Why did u leave religion? Thank you all for reading and i apologize for my Grammar

For so many years I believed through my parents that God is good and does miracles then I find out that in fact God is cruel,does not do miracles,impoverishes people,limits people to Christianity,is evil and haughty,this God of the Underworld that I have known does not correspond with the God of the Bible and is yet another failed human experiment. I also heard that after death I don't get the phone or even the Arabic story and that it is about Muhammad because I was forced into Christianity despite the fact that I don't like this religion and I have seen so many inhumane corruptions. Basically if on earth I suffer,after death I will suffer doubly without remembering anything illegally. Good God doesn't exist so I conclude that it is better science,Overman and scientific immortality so we don't depend too illegally on adhlias that destroy human rights.

I tell you that I have a Christian background forced upon me by my parents, and this religion suffocates me to such an extent that I have become agnostic. From this religion I learned that I could get Santa Claus and the Epiphany without any problems however I understood that they were not real,they were children's stuff and created by human mentality. From this religion I have unattainable desires,miracles disappear and separate me from a Muslim partner. And I find that God is cruel,haughty,narcissistic,selfish and believes that I do not deserve to exist even though I have not done a sin, the christianity is fake. Islam has become a very bad religion,Muhammad as a fictional character has repudiated me from Islam and separated me from Muslims because he wants to be more corrupt,narcissistic and selfish with my desires, Islam is fake. Another ruin otherverse Christianity and Islam I didn't get a famous man I know namely Ismail Haniyeh, this guy ruined his reputation,Islam and he doesn't convert to Christianity if problems pop up,irresponsible man. These two monotheistic religions have disappointed me all my life, and this world that destroys my important desires is no fun. I conclude that the good God of Christianity does not exist; he is too evil.

I am a former evangelical pastor of the holy-rolling, tongue-talking, “name it and claim it” variety. I wasn’t raised with any religion - it was a nonissue in my childhood - but I later married into a wonderful Pentecostal extended family. I “gave my heart to Jesus” one night when I was in my late 20s, raising three small children by myself for six months, battling postpartum depression, facing the potential end of my marriage, and struggling to make ends meet on social assistance.

My “born again” experience that night is one I’ve passionately testified about many times as a Christian. It was as real to me as any “natural” experience, and I felt hope for the first time in months. My depression seemed to lift and I was happy and excited for the future. I immediately immersed myself in my newfound faith. I began to attend the church my in-laws belonged to. I was welcomed with open arms, and invited to get involved right away. I attended every single service my church offered: the new convert’s classes, women’s ministry, pre-service prayer, mid week bible study, adult Sunday school, and two services every Sunday. If the doors were open, I was there. I was making lots of new friends, going to church social gatherings, and being mentored by people I respected who were pillars of the church. I began to earnestly study the Bible to learn more about God and to make me a better follower of Christ. I was all in, totally devoted and eager to be transformed.

Over the next two decades or so, my God belief became my entire life and identity, as I strove to live my faith to the best of my ability. My faith guided everything from how I parented, how I determined my morality and values, who my friends were, and how I treated others to what I watched, read, or listened to, how I spent my time, how I dressed, what I ate and drank, and even how I was intimate with my husband.

I completed a year of Bible college, and served in various ministry positions: Sunday school teacher, bible study leader, women’s ministry president, children’s ministry coordinator, youth pastor, and prayer ministry leader, and in 2013 I became an ordained pastor. For years, I existed contentedly within my small, insular bubble of belief and, as is the nature of indoctrination, I was blind to the abusive, high-demand, cult-like nature of my fundamentalist doctrine, and to the harm I was perpetuating from the pulpit. I was fully convinced in the truth and reality of my particular Christian worldview.

My own journey out of religion after more than two decades of devout belief can be divided into two stages. The first stage was a slow and careful examination of some more extreme doctrines that I could no longer justify with a good conscience: eternal suffering for a finite offence, a loving God sending millions of believers of religions to hell, a man’s authority over a woman, and the Bible’s clear condemnation of the amazing and beautiful queer human beings I love. It took years of chipping away at the brick wall of indoctrination to find a foothold in my faith that I could hang onto: I was unsure of everything except that there has to be a creator of the universe.

The second stage of my deconstruction was sudden, swift, and accidental - like simultaneously having a blindfold removed and a rug pulled out from under me. It was dizzying, foreign, and it took a lot of work to regain my balance. It was a challenging, complex, and often painful time.

In the past few years, I have been uncovering my authentic self, realigning my morals and values, and discovering a new sense of connection and oneness with humanity. Thanks for letting me share my story here in this forum.

38M, USA. Thank you for having this forum to share experiences. I could never have gotten all of this out otherwise.

Warning: this is long. Edit: grammar.

I was born to Catholic parents who were rigorous in their beliefs, church attendance, and more. We went to mass Saturday night every week (my father worked Sundays), then Sunday school the following morning, days of obligation, Stations of the Cross every Friday night during Lent, etc.

