Thinking of deconverting?

[Gawen]

"Was there anything else you went through that made you deconvert? That is, if you don't mind me asking?" These are common question by folks that are questioning their theism; their religion. Let me start off with this:

"Truth prevails. Life, death, truth; no power can keep it back. And since we are doomed to know the truth, let us grow a love for it. It is of no avail to cry or become angry over lost illusions, to long for vanished dreams, or pretend, or to call to the departing gods to come back. A people who fear the truth can never be a free people. If what I will now say is the truth, is there any good reason why I should not say it?"
"In the discussion of this subject, I appeal to the mature, not to the child mind. I appeal to those who have cultivated a taste for truth, who are not easily scared, and follow to the end truth's leading. The multitude is ever joined to its idols. I speak to the discerning few. An ordained preacher will command a hearing in the name of God, or in the name of the Bible. He does not have to satisfy those that listen to him about the reasonableness of what he preaches. He is God's mouthpiece, and no one may disagree with him. He can also invoke the authority of the church and of the Christian world to enforce acceptance of his teaching."

"The only way I may command your respect is to be reasonable. You will not listen to me for God's sake, the Bible's sake, for the love of heaven, or the fear of hell. My only protection is to be rational, to be truthful. In other words, the preacher can afford to ignore common sense in the name of Revelation. But if I depart from it in the least, or am caught once playing fast and loose with the facts, I will irretrievably lose my standing.
To challenge the mind is difficult, especially where it concerns what one believes is the truth. The majority avoids difficulty and fear danger. But one that challenges danger and plods through difficulty will progress. A difficult subject is in the nature of a challenge to the mind. But he who would progress must even court danger. Political and religious liberty were discovered through peril and struggle. The world owes its emancipation to human daring. Had those that explored the New World feared danger, America might have slept for another thousand years."-- M.M. Magnasarian

Deconversion takes many forms; an epiphany, of sorts for some, or years of painstaking physical and/or emotional trauma, not only for the one going through deconversion, but for those in contact with the deconvertee. And some of those fail. ButiIt would seem that most people that deconvert begin by questioning their faith, questioning those around them that also believe, everything they had been led (or led themselves) to believe and then eventually, if they stick with it long enough, they question everything.

Many, at the beginning, do not want to stop believing or want to live in sin or anything like that. They aren't angry at the church or the congregation or even God. On the other hand, many are angry. Either way, when the Pastor, Minister, Priest, Preacher, Shaman, Rabbi, etc., and those believers cannot appease the deconvertee with their evidence, the deconvertee must seek help elsewhere for his/her questions. Potential deconvertees and those undergoing the process have a multitude of things to begin their search for truth.

One thing they can do is try to prove Dan Barker's Easter Challenge wrong. Perhaps read Descarte, all the while knowing that even Descarte himself assumed God. But it is difficult, because 'doubt' is a sin in Christianity and every challenge against your faith you undertake is a sin. But many get the guilt complex going and go back to church to repent and reinforce the beliefs and pray that God would show them the errors of what they have begun to question. Many people flip flop many times. Some deconvert, others do not. And some, while holding their religious beliefs still silently question them, never breaking out of that sinister mold.

But those that still question and not afraid of the truth of the matter realize that Christian evidence just does not back up Christianity. Biblical contradictions abound throughout the book, yet so many Christians have never known of them. Naturally, contradictions are not things the Holy men will point out. Reading the Bible is, I think, and for most atheists, the fastest way to deconverting.

I have never been a Christian or a theist of any kind. Although I was brought up in Calvinistic Christian old school Presbyterianism, I had never believed it. There was never a point in my early life where I wanted to deconvert and there was never a point in my early life where I wanted to believe Christianity. From a very early age I had thought it all too good to be true. And now I know there is no good evidence I have ever seen for any God to exist or the religions built around them. Going to church, singing in the choir and ringing bells in the bell choir were my parents idea, not God's. God never bothered to apprise me of that fact of his existence. There was no "feeling the presence of the Spirit or Jesus". No communiqués, not even a memo from the Great Beyond. No heavenly signs or answered prayers. There was nothing but silence. Always.

I had also noticed that too many of my Christian friends and their parents 'belief' had never reached beyond the level of "let's pretend". Seriously. They were all Sunday morning Christians and the analogies of armchair quarterbacks and armchair generals seem apropos. The moral in this paragraph is to seek out the evidence...or lack thereof.

