For me, I think about what Peter said to Jesus - where else would I go? Perhaps it's because I was raised in it and don't know any better, but I don't think so. I've been through some rocky times too of late where I basically didn't like anything that I was or had become. I hadn't made myself into this person as much as matured into him, if that made sense. I was becoming my father in every negative way imaginable. I felt out of control, that I had been molded into something ugly by forces outside of my control.

I could have blamed God in this or questioned why this was the way things worked (I am certain I'm not the only one to wake up at 40 and realize that you have become your father), but I didn't. It made no sense. He didn't do this to me any more than I did and besides, He held, in Jesus, the only hope for redeeming who I was becoming into what I wanted, no more, into what He wanted. I wasn't doing so well at making me better, I needed a savior.

Where else would I go? More of my own reasoning? Other men's reasoning in books or philosophies? What hope was there that they had it right, most of them were as screwed up or more than I am. Only in Jesus did I find hope.

(BTW - I just realized today that you changed our feed address. I think I knew it, but I guess I didn't re-subscribe.)

Hello salguod,

Where else would I go? More of my own reasoning? Other men's reasoning in books or philosophies? What hope was there that they had it right, most of them were as screwed up or more than I am. Only in Jesus did I find hope.

I'm glad you found something that works for you but please don't imply that those of us who chose different ways are always more "screwed up" than you.

Sid - sorry to take so long to get back here. What I was getting at was that we are all messed up, none can follow our own morality perfectly. Certainly, I should have allowed that some (likely most) are less messed up than I am instead of putting everyone worse off than I. :-D

In the end, it doesn't really matter. The degree of our dysfunction does not vary enough to save some at the better end of things. The fact of life as I've observed it is that we all need something outside ourselves to save us.

I stay with Jesus because He doesn't bother to try to tell me that I'm OK or that I can make myself OK. In fact, he plainly tells us that we are a mess, but he doesn't offer a 12 step program or life changing philosophy. Instead, he simply offers up himself to fix us.

So, if no one here (Earth, not Spiritualtramp.com) can even fix themselves, why walk away from the one who can fix all of us?

He did leave the option for you to be as screwed up as us.

Scott,

Faith has waxed and waned for me over the last 21 years. There were times when I told myself I was just going to go what I wanted to do, that I would deny my belief in Christ but when the opportunity arose, I couldn't. I think that for me, it's been God maintaining my relationship with him more than me maintaining it. I cannot deny Christ. Put a gun to my face, a sword to my throat or tie me to a stake and burn me. I cannot deny the One who snatched me from the pit of Hell. I've been in some pretty dark places in my life and never once did Christ's light go out. There was always an ember there waiting to be fueled. Be strong, walk tall and eat your veggies (your mom wanted me to include the last one).

Cheers,

John

Hello John,

"I think that for me, it's been God maintaining my relationship with him more than me maintaining it."

That's interesting. If true, that would imply that God failed to maintain a relationship from a believer who deconverts like myself. Since you apparently believe the statement, why do you think God failed to maintain those relationships?

Thanks John! I have yet to be able (and pray that I never am) to deny Christ, that he existed, and that he was the son of God. Whether I'm right or wrong it's something I just cant do. Still I've got those doubts. Most of them are the "whys" of Job and God's answer to him, though true, is a hard teaching.

Just a thought... are you losing your faith or are you losing what someone else decided you should believe? We were told all our lives that if you stop believing one tenet of Christianity that the whole thing becomes a mockery. But is that really true?
Does the Bible have to be the inerrant word of God for Christianity to be true? So Christianity wasn't true before the canon was accepted?
The moment I made a distinction between what I had always heard and what I believed, I realized that my faith moved from my church to my God. Believe me...its a hell of a ride.

Well PE (and welcome btw) part of it gets back to an earlier post on the definition of Christianity. What needs to be true in order for Christianity to be true? I'm interested in your thoughts on that subject.

Personally what I put in the penultimate paragraph of the post above is where I begin.

Faith is my Bread and Butter. I got tons and oodles of it. I can't tell you how I cling to mine. It kinda clings to me. I believe with all I have in the spiritual and I see all around me the spiritual war the wages. The evil side does have a loud voice in this world. This world does belong to satan and the boys. I can easily find that voice so loud it drowns out God's quiet voice. I take that as evidence that some thing does not want me to hear the truth. The bible is a hard book to the spiritual and tells us there is a spiritual war. So if evil is such a strong influence there must also be a loving spiritual force pulling for me and available to me. Keep the Faith Scott.

I see that and I hear where you're coming from. Most of the evil in this world is all too human though and wraps itself in the mantle of religion. My faith says just what you've said here. It's proof of the fallenness of mankind. I hope that if that is as true as I believe it to be that God's love is as true as well.

Falling out of faith was never something that happened to me, as I was never really raised with faith in the first place. I think maybe for that reason I tend to look at it psychologically - what I see in the loss of faith is the losing of an (the) anchor in one's life, the destruction of the foundation stone not just for beliefs about the future or about the origin of things, but for the center of one's world. The whole world shows a new hue, a dark one, and no hope escapes it.

It's an experience I've felt the tinge of, though never in any degree of seriousness, and not for a very long time (and I'm not that old). I like to think I was able to move beyond such experiences by recognizing that, whatever the situation really is, and whether or not my beliefs turn out to be true, the world won't stop by the time I wake up tomorrow morning. I could lose all faith in myself, humanity, and the future by midnight tonight. But even if that happens, when I wake up tomorrow morning, the sun will rise. Instead of seeing it as something altogether new (either an empty symbol or a beacon of hope) and letting that determine my next step, I will see it as the same sunrise as yesterday's, perhaps reflect on how I feel about it, move on from there. At worst, the sun isn't interested in how I feel, and it will go on it's way. It all comes back to one's self and how you take care of yourself; if you have no handle on yourself, living in faith could never succeed anyway. So get a firm grip on that, and through it on the world you live in; only then can you reach the seriousness this task requires.