While religion served an important ritualistic component in their house, it did not translate well to improving their behavior. They cursed and swore with great frequency, routinely beat myself and my brother, and were emotionally and psychologically abusive. My father had a horrid temper and punched holes into doors, threw objects, and caused other damage to the house. My mother was unstable and manipulative.

This isn’t intended to serve as a trauma post, but I feel this is important to note because at an early age I dissociated “them” (i.e. my parents) from “God” and “religion”. I feared my parents and loathed them as I got older, but I saw religion and God as an escape from them from an early age. Because God could see and knew my pain, there was solace and comfort in that idea; an idea which I kept with myself for a long time throughout my life journey. As a result of this “God walking with me” mindset, I stayed with religion for a long time, even after I left home.

My parents used religion to justify their parenting style. They bragged to friends and family about how they beat us; my father mostly. It’s astonishing to me today as an adult that no one ever pushed back on them when they would tell these stories in graphic detail. My father was normally quiet socially, but the liveliness which he would suddenly acquire as he told these stories, including when I was teenager, was not only embarrassing, but sickening.

The fact that they justified physical abuse and more (the depth of which I won’t cover in detail here) is abhorrent. But as a child, I concluded this was just ‘the way things were’ and that everyone else’s parents must have also been like this.

When I was in middle school, my mother stepped up the intensity of her Catholicism to another degree. Looking back, both my parents had become more political in the few years leading up to this as a result of habitually listening to conservative talk radio (which was frequently playing in our house).  The 1996 presidential election and Lewinsky scandal that followed incensed them (that damn Bill Clinton having sex!), and they became ultra-conservative in their political fervor and applied it to their religion as well.

They became very critical of people who didn’t go to church around this time (they’d never done that before) and became overtly superstitious in their practice at times. As an example, one Ash Wednesday, we went to church and received ashes on the forehead. Some time had passed, and I was preparing to leave the house for a music lesson in the evening. While checking my appearance, I noticed my hair had brushed most of the ashes off my forehead and only a small black smudge remained. I cleaned it off.

I went downstairs to depart for the lesson and my mother became very angry and stated, “you better hope you don’t die tonight because you’re in trouble if you do”, insinuating I’d be going to hell for wiping the incomprehensible ash smudge off my forehead. We had been in a bad car accident on the way back from a music lesson not three years prior and I couldn’t help but think of dying in the car the entire night.

My parents became convinced that liberals, in particular non-religious people, were seeking to ruin children and the schools by this point. Talk radio and conversations with our next-door neighbor who shared the same ideas, ‘confirmed’ to them that public schools were corrupting the youth. They believed this, despite no tangible evidence. For the record, I was never in trouble and was getting near straight A’s in school up to this point. I was a fairly shy kid, but I had a small circle of friends too.

I would tell them their views were wrong, but there was no getting through to them. They got it in their heads that schools were ‘promoting’ rampant sexual activity, including prostitution(?), and believed they had to pull me out of public school to keep me from becoming a liberal, hypersexual, non-contributing member of society. They enrolled me in a Catholic school which was an hour’s commute each direction when I entered high school. I hated the place, which had a quasi-reform school reputation (though again, there was nothing to be reformed, maybe aside from some social anxiety that resulted from years of abuse at this point).

Leaning on an earlier theme, I relied on God to pull me through this struggle and exile, having been torn from my previous friends and sent to this school, which was quantifiably worse than my public school in the academic sense. The behavior of the average student was also worse than it was in the public school I went to as well. It remains a thoroughly confusing situation to me, but in my parent’s minds, they view themselves as martyrs who ‘sacrificed’ and made ‘tough choices’ for the faith of their family.

Other kid’s parents came up to me multiple times throughout my schooling and asked me why I was there—why my parents pulled me out of school district X (it had a good repute) to go to this Catholic school. I told them to ask my parents themselves. None did.

In a sick twist of irony, my parents sent me to this Catholic school in part to ‘keep me from sex’, yet I was sexually assaulted by a fellow female student my sophomore year. This event was profoundly confusing to me especially when I made a tangential reference to my parents about something along these lines having happened a year later, when they stated that I should feel “lucky” instead of complaining about it.

Another ironic twist occurred during my junior year. My mother, who was the most boisterously Catholic person I knew, deemed that the Catholic church was corrupt—not because of any wrongdoing in the clergy or anything like that, but because the church was getting ‘soft’ and liberal in her view. There was too much ‘social justice’ talk going on for her liking. Between this and the influence of the mother of one of my younger brother’s friends, she became Evangelical almost overnight.

I was pulled between two churches for a while, going to Catholic church with my father on Saturdays, the Evangelical church with my mother Sundays, and an evening Evangelical bible study on Sunday evenings with both parents. The fact I was expected to straddle both lines was again strange and confusing to me, especially when no real explanation was ever given by my mother as to why she left Catholicism (I felt she owed me a deeper one besides complaints of 'liberalism' in light of my parents pulling me from school/friends because Catholicism was ‘so important’ to them). It was even more odd because I picked up early on that the Evangelical church people really looked down on Catholics, yet I was attending a Catholic school. Somehow, I made it work.

