Ex Christians (#8)

Therisnospoon

I came from a very strict Protestant family. My mother is a very neurotic woman. My father is more reserved, more rational, but still very religious. They considered themselves "spirit-filled/non-denominational", and were almost the stereotype of that sect. They claimed not to "have religion" but "have a relationship" with Christ. They (mostly my mother) refused to allow me to participate in Halloween activities, argued for creationism being taught alongside evolution, prohibited me from talking to the school psychologist or guidance councilor for fear of losing me because they used spanking as discipline. My mother used to dress in an angel costume on Halloween and hand out Christian propaganda (yes, chick tracts). She was always causing trouble with my teachers because of her rigid dogma, and I was taught about the horrors of hell at a young age. Her acceptance of me was based on my obedience. Because of the constant fear of hell for "backsliding" and of associating with "sinners", I did not have many friends. The one true friendship I had, I almost destroyed because I was constantly trying to save his soul from hell. It's an incredible burden to put on a child; of being responsible for trying to save the souls of everyone you love. I cried myself to sleep some nights thinking of the future of some of my acquaintances. Obviously, I did not have a happy childhood.

Even though I had some good teachers who recognized my abilities, my grades started eventually slipping because I was unhappy and lonely. My teachers noticed that I had been withdrawing more than usual along with my grades, and therefore had me sit with a councilor. My mother flipped out.

I begged to go to middle school instead of private school, but after a near disastrous year both academically and socially, I was placed in a Protestant school. This particular school was extremely strict and rigid. They insisted on using textbooks that were from the 19th century, as they believed that the liberals were ruining modern textbooks and "secularizing" our nation. It was an interesting experience. Mainly because I had found a sect that seemed even more fanatical than my own (or "devout" as I had thought).

My main problem in this school was that I always had very high reasoning skills, and while I accepted as 100% fact anything about my religion told to me by my parents as a child, when puberty started kicking in, I wasn't always able to keep my autonomy caged up. I started to ask questions. To my parents, to my teachers, to my youth leaders. My father was fine with my questions, but my mother believed I was being 'demonically influenced". I would always argue back that questioning would help strengthen my faith, and that since the bible was right, it would stand up to my questioning. My parents couldn't argue against that one. My parents were forced to try to answer what would prove to be irreconcilable problems with the bible, theology and their belief system. I often begged God to give me answers and show himself to me etc. I prayed so hard it hurt. I told my parents how hard I prayed. They told me as long as my faith was strong, I would get an answer from God. My worldview was being shaken; it is an almost indescribable feeling. You feel deathly afraid of hell, of the doubt, of the possibility of being possessed by demons. Most parents don't realize what they do to kids I think.

My private school teacher did not take kindly to my questioning. Logic and reason was a foreign language to this woman, and at 12 years old my mind burned with intensity with the goal of intellectual honesty; I knew God didn't give me reason and logic to forgo their use, and that being omnipotent and perfect, his book and message would stand up to all challenges. They made my 7th grade class attend one of the high school seniors theology discussion classes for the strengthening our faith. It was really just a class on apologetics that taught you what to say to unbelievers. So we were encouraged to write down some questions and have the high school seniors answer them. They got the easy questions from my associates who were too afraid to ask any tough questions. The high schoolers gave them weak argument after weak argument. I was going to do the same, but part of me said, "You know what? This might work out because I'll have real answers for these questions". So I did. I carefully worded my questions to avoid getting a cop out answer. I remember a few of the questions, or at least the subjects. The first question had to do with how the disciple Thomas needed evidence before he believed, and that God gave him evidence. So I got them to agree that its okay to be like Thomas. That effectively killed the "you just have to have faith" type answers. I asked about the morality of the existence of Hell, what Jesus' last words were, and the Flood. I asked why T-Rex bones weren't found next to mammal bones, and even got on a chalkboard to show how that should have happened in a worldwide flood. I asked about the world's population, and how it was impossible for 8 people to turn into 6 billion in 5,000 years with lifespans, death, etc. Even the fact that rainbows would have existed before rain. Every single time, the high school students (who were generally very devout and into the apologetics crap) scrambled to create arguments in defense, contradicting themselves and scripture in the process. At one point I quoted a scripture about how bats were thought to be birds and insects were thought to have four legs that seemed to really hit home. Their teacher felt he had to jump in at that point. I went a round with him before getting kicked out of the discussion. Looking at the faces of my peers as I was escorted out, I saw fear, guilt, discomfort. Some of them were even pale. They had tasted a devastating sample of logic that they weren't expecting, and some had never had.

After that, I got a whopping from my teachers paddle. I came back to the class, feeling more confident in a classroom setting than I ever had before. I formed a social clique within my class. Some of them were unbelievers, some of them just had doubts. The unspoken rule of the group was to respect others doubts or beliefs, because all of us were experiencing complications with our beliefs, and we knew being pious and narrow-minded produced nothing valuable. Needless to say, anyone who associated me was put on the school shit list. Anytime a wrongdoing was done, we were the usual suspects, although we caused few actual problems behaviorally. The most devout children were absolutely petrified of us. Rumors that I was an atheist abounded, but of course I still believed, just a little less literally at that point. I was trying to salvage my faith in several ways, often my favorite one being the "metaphor" defense. Anything wrong was a metaphor, or not to be taken literally, etc. The bible had errors but they weren't big errors. (I recently got contacted by one of my clique friends on facebook, who told me several stories of kids in the school who are atheists now, or had their beliefs changed by
our discussion groups.)