Some Christians and deconvertees find discussion boards. Some find Christian boards, others find other religious boards and some find atheistic/free thought boards. An example of a person I know; he was leaving Protestantism to return to Catholicism and found a board called Christian Forums and became active in that board. He had discovered the section where all the non-Christians hung out and started interacting with them. He has said it was the first time in his life he'd ever been exposed to even the possibility that Christianity might be nothing but bunk and was amazed that people could even think it.

Eventually, for him, the evidence against Christianity (and theism in general) kept mounting and he had to be honest with himself that there was precious little to none in support of it. It was a discussion of Hell that was finally the breaking point for him; when he just threw up his hands at a fellow Christian's explanations of Hell and said to himself "This is an absolute load of garbage, and I've been believing it for over 35 years!" He said, though it was long in the coming, his deconversion, once it arrived hit him like a sack of hammers. He follows up with, "I've never looked back and I don't think I could possibly go back, nor do I want to."

Now, there are the 'Cafeteria Christians', never really active church-goers except on a couple special occasions. I would think that if the notion hit them, their deconversion would be somewhat easier and quicker than the devout. It seems to me, that over the years of reading other peoples deconversion stories, the Cafeteria types realise early on and figure out a lot of what is in the Bible (that is if they read it) was wrong (factually and morally) and just wouldn't make sense. Their deconversion would be made easier because of the lack of communal reinforcement and confirmation bias.

I know another man who, at the age of fifteen read the Bible from cover to cover, forty years ago, threatened his parents that if they continued to force him to go to their Southern Baptist church every Sunday, he would stand up and declare before the whole congregation that he thought they were all deluded. Amazing! I never would have had the balls to tell that to my parents. And of course, the Southern Baptists at that time were not as militant as they are now. Like him and so many other atheists, if I had to name a single book which most reinforced my disbelief and influenced theirs, it's the Bible - hands down.

There are those that were forced to read the bible from an early age and expected that they would all evangelise and testify and yet, for some reason, they question it. Perhaps one of the differences was that they tried to comprehend it rather than just skimming through it. To some people, it just doesn't make much sense and the God they saw illustrated within didn't sound like the kind of God they wanted or needed or was told about by the Holy men.

There were a few things that particularly stood in the way of my disbelief. A minor one is I had noticed that too many of my Christian friends and their parents 'belief' had never reached beyond the level of "let's pretend". Seriously. They were all Sunday morning Christians and the analogies of armchair quarterbacks and armchair generals seem apropos. Oddly, the major ones are the central tenets of Chritianity!  Vicarious Sacrifice, virgin births, resurrection of the dead just never made any sense. I never could get how somebody's sacrifice 2000 years ago could have had any bearing on me now - a preemptive forgiveness of whatever I might do, as long as I said a few magic words.  And still, there was no sacrifice! Anyone who sacrifices himself knowing that death is not an option for him because of his divinity is no saviour.

Another was the personalized godhood. I could never understand why an all-powerful being that transcends time and space would possibly be interested in individual people from a celestial backwater; interested in what they ate or what they stuck their penis' in. Perhaps more important than that, I couldn't understand why such a being would demand, devotion and worship from humans to the point of promising eternal punishment if not given it to him. That's almighty petty of an Almighty God, don't you think?

But it wasn't until I joined up in the Southeast Asian War Games in the early 70's when things started to open up. Most cognizant at the time was the sheer number of vastly and wildly different religions I would hear of, each and every one of which claimed to be "the Truth". I could never understand how a God, if he cared that we believed "correctly", could let such a thing happen without giving unambiguous clues not only to his existence, but to which of those myriad religions and/or methods of worship was correct. The hidden God - you had to seek on your own and if you got it wrong you suffer eternal torment - it just didn't make sense.

Today, decades later, it still doesn't make any sense. The myriad Christian denominations can be so wildly different that even "same God, different faces" falls apart upon examination. They can't ALL be true especially if, as so often claimed. And if they can't all be true, and there are no unambiguous, unmistakable universal messages from God as to which ones are true, then the most sensible explanation is that NONE of them are.

With all of that and more to fight and against, any fledgling, childish irrationalities or allusions to rational God belief that deconvertees might entertain would be helpless. What I mean is something along the "Belief" as those who promote Pascal's Wager. I cannot simply decide to believe in anything. I must be convinced of it and the larger or more complicated the proposition, the more convincing it is going to take. Fortunately, the indoctrination/brainwashing that such a childhood of regular practice usually induces in the young just didn't take with me, especially after wrestling with the all the God concepts and problems.

I put Christianity behind me and never looked back with the exception to try to understand it. I have come to the conclusion that understanding the three main religions is impossible. Though I confess to a decade and a half fascination with the questions of why others believe, but I do not, I'm still chasing answers to this day and that explains my initial presence on discussion boards like this. I didn't come here for answers, but I stay for the BBQ and camaraderie.