By this point, religion was deeply engrained into me and every friend I made in high school was at least nominally Catholic and even the most nominal ones I befriended respected and usually upheld the social traditions. I later ended up going to a Catholic college and played in the worship band at the Evangelical church over the summers and holidays (my mother left this church for a different more hard-core Evangelical church at some point that I don’t recall with precision).

My ‘deconstruction’ began somewhat through life necessity. After college, I was very depressed and disillusioned, having gone to school for four years at a school and in a major I hated simply because it was what my parents wanted me to do. I was looking for ‘help’ and guidance again from God and wasn’t finding much as an adult.

I also was under a time crunch still doing music on the side while working full time. I realized I had to choose one ‘faith’ and stick to it rather than straddle the middle ground, which had become unsustainable both timewise and socially.

I had begun researching concepts between Catholicism and Evangelicalism, and Evangelicalism made much less sense to me than former. The Evangelical concept of predestination was always something I found intellectually and morally unsound—that a ‘loving’ God would knowingly create people as a pyre to keep hell burning is an inherent contradiction. There are a lot of other crazy Evangelical beliefs, the whole list I won’t run through, but that and the over politicism turned me off in a huge way over time (George Bush was basically deified in the Evangelical church I had experienced—Dick Cheney’s conversation to the faith was specifically and frequently prayed for in bizarre fashion and the military and its actions were worshiped and never to be questioned—I had no idea what any of this actually had to do with Christianity though).

The Evangelical bible study was also something that in its own way, deconstructed the Evangelicalism, and in some ways Christianity at large, for me. It was blatantly apparent to me over the summers I partook in it since high school that people were just projecting meanings onto vague words to fit their own worldviews and opinions. People were simply celebrating their own individual and group biases while reading ‘confirmations’ onto things that often had nothing at all to do with what people were prepondering.

Having grown up Catholic, I found there wasn’t an emphasis on reading the bible in that tradition. Of course, I knew the gospels to a ‘t’ and was familiar with a lot of the New Testament as well as the key stories of the Old from the liturgy, but there were massive parts I had never read before. In this bible study, I encountered a large portion of the canon for the first time, and I honestly thought it was absolute junk.

God in the Old Testament (and even the New, though to a lesser degree) is ingeniously heinous and evil, sometimes telling people to do something and punishing them for doing what he told them to do, while glorifying the most insidious of villains all the while. The more I was exposed to the bible, the more repugnant I found it and the less respect I had for it. How any church could build itself on “sola scriptura” was simply demented to me at this point.

I even found the less in-your-face disgusting stuff like the Psalms and book of Wisdom to be trite and lacking insight. I’d heard people talk about the ‘great wisdom’ of the bible, but I wasn’t seeing it, given what was written consisted of basic common sense I’d figured out as a young man on my own.

The last thing that freed me from Evangelicalism were the people themselves. First, the bible study in general was and had been getting increasingly uncomfortable for me. Even though I had only partaken in the summers after college began, I was getting pressure to join that full time after graduation. In fairness, I had somewhat created this issue, because while I wanted to quit well before, I continued to go, relying on the ‘out’ of school come the fall, thus delaying having to upset the others by leaving.

In addition to viewing the bible as trash, I increasingly saw the people as very fake. They analyzed every word one said, especially when socializing, correcting you for any ‘wrong’ opinions or attitudes that seeped out. I remember the summer of senior year talking with a woman at a meal following the study that I mentioned liking this one song we played at that morning’s service. It was a snazzy song and we were a great band—it was fun, there’s no stating otherwise!

She scolded me for liking the song in question because it was “too self-centered” in her view. Keep in mind this was a Christian worship song played at the church she went to…but I was wrong for liking the song. I started paying more attention to the level of self-righteousness the people there displayed. While she was one of the more aggressive ones in terms of vocalizing her views, such attitudes were not uncommon. People would frequently try to one-up society and even each other at times by pointing out how something others enjoyed was ‘ungodly’ or a risk for ‘backsliding’, and therefore wrong in some insane way.

At times, people’s behavior was not only bizarre but brazenly rude. There was one woman who went as far as to make fun of a young woman’s prayer request intention. The young woman (in or just out of college…she was a one-time guest and it will be obvious why she never came back in a second) asked the group to pray for her housing search when they went around asking for intentions.

A ‘Karen’ loudly opined, “I wish my problems were that hard”, followed by a sarcastic laugh, implying that her issues were of greater hardship and importance to God, before an awkward silence engrossed the scene. Eventually someone else added another intention and things weirdly continued as if nothing had happened.

Lastly, there was the worship band—they were pressuring me to join the church full time after graduating too. I was hesitant due to the factors above

Though I did play a final summer, the music director became frustrated with me and let his mask down. It became clear that he did not care about me at all as a person and viewed me as a commodity whom they could extract further free labor from. He and the others were nice to me at first because they wanted to draw me in and gain my trust/commitment, but once I had a foot in the door, they asked for more and more of my time and were rather aggressive in doing so—guilting me when I said ‘no’ because I wanted to be paid.