After private school, I was home schooled for two years. My mother disagreed with the schools dogma, which led to me being taken out of it. 8th and 9th grade were home schooled years. My mother bought fundy books to teach me with, and I lost out on any real socialization that I definitely could have used, especially the first year of high school. (We would move to another town, and then I would attempt to fit in upon entering sophomore year, not an easy task.) Of course, home schooling sucked because by the time I was in 9th grade, I hadn't learned much (mostly because my mother didn't make a good teacher; she tended to give me a lot of days off). I had learned a lot about science, mostly because I studied it online. The creationist textbooks weren't something I could take seriously anymore, as it was obvious that creationism was the opposite of true science. Even then I knew that it wasn't Science if you started with the conclusion first. At this time, I was more active in youth group, especially from 13-15. I needed some type of social stimulus, which I wasn't getting at school. I had never really learned to socialize as well as I should have. I was used to a small circle of friends, and so becoming more extroverted in my youth group took a few months, but eventually I was very confident around my youth group friends, who accepted almost anyone who believed as they did. I was known to be a good believer, but definitely not perfect. Eventually, as my faith slowly deteriorated, I found myself going less and less for the worship and preaching, and more for the girls and socializing. I lost my virginity at 15, and went on to fool around with girls in the youth group. I started to go less frequently. After I entered high school in 10th grade, nothing was left of my faith. I had read the bible front to back. I had taken the time to read it without automatically assuming it was correct. The times I showed up to youth group, I asked blatantly hard to answer questions. I deconverted a few people, some who were doubting, some who weren't. I stopped going, and I kept in contact with a few of my friends outside it. My older youth friends wanted me to become fervent again, asked me out to missions trips and all of that crap. One of them said she been told by the Lord that I would become a great leader in the church. They couldn't accept me as an unbeliever, even though I had been with them through a lot of their personal struggles, even though I had been a loyal friend to them, they couldn't see past my beliefs.

The rest of high school was a bit hard as I started to develop depression. The negative programming I'd gotten from my upbringing, with the emotional stress of dealing with my worldview to my loneliness finally hit me at that point. While I had been unhappy for a long time, I had been pushing my emotions away, becoming numb to things to avoid the pain. I would have moderate to severe depression from the time I was 16 until this year (23 years old).
Looking back, I was probably mildly depressed from 6th grade on, having it come and go at certain times. I had a relationship that lasted 4 and a half years with a wonderful girl, and while it didn't work, we are best friends today (we were best friends in high school as well). I was able to have a mature and satisfying relationship, able to pinpoint the career I want, and am taking action to achieve it. I've finally come to terms with myself and accepted who I am.

Nowadays, I consider myself an agnostic that leans slightly atheist(a.k.a. weak atheist). While I consider myself tolerant towards people and their beliefs, I consider religion to be more of a liability for our species than anything. Looking at history, I can see why it was invented, looking at biology, I can see the strength it gave us in our early ancestry, that unity of belief, and the comfort from the knowledge of death. With modern science, I believe religion is obsolete. It has been well demonstrated that people do not need a surveillance camera in the sky for them to act morally, to be happy, to enjoy life with their loved ones. Religion is not needed for any of that. That faith is a good thing when applied to loved ones, or ourselves, because it is self-fulfilling, but the question of our origins and of existence itself is better left to the scientific method than the blindfolded faith in error-prone holy books, and the absurd attempts to reconcile them with reality. While I realize that not every religious person is fanatical like many of the ones I have met, I believe that one of the most basic tenets of religious faith is the discouragement of intellectual honesty, of questioning things.

If you politely ask a religious person why they believe what they believe, you will likely make them uncomfortable. (The common question of course is "What do you believe?".)

Why is asking why so unsettling for them?

From my experience when I was a believer, having my faith questioned by a skeptic was enough to produce real anxiety, but I think that anyone intellectually honest would get nervous when it comes to questioning their faith.

If you let the questions play out in your mind as I did, you discover that the only reason you believe as you do is because you have an emotional attachment to your faith. Why do you believe the incredibly improbable claims? Why reject equally improbable claims from other religious sources? Having a lot of believers doesn't make something true, and the age of the texts doesn't matter, as other religious texts are older. Claims of miracles and personal communication with "gods" are in all religions, and if you had been born in another part of the world, it is overwhelmingly likely you'd have a different faith. And you would be just as convinced about that faith as you are of this one. These are scary thoughts to someone who doesn't question things. But shouldn't we do our best to make sure that all of our beliefs are based on reality? Isn't that what development and growth and progress is all about as a human being?

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