I had a friend email me and ask me "I was just wondering if you could share your story with me how and why you decided to leave Christianity behind? Was it a gradual process over the years or did it happen 'overnight'?"
This is what I wrote to her and thought I would share it with all of you too.
My journey to leaving Christianity behind has been taken by some to be a short process but the reality of it has been more, in my opinion, of a long drawn out process and this explanation will probably be longer than you probably intended an answer. But I want to give you the best answer I can so you understand.
The reality is when I started I really had no intention of leaving Christianity behind. The idea that I would be where I am today was the farthest outcome that I had expected me to be in. In fact I tried really hard to cling to Christianity through the whole process.
For me the process began with our movement toward Messianic Judaism. Traditional Christianity in most ways seemed wrong....like something was missing. My thought was that if I believed that god existed then I believed that he desired me to be the best Christian that I could be. So my journey began with the thought of "what are god's expectations for a Christian to be one of his followers?"
That brought me into Kosher Law, Sabbath Law, Gentile requirements and the like. I gladly started to understand some of the laws and started to apply them to my life. I applied them to my life because I thought they were the will of god and had no ill or bad feelings about doing such things....in fact I found joy in them.
It was around this time, that I seemed be reading blogs on various Biblical issues and saw that each issue had numerous answers most in conflict with each other. At the time, I viewed such discrepancies as more of a political stance of the specific church of the person making the comment. So, that lead me to the question "What was the real stance for Christians to take on those issues?" I mean if we are of one body....we should be of one mind and Christianity reminded me of a body with Multiple Personality Disorder. So it was back to the question "What does god want?"
You would think that answers would be easy, I mean we had the book that had all the answers....but that could not have been further from the truth. Finding answers was hard. Each issue had multiple bible verses and each Bible verse had to be taken to its original Greek Hebrew or Aramaic. In the end, I found out that there was some issues that when all boiled down had conflicting answers. Some Hebrew and Greek words have no English definitions meaning that we really don't know what it actually meant...bible scholars just took what ever they thought it meant or what ever the cause was for the church of that century.
This brought me to the question....."If they did that, what else could have been tweaked to serve their own reasons?" the answer for me was "Start at the beginning and find our the truth.....Genesis here I come.
Some of the rules I had was ...
1. All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness. Which leads to number two
2. All stances had to be supported by other verses besides just one and all verses had to be taken in context.
I had a few others but these were the most important....
Genesis was where the axis started tipping. Obviously the first issue to come up was the old Evolution verses Creation Debate. Having gone to a Mennonite school...Evolution was not in the curriculum. So I basically was able to start at square one. I acquired all the books, blogs, Websites and debates I could on the subject of evolution and creation. This process was long and for every point made for evolution there was an answer for creation and visa versa. Then I read a book by of all people Richard Dawkin's called " The Greatest Show On Earth" I was hesitant about reading this because he was a staunch atheist who has a very I would say strong but strong is an understatement, view against god. But I found his book to be strongly informative. It made a very compelling case for evolution and the evolutionary process. It cited experiments that could be researched and you could see if the same conclusions he stated were the conclusions of the scientists as well. This book was the turning point to my acceptance of evolutions ....over time I accepted evolution as fact and creation was a myth.
Up until this point I still wrote on my blog like there was nothing wrong....bible studies....but sometimes my questions and doubts shone through.
From there the questions kept coming like .....If creation was a myth what about Adam and eve and marriage?....who can get married?...... Did god create evil?.....Why does god allow bad things?.......if god doesn't do bad things why does seem to be oblivious to some Christians in times of extreme distress?....why are we called to be fruitful and multiply and yet some godly people left barren?.....is slavery really wrong?....what is the role of women in christianity?....
For every question....there was enough material to make your head spin and you had to dig for an answer.... eventually it finally came down to there were a lot of conflicting answers (and sometimes no answers) for the first time I asked myself "What if god was not real....What if god really isn't there? .....I was conflicted had I spent all this time to find what god wanted to only find out that god might not exist.
So my efforts now turned to the conflicts that nonchristians had with the bible.....I figured that this was a do or die situation..... Either I was gonna prove to myself that god existed or it was just a myth.....again i went to books, blogs, websites and debates....and again I had enough material to go through........eventually over time the Christian self was eroded away until one day I came to the conclusion ....Christianity is a myth.....and bye golly, I'm an
atheist............So the short answer is my journey from Christianity was because of the search for truth......
Comments (89)
Wow. You have put so much into figuring this out. That's amazing. I can't say I fully understand all you said, I was raised Episcopalian and I don't think they got into the whole bible, I'm not really sure. I respect anyone who converts, I converted to Hindu in abut 2000. I'm kind of a Buddhist leaning Hindu. And happy, it feels like I'm on the right track, that's what counts too, I feel. I could do better with my practice, more time in meditation and chanting, and that's something to think about too.
Thank you for sharing.
Wow. That was a very interesting read. Thank you for sharing. It takes a lot of guts to put something like this up. I'm sure you're going to get in the middle of a shitstorm for your beliefs, and for that I am truly sorry.
Thanks for sharing. My experiences with religion were similar but it wasn't so much a matter of me leaving a religion, just a matter of me noticing how people wanted me to think a certain way and analyzing it and deciding against it, even since early childhood.
You're the first person I've ever heard of that actually began questioning because of evolution - I thought that was a myth evangelicals used to scare people away from science, but apparently it really happens.
To me this is very sad. Nothing more to say, if you are happy with it.
You just answered some questions I have been wanting to ask you; thank you! My own journey took me from my doubts about Christianity to calling myself an Atheist, to deciding that it is arrogant of me to say I KNOW there is no God. That stance put me on the God-like position position of claiming to have the answer, and I am no God. So now I consider myself an agnostic seeker of truth, who will not disrespect anyone's truly-held beliefs.