By that point in time, I’d found out others in the band were being paid (a well-kept secret) and I wanted to be compensated for my efforts too. They fought tooth and nail and relinquished right at the end as the final week of my ‘service’ arrived, but at that point, I was over it and told them I was finished.

While it was never overt and something that bothered me more on a subconscious level, there was always a subtle undertone was the classism in the Evangelical church, which was another reason I never felt fully comfortable there. The church largely consisted of upper middle-class people with some wealthy folks, and some local celebrities sprinkled in (e.g. tv personalities, NFL players), while I came from a lower middle-class background. The whole ‘we are all Christians’ is total bull—there are clear diving lines you were expected not to cross.

Being a musician, I was one of the peasants who got to glimpse at the other side, and it was a turn off seeing some of the things the pastor would yell at people for or how he treated his staff. The whole service was really a “show” in every sense planned down to the literal minute each week. For those who have seen the Hillsong documentary, it was like this, only without the known public sexual improprieties.  

This narrowed down my religion to one church for the time being. I was 22 years old.

A series of unfortunate events played out over the next two years and I ultimately ‘rebelled’ for the first time by going back to school and getting a Master’s degree in something I wanted to do.

My mother was convinced I was going to hell for ‘wasting my talent’, something she’d beat me over the head with since the time I was little. She often used the story Jesus tells in the gospel where God sends someone to hell for not investing and multiplying their “one talent” to manipulate me into doing what she wanted me to do in life (because only if she decreed something a ‘talent’ or ‘of worth’, was it so!). Sadly, it was only much later in life did I find out the “talent” is a form of money (still a very repugnant story nonetheless).

After my master’s, I became increasingly anti-bible and resented that aspect of my earlier life, yet felt residual guilt for being a ‘heretic’ for coming to that conclusion. I had more time on my hands and set out to put an end to this question of religion once and for all.

I’d become curious what others thought along these lines and I wound up reading “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine (it’s funny how religious, ‘Merica first, conservatives ‘love’ Thomas Paine, but never mention this book). It was the first heretical piece of literature I had ever read to this point in my life. How I ended up reading it or why is something I don’t remember, but I’m glad that I did.

I loved it. It was like reading most of the things I had thought myself about the bible, only written down in an eloquent manner, with additional items I had not previously considered all in one place. I found it edifying and began seeking out other literature along these lines.

I eventually stopped going to church and spent the ensuing seven years floating in and out of Catholicism. I would go to church for a few months for a while and then not do so at all for a year. Then I’d come back for a few months, then leave for a chunk of time. When I would go, I would thoroughly disregard the OT reading and epistles and increasingly think about how crass or devoid of meaning the readings specifically were. That said, I did like showing up early before most people arrived or staying afterwards when most people left. I found those specific experiences in meditation edifying and little else.

Looking back, I think it was hard for me to just let go of it ‘cold turkey’. I don’t want to compare it to addiction, but I just could not let go of it that swiftly; I needed to wean off for whatever reason. I’m not sure I fully understand this element even now, years after it played out.

Spurred by people who came into my life as this was happening, I started reading Gnostic texts and doing more research into the early church. One thing that I personally found with Catholicism is that it makes a great deal of sense philosophically IF you accept certain foundational tenants. It appealed to me over Evangelicalism because there was an inherent logic to most of the catechism (again, if and only if you accept certain foundational tenants).

But the more I learned, the more I saw the falsehood of those tenants. I saw how the early church leaders agreed on little and most of what is the dogma of the faith was decided upon by bullying, slaughtering dissenters, and ultimately a popular vote. This very human description of how the institution came about is not only logical rationally, but empirically sound when taken in the context of how other power grabs, political movements, and psychological conditioning efforts combine and unfold. This tore away one of the foundational tenants the rest of the philosophy is built upon as I see it, as this pillar of the “early church” and “early church fathers” was key to establishing the concept of church ‘authority’ and legitimacy to me earlier in life.

Furthermore along these lines, I learned about Astro-theology, pagan cults, and sun worship and how the Christian story is lifted from other earlier (and often, from a story telling standpoint, better) myths. I read Hermetic and Kabbalistic works and they informed new thoughts and completely changed how I saw spirituality.

I learned that people who are canonized saints from the early church didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus and wrote openly to the contrary. I learned what utter trash people like Augustine were and look at them with disgust as the worst of humanity, not ‘saints’.

While my leaving the Catholic church depended on these logical elements, others informed that decision as well.

I had never dated nor so much as hooked up with anyone to this point in my life because I liked guys and was firmly in the closet. This became a bigger and bigger issue for me, especially as I moved through my 20’s and friends moved or fell away. I lost other friends who became ‘traditional Catholics’ because I wasn’t willing to live a ‘trad life’ alongside of them.

This loss of social interaction brought about a panging sense of loneliness. It took the entire seven years mentioned above for me to finally come out and start accepting myself.

