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AnonymousDeep breath…
So, I am a few years into this journey. And I am still not comfortable with labels. And I am finding it impossible to believe that a GOD would limit himself by a book that was written over a long period of time thousands of years ago. A book that is written by only one half of humanity’s genders and represents the world view of basically one culture? A God that is invisible and largely inactive. A God that exists mainly inside my heart so much so that this God may only be a construct of my own mind. And I start to do my mental gymnastics of how I can still make this work. Because I am desperately that I may offend this God from my childhood and be sent to an eternal torture chamber. And I am afraid that I am not teaching my children the right things about this God and therefore condemning them to an eternal torture chamber. But I don’t really believe in this God anymore. I am afraid to move on. So much of traditional Christianity feels immoral to me now.
I like the idea of some kind of supreme being making some kind of contribution and common sense out of life. I like the idea of being part of a spiritual community. I visited the Unitarian Church a few weeks ago and I have to admit that I liked it and felt inspired by the service. But I was uncomfortable that it wasn’t a “Christian” place and I was “rejecting Christ” by attending there – setting off the whole torture chamber narrative again. I want to stop thinking about all of this. It is an unsolvable puzzle and I am exhausted by it. But I can’t.
How to move on?
Just like you said…. Deep breath… Sending you a hug and know that we are here with you in all of your doubts.
These things take time. It’s like decompressing. It just takes time. It doesn’t matter how much you know or experience or understand or anything. It just takes time.
Hi Jeb, I also got stuck on the “insolvable puzzle” part and became quite exhausted and frustrated by it. It does take time. I still find myself mentally trying to make all of the seemingly infinite pieces fit sometimes.
(((HUGS))) Jeb!
“I like the idea of some kind of supreme being making some kind of contribution and common sense out of life. I like the idea of being part of a spiritual community. I visited the Unitarian Church a few weeks ago and I have to admit that I liked it and felt inspired by the service. But I was uncomfortable that it wasn’t a “Christian” place and I was “rejecting Christ” by attending there – setting off the whole torture chamber narrative again. I want to stop thinking about all of this. It is an unsolvable puzzle and I am exhausted by it. But I can’t.”
I am so here with you on why I need to believe in a supreme being, liking spirituality. I went to a Unitarian Church years ago and felt the same way. I wonder how I would feel about it now if I went.
Hi Jeb. I understand where you are because I lived there for years. When I reached the point when I could no longer believe, I enrolled in seminary. Instead of walking away, I felt the fault had to be within me since no one else had changed. Clearly I needed a deeper understanding of my faith. Thousands of dollars later I gained a deeper understanding of Christianity that bolstered my resolve to leave.
I was held firmly in place by fear. I was afraid of how my friends, family, and church would react to my leaving. I was afraid that the A-theist or non-theist label would cause people to not see that I’d not really changed since leaving religion. I was afraid that millions of people worldwide who believed in the Judeo-Christian God could not be wrong and I could not be right. I was afraid of God – what if this was a test that I was failing miserably. Fear was everywhere, then one Sunday I posted this on Facebook:
My baptism felt like a marriage ceremony. Maybe because I attended a small church that met in a school gym and I got baptized in a members backyard pool surrounded by friends. Or maybe its because in addition to my church congregation I had 8 very good friends that came along to serve as witnesses. Most likely it’s the week of intense praying and meditation I did leading up to it, making a private commitment in my heart before my public one…like a wedding. At that moment I was absolutely in love with God and knew I’d be forever. Fast forward to 2 1/2 years later and the realization that this relationship is over, at least for me. Falling out of love with God is not an easy process. It requires agonizing over and finally coming to the realization that your lack of faith is absolute. Attempting to fix things yourself without prayer used to appear as if you were leaning on your own understanding. In the clarity gained by removing God from the equation, you realize that you weren’t being “willful” but practical. Hours spent on your knees wondering how it was possible to say “wow my God did this” and then ask “wow, how could my God have done this?” are exhausting. When reason starts to kick in, its easier to understand Natural Disasters vs Acts of God. When not reading your Bible or praying for a weeks or months brings you more peace than you’ve had since before your commitment to God, you know its time to call it quits. Realizing that you are the same person you were 2 1/2 yrs ago and being ok with that fact is a good thing. Someone I really respect once told me there will be a lot of really good people in hell. If I’m wrong about this, then the future looks bleak. However for now I’ll just continue being a really good person on earth trying to figure out what to do with Sunday morning.
I just laid it all out and changed my religious status to other. I got a lot of private messages and phone calls. Some had seen the writing on the wall. Some thought I was being led astray. Some were genuinely in dismay. Some walked out of my life, unable to reconcile the fact that someone could no longer believe in God. I posted that message Easter Sunday 2010, the last time I ever attended church. My life has opened up immensely. The world looks no different to me than it did behind God colored glasses. My belief in gods may have changed, but I have not.
I don’t think it’s an unsolvable puzzle. I think you can grow and move on, whether it ends up being a different way of worshiping, or if you end up leaving religion altogether. Where you are right now is the worst place. It was the toughest place for me to be because I felt like an indecisive fence rider, unable to make a choice. I still don’t know all the answers, but I’m perfectly ok with that. Be kind to yourself while you work through this. I was very unkind to myself for my doubts and that delayed my moving forward immensely.
With all my heart I wish I had a community like this to talk about it when I was where you are. You’re being able to come here puts you leaps and bounds ahead of where I was with my support system at that time. Thank you for posting this. {{hugs}}}
Hi Jeb,
I can relate to what you are experiencing. I believe that our consciousness dwells in our body, not just in our brain as thoughts. Emotions emerge from the body, not the brain. When I did my work the thing I kept my focus on was rigorous honesty. It made sense to me that anything that is true would withstand any examination because truth is reality and doesn’t need defending.