Thank you for sharing this. I am in the process of my search for truth as well, clinging desperately to the beliefs I have held since I was a child barely old enough to understand what I was agreeing to. It is helpful to know that there have been those that have gone before, that have made both choices. (I know several Christians who tell a story very much opposite of yours) and so I am not alone in my questioning and searching. My greatest thanks for making yourself vulnerable in such a forum as this, and sharing the story of your quest for truth. People like you give me hope for humanity, regardless of religion.
Thank you for sharing this. I had also wondered about your journey.
It's interesting that your search for intellectual truth is the thing you consider to have eroded your faith. In my own life, my literal, personal experiences with God are the things that keep me anchored to faith. I believe Christianity on an intellectual level, but that isn't what keeps me clinging to Jesus when I'm having dark, doubting moments. What keeps me anchored at those times is the fact that I know Him more tangibly than I know my own body, and I have experienced His reality in my spirit. No intellectual argument can change the fact that I know Him personally and experience Him on a daily basis. I am extremely sorry that experiencing that relationship is not a part of your life.
Thank you for being so straightforward.
Wow, that's shocking to me. I always thought you and your husband were very religious, God-seeking people. I guess I can understand this though. I respect your right to look into it. However, I would recommend to you that if you're interested in seeking more look up some of Lee Strobel's books. Totally random, but how has this affected raising your kids/your life in general?
Thank for sharing this. You have definitely put a lot of time and thought into your decisions on the path that you are walking that had led to where you are now. What is important is that you are happy and content where you are and that it works for you.
@LifeWithGod@revelife - I would recommend both Lee Strobel and Timothy Keller, as well as Ravi Zacharias.
Kristen, You might not agree with their conclusions, but they articulate Christian faith and reasoning in a scholarly way. Worth reading regardless of what you believe.
Thanks for sharing this.
I always wondered about people who believe in non-creationism but still believed in the bible. It seemed to me like they were cherry picking which parts of the bible were metaphorical and which parts were to be taken literally.
Thank you for sharing this. I was never told a religion to believe in as a child, so while I didn't know the word atheist until I was much older, that's what I've always been. But, it's kind of a weird for me because it wasn't until I was about 7 or 8 that I started to learn what religions were. I didn't know about theism so being atheist is an afterthought to me, really.
I admire you for seeking truth, even if you hadn't ended up exactly where you are, it takes a lot of guts to question certain things we're told and actually look into them.
My journey was very different I came from a place of non belief to sort of a new age thing to being a believer in God and the salvation of Jesus...
Funny, I just wrote a post myself about leaving Christianity. It's a rough journey. I respect you for working so hard at it.
Thank you for sharing your story. Mine is much the same as yours. I always had questions that I would put to the back of my mind, trying to cling to the faith I was born into. When I finally started digging for answers in the Bible and from Christian authors and pastors, I found I came up empty and usually with more questions than I started out with. I finally realized that I was chasing an illusion, and I became an atheist. I noticed one of your commenters above, asked how this affects raising your children and your life in general. It's funny, people seem to think being an atheist changes how you parent or something. I always get this from people... "Wow...you're kids are so well behaved...and you're an
atheist?" I just want to say..."Wow, really?" Anyway, thanks again for sharing this!
@Pickwick12 - You basically took the words right out of my mouth...er, fingers
Thank you for sharing! I feel much the same way, about how answers for things have changed over the centuries and such. Jesus may have been a great teacher, but I think his message has been corrupted by people for their own gain. And it's hard, losing your faith. I always wanted so much to believe in the same god as Michelangelo, but I can't worship a god that would condemn him to hell for loving a man... Anyway, it's nice to see where you're coming from. I hope you're more at peace now. :)
@Diva_Jyoti_3 - I'm a recent convert to paganism; it makes so much more sense to me, and gives me the strength I never got from Christianity. A lot of my beliefs line up with Hinduism- I think if Christians were to take a view of the world more like that of the dharmic religions, the world would be a better place...
My dad was a pastor and then a missionary. I was a vicitm of "The Ministry". I don't particularly enjoy going to church and resent the fact that my hubby wears nice dress slacks, really sharp shirt, a tie AND a fancy tie pin EVery Sunday....churchy clothes for churchy business. ( He DOES look handsome, BUT). HowEVer. If it wasn't for the love of God and His spirit in me, I would not be able to cope with life. I'd probably be dead, because the enemy wants to defeat me. Because of the Holy Spirit, I DO know when to make a move in helping people; He nudges me. There is a dark, satan- driven world...angels and demons battling. I'd rather die knowing that my soul will live on and I'll live on the New Earth in my resurrection body than die and be consious of a horror-filled darkness for forever and ever. Nothing and no one can shake my belief. Jesus Christ is it for me and I can rest in peace because of that. An interesting site to read (helpful to me, lately) is Internet Monk.
I KNEW IT! You left Christianity because you are a thinker and I was right about your story being similar to mine. I left Christianity because I studied the bible too hard and found the contradictions to be quite overwhelming.Sure glad to be free from that nonsense.
Thank you for sharing your story. It is similar to others I have heard and witnessed in family members. When the church community is incapable of answering questions such as you raised regarding the role of the two Covenants the church community actually contributes to the subsequent loss of faith. Very sad on many levels.
Again, thanks for sharing.
Hm, I remember you as a Messiahnic Jew, and really, that is a contradiction in itself. Anything is better than that insanity.
I'm glad you found your place.
@agnophilo - yup it really happens :) especially when you go to a Mennonite school and are taught nothing about it growing up and then you find out all the facts :)