I saved this part of the story for later on, because this is where it belongs. I had seen being ‘same sex attracted’ as a non-issue earlier in life. I simply viewed it as something I shouldn’t act upon and had to keep to myself. That was literally the beginning and end of it for me—I ‘accepted’ being single, though I would make comments as if I were straight at times as ‘cover’ to get through awkward social interactions when the topic or dating or what have you came up with friends, family, etc.

This all was of course very destructive to me, though I didn’t see the damage until well after it was done. I truly had developed a Stockholm syndrome to how Catholicism/Christianity viewed me and people like me and as I deconstructed the underpinnings of the Catholic faith, I began to deconstruct its moral and sexual teachings as well (I still believe in such a thing as “morality”, but not the way the church does at all). These fully crumbled near the end of my seven years of bouncing in and out, but once they did, that was the end.

I would also say that the people were a factor, as was the case for Evangelicalism. I was working for a Catholic non-profit social service agency during most of the first half of this seven-year outro from Christianity. It was easily the most vicious employment experience I have ever encountered in my life. I could write an entire book on this alone.

The president of the organization was/is a nun, who I can best describe as cold-hearted, callous, and elitist. It was cartoonish how badly she treated people, yet would proudly flaunt the cloth to garner favors for herself.

There was an issue of fraud brought to my attention near the end of my tenure there and the nature of my position put it on me to investigate the claim. ‘Sister’ lied and covered up for the CFO and others throughout the investigation. She refused to hold anyone accountable for their illegal actions. I looked for another job and quickly left once that became clear to me, but not before turning the matter over to the State Attorney General. Only after they investigated the situation a year later, did any action occur.

This nun was very highly thought of in the diocese and had close ties to the bishop. Seeing her actions and her hypocrisy play out in front of me badly damaged my already dwindling faith. I know others who worked there and while they saw different things at different times than I did, they came to the similar conclusions.

About a year after I left, the same State Attorney General concluded a report on abuse within my hometown diocese that laid bare decades of sexual abuse of children. Though I was never abused myself, I had encountered several of the priests mentioned in the report throughout my years in the church.

The bishop, who helped cover up these crimes, remains to the day of this post. Another cardinal was whisked out of the country by the Vatican so that he could avoid having to testify in any legal action, or risk indictment and potential prosecution himself. The fact the Catholic Church did this proves beyond any reasonable doubt how appalling the leaders of the church are.

Shortly thereafter, the seven year period concluded when a neighbor accidentally caused a fire that burned my apartment building down and I lost 99.9% of my belongings.

In the aftermath, of my two remaining Catholic ‘friends’ from school, both of whom knew about the event, only one so much as texted me back. He said it was a shame and changed the subject. My parents were equally unbothered, and my mother fought a relative who wanted to give me money to assist in the recovery.

That event served as the final sever for me from Christianity. These great Christians, whose God I’d been self-deprecating most of my life for, disregarded me when it all went down, when I needed someone, anyone.

I have not been back since.

I continue to work through decades of religious guilt, indoctrination, and shame, though I am much better today than I was a decade ago.

It was difficult destroying the entire social construct of the first 30+ years of my life and it was exceedingly difficult sifting through the mental refuse and mental health aspects that accompanied it. The mental conditioning runs deeper than most people imagine. I have not missed carrying that baggage with me though.

You cannot live your life based on some institution or what other people think you should do. You can only live your life and your truth and the better you do those things, the more fulfilled you will be. That is what I have learned and that is what I seek to actualize every day.

I'm 15 I was a Muslim and I used to defend my religion online and used to watch religious videos but there were many things that didn't make sense to me like the prophet splitting the moon. the stick becoming a snake by Moses etc etc. and scientific errors Which made me to question my religion+ my parents forcing me to pray made me pissed And some teaching like The food doesn't eliminates hunger instead it's god that eliminates hunger The medicines doesn't cure a person But it's god that does that Which really didn't made any sense to me And I met another former Muslim from my school on Instagram and I had discussions with him which also convinced me to leave my religion

• The genocide against Palestine is also one of the reasons because it god exist then why he isn't helping the innocent Palestinian who are being indiscriminately bombed by Israel? This is one of the reasons that also made me to lose faith in religions

Hi, I am an African teenager, and in the past week, I have been struggling. I have realized that I never believed in God. The reason I did was because my parents told me to, and I feared the consequences of not believing him such as going to hell.

But after some posts on the Atheism Reddit, I realized that there is nothing to fear. Nobody knows if Gods exist, everyone just believes he does, and there is no certainty. And most importantly I realized I believe there is a possibility of a god because there are so many things unexplained about our reality.

Sure, someday scientists will come up with an explanation and hopefully one of them is me, but I do not think there is enough evidence to say whether or not God exists. But now there is a problem, every time I see a mention of Christianity, I feel my heart rate rise, and I get scared.

I do not believe that there is a reason for everything or that something's are meant to happen, but my mind does. I saw a notification from this Christian visionary media, and my mind tried to tell me this was a sign to go back to Christianity. That is God telling me he is real.