I found that my years living as a believer created a state of being in which I was in constant fear. This fear became written on my body. And when my mind began to see through the deception, it took my body a while to get to the same page. This is the side effect of the operant conditioning of fear that Christian belief places on a person.
It took me years to deprogram. There were times where my body would shake for hours and I thought I was going crazy. I read a book by Dr. Peter Levine called “Waking the Tiger” and he describes the process all animals go through to recover from trauma. I realized that what I was going through was the same process that all animals go through physically to balance their systems. Even though my trauma was created by my imagination, the body doesn’t differentiate between real and imaginary. As soon as I learned to let my brakes off, my body did what it needed to do and finally my emotional being was on the same page as my intellectual one.
Here is a short video by a young man describing his exit from Mormanism. You can see the obvious emotional engagement with what he is describing. I can relate to what he is feeling.
Jeb, I definitely relate to your discomfort with labels. Fortunately, labels aren’t necessary. The kind of changes that so many of us here have experienced (and still are experiencing) is profound. It takes a very long time to work through what it all means to you and let go of the fear of being wrong. I’ve found that, as contradictory as it may sound, although I no longer hold orthodox theistic or supernatural beliefs, my sense of trust in whatever there may be which could be called “divine” has increased and my fear and anxiety have decreased.
There are also different types of worries that go along with those changes in belief.
For me the first was fear of being wrong, of disappointing or angering God. I eventually came to terms with “if” and the unknown. Just being able to think the questions “What if God as I understand him doesn’t exist?” and “What if no god of any kind exists?” and face them head on within myself was a watershed. Never mind saying such things aloud. But I finally realized that if anything like the type of God I’d believed in actually did exist, then my mind, my reasoning power, my questions, and everything else that makes up my human self was from him. To not use those gifts to the best of my ability would be to denigrate him. And if it led to uncertainty about his existence or certainty of his non-existence, if my assessment was mistaken he would understand and honor my integrity. You know, since coming to that place some years ago, I’ve been more at peace than I ever was as a born-again evangelical charismatic Christian. Oh, the irony: embracing my skepticism and acknowledging the unknown has generated more of a genuine trust (perhaps even faith) than I had during my most fervent, dogmatic, scripture-quoting, bible-believing years. Heh.
The other set of fears is social. That has taken much longer to come to terms with. There are still very few people who have known how I really think about these things, but this site has been a tremendous help and encouragement. People are harder to deal with than god – or the concept of god. And that’s where labels come in. We like things to be neat, in tidy little packages. I am this, you are that. Black or white, on or off, in or out. But life and mind and emotions and spirituality are a jumbled mess most of the time. So I’m a skeptical thinker, agnostic-leaning-toward-atheist but emotionally deist/pantheistic, philosophically in sync with Buddhism, but coming from an evangelical/Pentecostal frame of reference who still in some ways calls herself a “book of James” Christian. At least that’s pretty much where I’m at today, and no part of that description fits as a label by itself. And I really don’t expect anyone outside this site, except for a couple of close friends, to get it.
Be easy on yourself. Labels don’t matter, and you may not find an organization or other group that does what church used to do when your theology could fit into a neatly orthodox and readily acceptable box. You’ve stepped out into an adventure – perhaps you could call yourself an eclectic believer and leave them all guessing as to just what that means – a man of mystery…
These are my first written words in this community. I’m slowly inching my way in. I’m currently a pastor of a healthy, caring community that is deeply committed to questioning our faith, corporate and individual. I suppose we’re that way because I am that way. I joined this community because I have so few colleagues that affirm this kind of faith formation. So much of what has been said in response to Jeb resonates with me. The questions of how to move on.. your personal stories of leaving “a marriage” as servantgirl said, the need for time… yes, it takes time.
I guess I’m left this morning wondering again about my own finite ability to understand something beyond myself. I admit (with a little fear and sometimes embarrassment) that within me is a fairly stable, persistent seed of faith in God. But God as I was taught in sunday school and in seminary no longer exists for me. I’m certainly inching closer and closer… but I’m not sure to what. Thanks for listening.
Beth, welcome.
Richard, thanks for posting the video.
Welcome Beth. I look forward to what you have to share.
Can I just say that you all are amazing! Seriously…my heart is warm and gooey from reading your responses to Jeb. Servantgirl and Moxie…so much of what you said resonates with me and it is so great to have so many different voices and viewpoints.
As many have said, your journey is not dissimilar to others here and ultimately allowing yourself time to process is the best thing. It has been about 4 years since I started finding myself moving away from “traditional” Christian understandings and I honestly still struggle a lot with the direction to take. But I would say that one of the things that has helped me the most is just giving myself the grace to ask questions and be OK with not having fool-proof answers to those questions. My premise to everything is that if God exists and God is compassionate in any sense, then God probably understands why I am where I am with my beliefs…even better than I do. God understands that I am an imperfect, mortal being thrusted into a world with an innumerable amount of beliefs and is sympathetic towards that. And in the offchance that God is not understanding to that and “must” punish me unendlessly for not buying into things that no longer resonated with the heart and mind God gave me…then is that God worth me worshiping and catering to anyway?
It took me awhile to get comfortable with this approach but it has really helped free me from this need to be “right” and enjoy the journey the spirit has apparently put me on.
The journey is the reward. Truth is a pathless land. Labels sometimes serve, especially as descriptors. But they fall short of really identifying where we are. Thanks so much Jeb for initiating this amazing conversation!
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