What de-conversion feels like

[savvy]

Another thing i found hard - still find hard - is the reaction of my Christian friends. They have been supportive, certainly. However, by me saying that i dont believe in Christianity, i am implicitly accusing them of being deluded. Those who practice spiritual gifts like tongues - well i'm effectively calling them a loon. Nothing is said, but they must feel it.

That's why only my closest friends know about my religious (or rather, non-religious) preferences. It doesn't seem to bother them, although they like asking questions such as "so you think we are just smart monkeys?" and "if there isn't god, what is the point of living?" (because it amuses me, dang it, that's the point!)
However, I fear how my parents will react when I get around to telling them someday. My mom will be very upset; they'll think I've lost my mind I'm sure (and when my brother says he's an atheist too, I can just see them moaning "where have we gone wrong..." ugh).

 

[Lycaenidae]

Do you still go to Church?

I only went before because my father forced me to.

 

[TheListener]

I only went before because my father forced me to.

Do you still go? i.e. will you be at Church on Sunday?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Thank you for the smile. He became convinced everything is natural and it filled his soul

Are atheists forbidden from speaking poetically? I doubt he meant literally that this feeling filled every drop of his blood either.

Anyway, in my case, I did not really feel anything in particular except honest.

 

[Lycaenidae]

Do you still go? i.e. will you be at Church on Sunday?

No.

 

[MQTA]

I've read many deconversion stories (on another site) and it never seems to be an easy thing for people to do. It seems the more hardline and religiously sheltered people are the more painful the deconversion experience is because it's like their entire reality has been ripped out from under them. I would never encourage someone I know to deconvert unless their beliefs were obviously hurting them in some way. It's definitely something people need to do on their own terms whether it means totally turning their back on their faith or quietly faking it to avoid conflict.

Yep. NO talk, one way or another, will change anyone's mind. They must want to change, or have it within them that something isn't right, or could be better, or not working the way they feel.

It's not an EASY thing to do at all.

When I found Wayne Dyer's books 12 or so years ago, I didn't think there was anything 'wrong', but I sure found a better way to think about things and a whole new world of positivity opening up. Didn't realize how things are geared to live on the negative and victim side of things.

You don't realize you're ball and chained unless/until you decide to take off the shackles.

When the student is ready, teacher(s) will appear. Choice... all about choice.

 

[MQTA]

hmm, i was never really Christian at any point.

maybe i should convert, then deconvert to get the jist of this.....

If I said I wanted to convert, I wonder what the response would be. Would it be laughter? Would I get insulted, berated, challenged on my sincerity, what?

Ya think it would be trusted? I don't think so. I think if I said I wanted to convert I'd be deconverted before I ever got there.

 

[MQTA]

I can not imagine myself deconverting and not feeling incredibly depressed, lost and purposeless and empty.

Then don't.

You can't imagine what you haven't experienced, and if you're afraid to experience anything you're afraid of, it probably won't go well anyway. You seem to fulfill your fears well. You can never get enough of what you don't want.

I happened to read some Wayne Dyer books and didn't know what hit me. Over 12 years now living at peace, happiness, and mostly depression and anxiety-free. Haven't felt lost, purposeless or empty in a long time.

Namaste

 

[b*unique]

For those who have never experienced de-conversion, it can be difficult to describe what it 'feels' like. I think many Christians assume the de-convert's feeling are like those of a lost person. This is not what I experienced. I think "liberation" is closer to describing the feeling (at least myself) had upon leaving the church.

(Robert G. Ingersoll)
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination's wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I was free! I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously faced all worlds.
​

strange
this is how i felt when i converted

 

[gwenmead]

In addition to not really knowing or understanding what deconversion feels like, it sometimes seems like there are a few other general misconceptions floating around.

Like that it doesn't usually happen all at once. My deconversion took several years; it was a process with different stages. This seems to be true for most apostates I've spoken to or read their stories. Deconversion can be like a lightning strike, but often isn't. And I have yet to meet an apostate who gave up all semblance of morality once they deconverted. The only shifts in morality I've seen have been subtle, not dramatic.

I felt a lot of things during my deconversion. Relief, anxiety, joy, worry, a sense of relaxation, a sense of disappointment. Lots of things. Mostly it was just relief, though. The contrast between the quality of my life when I was Christian and the quality of it now is amazing.

 

[MQTA]

1 word: Growth

ok, 2

Growth Process

 

[Grizzly]

If you try to apply empirical measurements on a being which exists outside of our senses & understanding of course you'll get such results.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. If something exists outside our senses and understanding, then why do Christians sit around and speak authoritatively about the properties of the Trinity? It's outside of our "senses and understanding" because the concept is not comprehensible. In fact, it is incoherent. What I was asking myself after my deconversion is why I didn't see this earlier.

There are so many other incoherent principles in the Christian belief that I couldn't believe I didn't see.

Another example. Christians claim that Jesus was "fully God and fully man". It wasn't until after I deconverted did I realize that this was simply impossible. God and man have mutually exclusive properties that cannot exist together. For example,

God is limitless. Man is limited. Was Jesus limitless or limited?
God is not capable of sin. Man is capable of sin. Was Jesus capable of sin or not?

Here's another one. God is all knowing. Man is not. Was Jesus all-knowing or not? This one is interesting because the Bible says that Jesus did not know the day or the hour of the end times, but only The Father in Heaven. This means that Jesus was not Omniscient. But God is Omniscent. This means that Jesus was not God.

And if Jesus was God, then who was Jesus praying to so many times in the Gospels? Himself.