I know it is bullshit, but my emotions are being used to influence me. I am a Secular Humanist because I believe Religion isn't needed for humans to be good, and for society to function. I can see why people say that, but I do not agree. That's like saying humans don't know wrong from right, and we are inherently drawn to bad things.

I am trying to be rational about it, but my emotions are telling something different. I need advice on what to do.

So I’ve posted about my own book, Journey to Reason, but have strongly recommended Marlene Wissell’s “Leaving the Fold,” since NCSE my goal is to suggest resources.

I’ve just found another really meaningful book. “Breaking Their Will,” by Janet Heimlich. I’m only 1/3 of the way in, but I think members of this subreddit would identify strongly with the survivors’ stories.

It was published in 2011 so I don’t know how readily available it is. But I thought I’d mention it.

My mother was always extremely religious just like her part of the family. My grandma used to tell me that she prayed while walking bare foot so that my mom could become pregnant and every time I was with my grandparents I always had to go to church. I'd pray, I didn't really care about religious organizations but I did pray. I don't remember when exactly this happened, but I had some confrontations with the priest in our town. When I was a kid, I found it difficult to stay calm and patient when I was in chirch. I'd get bored really quickly so I'd talk to whoever was sitting next to me. The priest pulled my hair once because I talked which I didn't really appreciate. I wasn't even talking out loud, just whispering. Thats when I started disliking the church. I had other altercations with him but nothing really that bad. I remember that we were forced to watch God not dead movie and the movie was absolutelly terrible. Atheism was presented to us in schools as evil. Our christianity teacher was really stupid and it showed me the first signs of religious people not talking sense. She talked about humans and I said that humans evolved from apes and she said "okay so why don't monkeys in the zoo talk". So its weird that in a way at the same time I was both a christian believing in creation and also someone who studied science a lot in school and trusted the scientific methods of explaining life. Actually interesting thing, the newer priest from my town recently knocked out a nun because he was aggressive drunk. And then nun actually told the news press that she fell. Its funny how far these people would go for something like religion.

At some point when I was 14 I went on a trip to my cousin's apartment (he was 24 at the time). I saw that his facebook status said that he was an atheist so I asked him why. He said that he doesn't believe in god because god is simply not real. I told him "okay but what about the bible?" He said something like "The bible is just a book written by random people". And then it just hit me and I started really thinking about it. And it really is that simple if you have an open mind. A lot of questions that can basically change my whole perception on life was not easy for my pea brain at the time. Then I started watching some youtubers to try and understand these things more and I came upon TheAmazingAtheist and TheCultOfDusty, who were really direct with their atheism in a funny way so they kept me watching their videos. Later on, I started thinking about my grandpa who was a really good person and he died pretty early from cancer. I started thinking about why the christian god who is good would do this. All of those things pretty much at fully converted me.

So after becoming a full atheist, I was a bit of an asshole, not gonna lie. I was very militant and liked telling people that I am more rational than they are. I do admit that I was a douche at the time, but shortly after that I stopped doing that. I have a few bad encounters with people later on (nothing physical) where my peers would insult me, my mom didn't want to believe me, etc. Nowadays when I come upon a strong christian, I avoid talking about it because I cba discussing it with someone who I know would ignore it.

My mom to this day still thinks that I talk nonsense and I still do pretend to be religious in front of my grandparents just because it makes them happy and I do love them. My dad is pretty much a closeted atheist at this point. I remember one time in the car I talked how nonsensical belief in god is and my mom startes attacking me. I think my dad then agreed with me saying something like "If god was so great why did my dad have to die at 59??" and he never ever prays and hasn't been to a church since basically his wedding. I will probably get married in the church because of my girlfriend, who is religious, although she literally doesn't care about following any christian rules, so I think she's more of a denier and doesn't even want to acknowledge that god is not real. Atheism has helped me a lot to look at everything differently, I udnerstand more that the world is not black and white, I look at everything from different perspective. I really do think that the world would be a better place if everyone was an atheist.

The biggest negative thing with atheism is the perception that religious people have because of that. People immediatelly think that I'm some kind of communist or that I am just an atheist because I think it makes me cool (for some reason?). A lot of people think that I'm not a true Croat and that I hate my country, which couldn't be more wrong. As an atheist, I'm still conservative in many way. Most of my friends are atheists but one of my better friends is a christian. He thinks that I'm an atheist because "it's because of the internet you saw that atheism is popular and the internet influenced you". I guess for some reason they don't understand that becoming and atheist is more of a journey inside your head rather than just someone telling you. My brother became an atheist after me which I was really happy with because I could finally talk to someone about it. I generally still enjoy debates here and there but most of the stuff falls into the religious person using fallacies and then I just lose the will to keep debating.

So yeah thats basically it, if you read it fully, thanks and even if you didn't thank you.