I have digressed long enough.

Let me get back to the task at hand.

[Gawen]

It is amazing that some deconvertees were conservative evangelical Christians. It is even more amazing that some of them went to evangelical Christian universities that when they began to question their faith. Somehow, by being around believers 24/7 helped rip the God goggles from their eyes. Some have gone from conservative Bible thumping to very liberal agnostic Christian in a matter of weeks, taking atheism a bit further.

Some began to study the world's great religions, perhaps out of curiosity or perhaps their doubt made them think they had not been exposed to the 'true one'. Some flirted with the Baha'i faith, for example and loved the people and the idealistic Utopian philosophy, but in the end the supernatural elements were as silly as any of the others. Eventually, most deconvertees to atheism can't find a God was because there simply aren't any, well, with the exception of the gods that live in the imaginations of men.

And then there are the – Emotions; emotional values we place on our beliefs. See if you can spot the fallacy from this Christian:
"The emotional revelation did come first but all of the works I was reading from Plato, Seneca, Aristole, Confucious, Persian poets had already made me believe that something greater than our immediate sensuous experience existed. The revelation sealed the deal for me. I was in my mid twenties when this experience happened so I had already developed a decent level of criticism. But I also think the same bias [emotions] which you mention can be said about former believers who turn skeptics at an early age without truly having developed the proper critical mental equipment to direct them in a rationally objective as opposed to an emotionally subjective search about their faith."

It's the skeptical, critical, and rational and objective thinking that turn the majority of theists to deconversion. The opposite are those who hold onto their emotional ties and privilege the emotional arguments above the rational ones who remain believers. I've read hundreds of deconversional testimonies from ex-believers, and snippets of hundreds more and every single time, when you manage to nail them deep down on why they really, truly believe, the reasons are emotional, not rational. It's always the "feeling" rather than the theological or epistomological or whatever other -ological arguments that do it.

There's a reason why so many church leaders of all stripes have agreed with Paul that "reason is the enemy of faith". A believer may be sure because it feels right, but it doesn't mean he is correct. That's the whole point. Any rambling about desires or knowledge rooted in emotions to provide the evidence or the reinforcement of the evidence of the existence of a god and how it affects the world proves that a believer is not skeptical, critical, rational or objective.

I think most people go through a period of questioning the meaning of life, purpose, ethics and stuff, though it seems to affect some more than others. Some potential deconvertees seem that a turn toward atheism leads inexorably towards nihilism, and they do not like this at all. I suspect that many thoughtful religious people hang onto their religions out of similar convictions, that without religion nothing matters, morality has no basis, etc. They are wrong, of course, but it seems as if they cannot see past it.

Even some nihilists, believing life being meaningless anyway, decide they might as well spend it looking for the possibility that they are wrong, checking things out to see if there were something they may have missed. Sometimes people, for whatever reasoning venture widely into all sorts of genres, what with friends, films, television, radio and printed media.  Some find authors like Watts and Kerouac, who may give them a first introduction to views of eastern religions. Hesse, too, and even give some sort of speculative credence to Castaneda and his ilk.

Some find books on Eastern religions, like Suzuki, and Christmas Humphries, The Tao of Physics, Huxley (Island and Doors of Perception) Ram Dass, Leary, The Tibetan Book of Dead, Stranger in a Strange Land, and the tosh of Richard Bach. Often ideas tumbling around in their minds late at night, trying meditation exercises picked up from wherever, trying to catch themselves thinking, trying to stop thinking, introspecting, seeking - rather Persig like seeking for quality, for value.

Have you come to the point that something happened, perhaps late at night, and had a sort of epiphany? Perhaps a feeling of great oneness with something, everything, peace, love and compassion for people who had not shared this experience let alone those that had never heard of it? How to explain it? Thinking about it, a working hypothesis; that it was something to do with working your mind to such a pitch that it simply shut off, rather like people endlessly pondering Zen Koans, like the sound of one hand clapping, as an aid to such a shutdown and experience?

What to call it? Transcendental Experience? What were you reading at the time? Where were you? What was the experience at the time? Do you interpret it within a Buddhist context, a Christian one, Mother Earth, aliens?  Yes, it may have been quite a powerful experience. You may have babbled on about it for weeks to anyone that would listen. It may have happened years and years ago and you remember it yet. Did the thought of becoming or being manic enter your mind? In retrospect, you most likely would have been right. What the word "spiritual" means to me: an emotional reaction. And I don't trust emotions as a measure of a truth claim. People seem to automatically assume that the stronger the emotion, the truer it or the underlying proposition is.