Hello Snurp,

Your first paragraph is a good description of the significance of deconversion for myself.

I don't think that should I ever lose my faith in God that the world would end on the spot. Life would go on. Things would happen that would be unpleasant perhaps (perhaps not), but I would survive it all. Not something I want to experience none the less.

I don’t feel like I lost my faith, so much as it gradually dawned on me that layers of it had disintegrated. It got to the point where I felt I was TRYING to have faith all my life and that giving it up was such a relief. It’s the exact feeling that many believers describe once they find church/Jesus for the first time. Just for me, it was the opposite.

There wasn’t one instance or one factor. Some people would want to pin it on the loss of my mother--the defining religious force in my life. I’ve been into mythology for a long time, and the more I’ve looked into comparative religion, and myths that predate the Bible... that could be a factor too. Also accepting that my disinterest in church was not just a childish boredom/attention span that never went away, but a constant that never left... the things done in Christ’s name... the idea that I’m innately prone to evil...

There are so many reasons, so much going against Christianity that the evidence I’d been indoctrinated with and presented with growing up didn’t stand a chance. I basically have a Bible degree, and I’m more than a little uncomfortable explaining that to a potential employer or new acquaintance who immediately gets an idea in their head that I’m still affiliated.

Stepping away from church really is akin to “coming out of the closet”, when you have Christian family and friends who’ve always known you in that “uniform”. I know someone else who’s having a much tougher time with it than I have.

There are times when I’m angry at Christianity and feel like firing up a big debate, times when I feel sorry for Christians who are still “trapped” in it, times when I am patient and happy for anyone who acts on their convictions. But one thing is consistent, I always feel an underlying compassion. That empathy for someone who is either afraid of life without faith, who has felt doubt, who is tired of what is done by fellow Christians, afraid of what death means... which is how religion gets started.

I’ve gone off target a bit here, but I’m glad to have taken a second to put these thoughts down. Thanks for being open and for asking the question.

Interesting, Dave. I'm curious: at the 'height' of your belief, how seriously did you take it then? In other words, did you always have a disinterest in Christianity or were you emotionally invested in it?

I ask because I'd like to see if I can find why giving up religion is easy for some, like yourself, and painful for others, like myself.

The "closet" analogy is one I'm familiar with. I believe Sid expressed it in similar terms.

Thanks for sharing. It's interesting/useful to me to hear from a different perspective. I wasn't particularly indoctrinated in the intricacies of Chrisitanity. I was exposed to a very low level of it from a young age (background radiation sort of) but we weren't big on church or anything on a regular basis.

Church and an articulated faith are very much an adult development for me. I can say that I'm definitely tired of the evil done in the name of my faith. I don't hold that against the entirety of my faith naturally. Mankind has long been good at using whatever sort of group think exists in a culture to their own ends. For the longest time that has been religion simply because it has existed as long as recorded history at least. But non-"religious" ways of thinking have also been used (unless you define patriotism and other secular belief systems as religious in a way).

Hello Scott,

I'm sorry to read that you've been so down recently. I was gone for the past few days (weekend trip with Jess to Charleston), but I'm back now. We can talk, text, or chat if you'd like.

"...I can comfortably call myths (this doesn’t mean those myths aren’t true)."

I take it you enjoyed the Eliade book you borrowed? ;)

Did it hurt to lose my faith? Immensely. There are so many sources of pain and fear in such a process. Everything from the ego-deflating realization that I was wrong about very important aspects about reality for my entire life, to the fear of losing friends and family (which never materialized). There were also feelings of betrayal, inadequacy, ignorance, and loneliness. Given my particular religious upbringing, I was also convinced that I was a bad person for not believing.

Having said all that, it was worth it. I am much happier and more moral now as a non-believer than I ever was as a believer.

Coincidentally, I read Myth and Reality in the middle of my deconversion (it spanned a couple of years).

Can I go through the process backwards? Not likely. Of course, that's what I would have said about losing my faith before it happened.

I shan't give up hope for you then. ;)

Thanks Sid. Glad you guys had a good trip. I'm better, but no doubt we'll be chatting soon.

I've not gotten very far into Myth and Reality. What I have read has been quite challenging and interesting.

Thanks for sharing what you went through. I'm glad you found value in it, though I'm sad that that's what it took. Maybe one day you'll go back through the process in reverse, staying as happy and moral as you are now. Hey a man can hope, can't he?

Scott~ First of all: *Giant Hugs* !!! i think we all struggle from time to time, and God can use these times to pull us so close to Him again and renew us, so do not lose hope. He is so much bigger than our fears and our struggles to remain faithful to Him and trust in His promises. What helps me cling to my faith? well, i look back at all I've been through in life, good, bad, and downright ugly. the times when i wasn't clinging to God, the times i was trying to go my own ways, do it all and get all i wanted on my own, thinking too much of myself? these are the times that were the most empty, and resulted in the most pain for me and those close to me. Looking at the times that i've been hungrily seeking after God, making time with him praying , reading His word and just listening? these are times i;ve been so full of joy and truly blessed. they have been times when yes, i had cares and concerns, but i've also had hope when things looked really dark. like every sinner, i've not been consistent, but God has. thank you so much for sharing this and for allowing us to love and pray for you. i'm gonna go spend some time in prayer for comfort and peace and joy you right now. :-)

Thanks Mae, I appreciate it.