TLDR: Extremely christian mother and grandparents, started hating on organized after a priest pulled my hair and after some illogical things said by religious teachers, cousin who was an atheist said that the bible is just written by random people which opened my mind, youtubers helped me understand it better, was bullied a bit by peers, dad turns out to be a closeted atheist, a lot of the people from my country that that my atheism makes me the enemy of my country which is simply not true.

I have never been religious. My family took me to church when I was little but soon stopped because we lost interest.

I honestly went through the rest of my life kinda thinking that people just thought of the Bible stories of just that, stories. Like Santa or something.

I then came across this video of a preacher preaching and it blew my mind. I’m over here just thinking “you are listening to all these crazy stories to tell you what is wrong and right?”

That video kinda blew my mind but I just ignored it and just continued on with my life.

Soon after I started getting these thoughts these uncontrollable thoughts about Christianity. Stuff like “Submit to Jesus or you will burn in hell.”

Now I knew right away what these were. It was just my brain messing with me thanks to my adhd and OCD.

OCD has caused me so much pain in the past. It has done stuff like convince me I was a horrible person or that I was stuck in the Truman Show for a whole year.

So I was aware that these thoughts were just stupid and not true. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t accept them. This is from the same brain that kept rambling about the Truman Show for a whole year of my life.

Now I have been overwhelmed with all of these things and recent discoveries that I am just terrified. The thought that so many people actually believe in all these religious beliefs and try to push them onto others it just scares me.

Now I work in a grocery store so I see lots of people. Now where we live we have a decently large Muslim community. This is something that I like about our city, it is quite diverse. But now with my current situation when I see Muslim people at work I get these thoughts like “You are going to hell.” Or when I see a gay person it’s “The bible says that’s wrong.” Which literally doesn’t make sense for me to say because I don’t believe in it and I’m more on the liberal side.

I am just in this confused loop that I want nothing to do with. I just want to live my life free from these horrible and terrifying thoughts.

I hope it stops soon.

Love you all!

I'm over 50 and work at a ministry. I am a brand-new atheist and no one really knows. This is long and just as much for me as dear reader. I have to get it out.

My conversion story: when I was a freshman in college I was moved into temporary housing in the senior dorm while it was undergoing renovations. A transfer student moved in across the hall from my roommate and I. We were Weird-Al loving, Monty Python watching awkward as hell nerds in glasses. He was a party animal from New Jersey. He lived the life; coming home with a different girl every few nights, partying hard, smooth as silk. We envied the debauchery. A semester later we were moved into a different dorm with new neighbors. This dude ended up in the same biology class as my ubernerd roommate and came to our room to study with him. He had underwent a major change - gone was the party animal, here was a mild-mannered and kindly guy. We asked, in bafflement, what had happened? and he said "Jesus!". We were both impressed by the whole transformation, converted and started doing studies and church and discipleship and fellowship and prayer groups. Met my wife, made friends who ended up in my wedding party, everything centered around Christianity.

Here I will state for any lurkers that I was all-in. I believed I was a sinner and needed Jesus to save me, I was baptized, I prayed and heard the "still small voice". I was at peace. I believed the Bible was inerrant. I evangelized. I taught Bible studies and went on missions trips. To the core of my being, I believed.

Intermission: We moved away and got older and had a family. I lost touch with the friends. We tried some new churches here and there but it was never the same. I started questioning things. I asked harder questions that no one seemed to be able to answer. I prayed and realized I was hearing nothing. I grumped around.

The brief return: I was diagnosed with depression and got on meds, which saved my marriage because I was an asshole depressive. My wife, who is a practicing Christian, was invited to a retreat of sorts paid-in-full and she said I needed to go more than she did. I did, and it was a very scheduled emotional manipulation that spanned four days and included things like a dramatic retelling of the crucifixion with sound effects. I succumbed to the manipulation and literally wrote down all my doubts on an index card and then nailed it to the cross, thus symbolizing my willingness to surrender to God and put things like logic, doubts and questioning aside in the name of faith.

My wife went to this same retreat after I did and we networked with alumni of this thing. I was hooked up with a job in ministry where I am to this day.

The deconstructing: I got really into apologetics because my brain was telling me things did not make sense. A lot of apologetics make a good-on-the-surface case and only start falling apart when you question the underlying structure. i.e., they can make a good case for that one support beam there but when you look at the whole building it is shakier than something I would build in my backyard. I did not look at the building, I was looking for excuses to keep believing. I started getting frustrated with the apologetics because there was something missing I couldn't quite put my finger on.

I concluded the Bible wasn't inerrant, contrary to what I was taught. I was actually okay with this. Still God-inspired, right? Then details started creeping in, like english translations replacing the word pederasty with homosexual in 1946. I thought it was supposed to be God preserved? That is one hell of a damaging thing to miss. I started digging in and concluded the Bible wasn't divine, wasn't preserved, wasn't reliable. There were lots of ways to hand-wave individual verses, stories, genocides, but the entire building? Nope.