And don't even get me started on the Salvation Story. God sacrifices Himself to Himself to Appease Himself. Sheesh.

 

[StainedClassKing]

I'm sure that's how Adam felt - until he heard the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day....... and then he realized he was deceived.

I do not intend this as a flame or anything of that nature but this comment is completely and utterly void of any substance at all. I have no idea what it is that you are trying to accomplish with this. Could you explain what it was?

 

[StainedClassKing]

I can not imagine myself deconverting and not feeling incredibly depressed, lost and purposeless and empty.

I can relate. That's the way thought it would be like to live in an atheistic universe. And once I had deconverted from Christianity, that is the way that I did feel. But I slowly came to change my mind.

 

[StainedClassKing]

...

 

[StainedClassKing]

Yep. NO talk, one way or another, will change anyone's mind. They must want to change, or have it within them that something isn't right, or could be better, or not working the way they feel.

I don't think it's about wanting to change at all in most cases. When my deconversion began, it wasn't because I wanted to go from being a Christian or a nonChristian. I wanted some things in my life to be different but I didn't equate those things as being a result of acting out on a completely wrong world view.

I think the vast majority of people that deconvert just kind of stumble on to it. Most religious beliefs rely heavily on double thinking to be maintained. The problem with that is that double thinking only works so long as the person doing it is not aware that they are doing it. Once a person becomes aware that they are double thinking, it stops working and the whole system comes unraveled. This happens whether the person wants it to or not.

That's what happened to me. Since my deconversion, I have watched two other people deconvert as well and the same thing happened to all of us, more or less. We noticed that some things weren't adding up. The answers we had been just accepting relied on double thinking to be accepted. We noticed that and, as mentioned before, double thinking only works if you are not aware of doing it. Before long, the whole system came unraveled. There was never, at any point in time, a decision on any of our parts to just stop believing. It just happened.

 

[MQTA]

I don't think it's about wanting to change at all in most cases. When my deconversion began, it wasn't because I wanted to go from being a Christian or a nonChristian. I wanted some things in my life to be different but I didn't equate those things as being a result of acting out on a completely wrong world view.

I think the vast majority of people that deconvert just kind of stumble on to it. Most religious beliefs rely heavily on double thinking to be maintained. The problem with that is that double thinking only works so long as the person doing it is not aware that they are doing it. Once a person becomes aware that they are double thinking, it stops working and the whole system comes unraveled. This happens whether the person wants it to or not.

That's what happened to me. Since my deconversion, I have watched two other people deconvert as well and the same thing happened to all of us, more or less. We noticed that some things weren't adding up. The answers we had been just accepting relied on double thinking to be accepted. We noticed that and, as mentioned before, double thinking only works if you are not aware of doing it. Before long, the whole system came unraveled. There was never, at any point in time, a decision on any of our parts to just stop believing. It just happened.

I sit corrected

You're right. It happens, the choice, I guess, is in whether you embrace it and follow your nose, or close your eyes to it and pretend you don't see/feel/hear it.

I guess I Just can't relate to Christianity because it was always on the outside. I only know my roots and my experiences. My memories go back to age 10 and those years through the teen years where I stopped even paying attention to them any more. And in 2004 the memories of those years, and the questions, and presumed answers all came flooding back.

2004 basically confirmed, expanded upon, and resolved, all the open issues set aside since the 70s and beyond.

Looking back at my path, it was no one thing, it was an amazing journey of learning and growth, wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

[talitha]

I'm sure that's how Adam felt - until he heard the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day....... and then he realized he was deceived.

I do not intend this as a flame or anything of that nature but this comment is completely and utterly void of any substance at all. I have no idea what it is that you are trying to accomplish with this. Could you explain what it was?

Actually, I did explain it somewhat, in my own deconversion/reconversion post (#15 on this thread, here's a link - http://www.christianforums.com/t2353995-what-de-conversion-feels-like.html&page=2). I know now that when I had that feeling of "freedom" that was described in the quote on the OP, I was deceived, much as Adam was in the Garden of Eden story. People who go through this "deconversion" are somewhat like some teenagers who are given their own sportscar. I know I was. It's like HA! I can do anything I want now! In the story of the fall, the serpent (the deceiver) says to Eve, "You certainly won't die! God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil." And Eve looked at the fruit, judging it with her own eyes and her own mind for the first time, and she "saw that the tree had fruit that was good to eat, nice to look at, and desirable for making someone wise." So she took some of the fruit and ate it. But she didn't understand the whole picture until afterward. Much like that, we often don't understand until later, and the deceiver then tries to convince us that it's too late for us, now we can never go back..... just as big a lie as the first one......

blessings in Christ
tal

 

[Grizzly]

Actually, I did explain it somewhat, in my own deconversion/reconversion post (#15 on this thread, here's a link - http://www.christianforums.com/t2353995-what-de-conversion-feels-like.html&page=2). I know now that when I had that feeling of "freedom" that was described in the quote on the OP, I was deceived, much as Adam was in the Garden of Eden story. People who go through this "deconversion" are somewhat like some teenagers who are given their own sportscar. I know I was. It's like HA! I can do anything I want now!

I guess it can be like that. Until you realize that you have to make the car payments, pay for insurance, drive carefully to avoid crashing, etc...

It's true that you can do anything you want. However, as an atheist, you are responsible for your actions. You can't just "give it up to God" and let "God be your pilot". Being an atheist makes you realize that you and you alone are responsible for making things better (or making them worse). There is a thrill that comes with being in charge of your own life. But there is also an enormous responsibility.

 

[talitha]

Believe it or not, Christians are required to be responsible too *gasp*!