Many theists think they have arrived at their beliefs through a rational process while they think others have arrived at their beliefs as a result of emotions. They often think that other believers came to their beliefs for emotional reasons, while they themselves used a rational process to arrive at their own beliefs. Christian apologetics are attempts to make the argument for Christianity seem very rational. Even when the arguments are very easy to poke holes in, the believer rarely sees the rabbit hole he's in.

One of the greatest deconversion stories I have ever read is from a person I know personally. You would be surprised and fascinated at the depth of her account and the next time you hear the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, you will be reminded of Laurie. Her screen name is COAS (Christ on a Stick). You can view it here. And I warn you, it will take two days to read it.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=72552

Her story will show just how damaging faith can be and a growing realisation that the religious experiences you may have had were/are not grounded in reality. However, some of you may have never faced the mental conflicts that she did; never felt the pain that indoctrination can cause an individual in the suppression of their individual freedom, which can be harsher than you could imagine.

Coming out can be a long and protracted battle with feelings of guilt and deep terror. But it is healthy for people to question everything. I'm often surprised when I encounter people who question very little. I can confidently say, at 56 years old and for 56 years that I am incapable of believing in anything superstitious, supernatural, mystical, or spiritual. Any time I read stories about religious experiences, I am automatically skeptical and dismissive of. I'm afraid I'm reductionist in the extreme. I read stories like those and think: you had a powerful emotional reaction to a combination of inputs, and kept getting that feeling, and the subsequent belief, reinforced. No god involved or even necessary.

I think the most important thing about deconversion is that you have to keep going. Don't just stop when you disbelieve in god. Make sure you question everything. Nothing should be taken for granted, and you have to push away all superstitious, non-evidence based beliefs, assertions, presuppositions and assumptions. In doubting the existence of the Gods, why SHOULDN'T Zeus or Thor or Quetzalcoatl be as real as the one you believe/d in? Yes, you'll find that doubt makes us better people than faith (and that is quotable).

[Sandra Craft]

It is amazing that some deconvertees were conservative evangelical Christians.

That doesn't surprise me at all.  Moderate and liberal Xtians interpret the bible in a largely metaphoric way that leaves a lot of slack for the more absurd and unbelieveable bits, which are abundant.  The more conservative, the more literal the interpretation tends to be which means less slack for manipulating the nonsense into something acceptable (poetry, story, allegory, whatever) and therefore the greater chance for eventual wholesale rejection.

[Gawen]

It is amazing that some deconvertees were conservative evangelical Christians.

The more conservative, the more literal the interpretation tends to be which means less slack for manipulating the nonsense into something acceptable (poetry, story, allegory, whatever) and therefore the greater chance for eventual wholesale rejection.

Literalists tend to stick together more tightly than the liberals. Even moderates (including liberals) will leave a church to find another church for various reasons and I would wager that some moderates and most liberals are much more well read than literalists...on the whole. Half the guys I work with have moved to different churches (some more than once within the last 4 years) and I would consider most of them moderates, none literalists and armchair sunday-only Christians.

I've only worked with one literalist, and he was a Southern Baptist preacher. He wasn't well read or particularly intelligent, he was as close to a misogynist as one can get without actual hatred, but by God, his wife better do as tells her or she would get whipped with his belt. He was a racist -ran an all white church, a YECer and as closed minded as one can get. He believed that every color of a human other than white were inferior and that inferiority was caused by God. And he believed any dream or vision one had about Jesus was heaven sent and any other dream or vision was from Satan.

I do work with one other super-duty Christian. He's black and goes to an all black church. He is also a racist, of low intelligence, anti-social with everyone other than members of his church and a YECer...I can't be sure he's a literalist, but I would bet money on it.

With the kinds of communal reinforcement and the severe delusion with a staunch refusal to listen to any evidence not in support of their delusions I know these two guys have, I can see the moderates and liberals leaving God behind much easier than those two.

[Whitney]

I'm not sure if I would have de-converted if I hadn't been exposed to conservative understandings of the bible or other religions.  It's what really sparked me taking a more critical look at my own beliefs (as I couldn't believe they got such weird views for the same text I thought was good).

[Sandra Craft]

He wasn't well read or particularly intelligent . . .

He is also . . .  of low intelligence . . .

And there's were you get the lack of deconversion potential.  Obviously a deconvert has thought about things.  Just because someone is born into a religious, conservative household doesn't mean they're a nitwit.