I discovered I "have" aphantasia (it's not a disease), the inability to see or hear things inside your mind. I have no inner sight, voice or monologue. I realized that all the stuff about Christianity that bothered me - the group prayers, the emotive statements and discussions, the worship, the belief that coincidences and chance were the workings of a mysterious God - they all had to do with things other people were experiencing in their inner life that I was not. While I can't see movies when I read (drat), I also can't re-live events good or bad (no PTSD?). Anyways, it does let me more easily divorce myself from emotions and glurge and when I started doing that on the regular I realized that it was all hollow. I discovered that when I removed emotions I removed the religious experience. That made sense to me but then I had to decide whether I was just really bad at being a Christian.

I started watching and listening with skepticism to everything going on around me, from ministry business to politics to social media to family. At first I cycled through the usual excuses; people are flawed, the faith is a hospital for sinners not a museum for saints, only Jesus is perfect. But I realized that the kind people were just naturally that way and the judgmental people exhibited no growth even though they were "sincere" Christians. These people were immersed in their faith and still weren't being transformed like all the promises. And if being transformed into a more Christ-like person was the goal, it certainly was not working anywhere that I could see. I wasn't surrounded by "fake" Christians, these were committed and focused people. I widened my circles and found non-believers just as kind and loving, just as willing to "serve". So if sincere Christians were indistinguishable from non-believers then...

What a trip - when I stopped and looked around and asked how things would look if there WASN'T a God it was indistinguishable from the way things would look if there WAS a God. The only difference were the excuses and the rationales and I was sick of making them. I started looking at every situation, every prayer request, every so-called intervention and miracle and came to the conclusion it was the same. The counter-arguments were all a cop-out, mental gymnastics that were designed to suppress any doubts.

About six weeks ago I finally accepted the fact that I don't believe in this God. Hilariously, now that the shoe is on MY foot, I remember saying that so-and-so was probably never really "saved" in the first place if they could turn away from the faith like that. I have some apologies to make. Although I'm still working at the ministry and although I haven't fully come out to family and friends, I feel more at peace and more free than I have in the last 30 years. I don't have to pretend anymore or go through the wild gyrations to make doctrine or scripture make sense.

I still catch myself grieving for the lost idea of a loving God who's looking out for me. I wish the stages of grief weren't a sliding scale, because I slide back to bargaining and wine has been my friend, but I'm getting close to acceptance.

Why is it that people of all religions and cults say that to people who left?

Maybe because they feel that it is perfect and like nobody would leave.

People feel like "you left just to mess up" is also because people feel like their religion/cult is perfect.

I am a new atheist. After years of biblical indoctrination and nonsensical fear and shame, I have finally come to a logical conclusion that supports evidence and is based in respect. Thanks to the people at r/atheism for the referral.

Ever since I was a child, I was taught that through prayer, any issue could be overcome due to the endless power of God. And, being the child that I was, I believed this. I was told that I could overcome the problems of the abuse I faced at the hands of my biological parents through prayer and study. Rather than find heathy coping mechanisms to work through my trauma effectively, I was told that Jesus could "take the weight off of my shoulders" (Based in Matthew 11:28-30) and lighten my burdens. I have since realized that this was detrimental and explained many other areas of my life.

LGBTQ+ is a major topic among Christians, especially conservative Christians. As a child, this was very damaging. I am gay, not by choice, but by biological impulse (or perhaps the abuse at the hands of my father, I really don't know). I heard countless stories of gay men "becoming straight" through the power and might of the Lord. I took this idea to heart. I prayed, daily, that God would change me and help remove my desires. The more I prayed, the more I felt hopeless as those around me would say that prayer only works with enough faith. That it was somehow my fault that my prayers weren't being answered.

I have yet to come out to my parents and a majority of my friends/family. I have always been told that being gay is a sin and that it is okay to be gay, so long as you do not act upon it. What am I supposed to do then? Live in solitude for the rest of my life and never find love? Marry a woman who I will never truly have a connection with? Either scenario sounds horrid.

The conversations about homosexuality that I have had, unrelated to me as I have not come out, always seem to revolve around it being a choice. I would always have to word my rebuttals carefully as to not have them suspect that I was in fact gay. I attend a conservative private Christian school as an 18 year old in my senior year and come from a very conservative Christian family, so the idea of coming out to them is fucking terrifying. I've played the part of being a the perfect Christian boy for so long and I can't do it anymore. I want to live my life with whom I please. My partner would be just like any other, but literally just another man.

I can't accept that this would be a sin when, by all accounts, the Bible seems inaccurate. 500 eyewitnesses for the resurrection? Simply the claim of ONE man, Paul. The history of the Bible also does not seem to align with ancient historical records (for instance, there is essentially no evidence of a large mass of Israelites in ancient Egypt which would entail that they were enslaves. Further, the exodus has little to no record when analyzing human fossils). If the Bible is absolute truth, then what is this? If I can't trust it for those truths, then I can't seeing being gay as being a sin either.

I've never been able to talk about this. I know this post may be a little reckless on my end, but idgaf anymore. I'm tired of living a lie and holding on to a religion that has hurt me so deeply.