Was anyone here ever a true believer in a religion and then lost their faith? I'm interested to hear your stories.
I once was a zealous Christian. I had faith. When I lost that it felt like I'd been hit by a truck, like my head had been spattered open. It was incredibly raw and painful.
I have no wish to argue anyone out of their faith. It's pointless anyway. You can't simply argue someone out of their faith in a debate. And more to the point there's nothing in it for me. I'm not a sadist. Believe, don't believe, it's all the same to me.
I was raised Christian, and I was fairly religious, but I was never faithful, per se. I viewed religion with the same lack of emotional attachment that I have for physics or geology. I'm pretty autistic, so that might have something to do with it. As a kid, I was always asking the pastor and my parents questions about theology, potential implications, etc. Eventually I came to the conclusion that Christianity without Adam and Eve makes no sense, so I stopped being religious. I would describe myself as agnostic atheist.
Oh! By the way, I say "Christian" because I was influenced by several sects. One church I went to as a kid was the Community of Christ (a Mormon offshoot), a Lutheran Church, and my Dad was influenced by a mix of the community of Christ, Baptist, and other protestant theology. He was a King James purist.
Interesting, I was raised in a Catholic environment, but similarly I also viewed it in a detached way, although I was not very religious at the time. However I did get the benefit of almost two decades of catechism teachings which I learnt without much enthusiasm. I was at an extremely low point in my life where I had lost all faith in myself and my own ability to navigate my life, I was approached by missionaries and read parts of the bible. I experienced what the mormons would call the "burning of the bosom". I put all my faith in this, even if it didn't make sense that was my fault as an imperfect human being who doesn't understand god's ways.
Losing that was... I mean, if you have faith that is salvation, that is everlasting life, it's hard to explain to someone who never had that faith what it means to lose it. I was devastated and alone.
And now I'm on IQfy on a friday night, so I guess it all worked out huh.
NGL, when I stopped being religious, it wasn't a very emotional thing for me. I always thought of religion purely in terms of truth and falsehood, as opposed to there being some "personal connection to Jesus" or whatever. Maybe I'm just too much of a sperg for the whole religion thing.
I was the same. My advice? Whether the divine exist or not, unshackle yourself and embrace your inner savage. Degeneracy is the natural way of humanity, whether or not demons are there to reward you
I too was once a zealous Christian. Then I had my first encounter with a black man at church. He didn't ape out or anything, but he stank to high heaven and kept angrily muttering under his breath and saying something about crackas. I realized I could not believe in a God who demanded I treat this as a brother in Christ.
He was there to worship with white female churchgoers in a private setting using his BBC.
Yeah, I was christian until I realized that there is no forgiveness in the church or on earth and that there is no redemption for past wrongs. Then I was a stone cold agnostic for a long time perusing and achieving reputable science based higher education degrees, family and professional career. Years later I realized the true religion through my own research and readings, and now I feel secure in my salvation and understand my purpose and the point of literally everything.
I was raised by a cult, and I mean like a literal cult living in a fenced off farm in the middle of fricking nowhere contemplating the end of days. Stayed there until I was 10 when we got raided by, I don't actually remember which agency but some group of Feds which threw most of the people in prison and took me to a foster home. I was sort of religious as a kid, but it was very brainwashed religion. Also, while this group was ostensibly Christian, it's the sort of Christianity that horrified people in more normal churches when my foster parents took me to church and I spoke with the pastor.
woah, what sort of special teachings did they have?
IIRC, and please remember this was a while ago.
>Not only were we fallen to the degree that we were unworthy of repentance, we were also unworthy of grace. We could offer no atonement or sacrifice, because what did we have to offer? The only way out was through, increase sin so that the antichrist would come and all of our evil would be destroyed in Armageddon.
>In furtherance of this, there was a lot of self-mutilation. Coal grabbing and sticking hands into fires type stuff to burn yourself, not to cleanse your sins, but to affirm your essential worthlessness and make yourself something that not even God would love.
>The anti-Christ would need to come and raise America as his dominion before the second coming of Christ. Therefore, they wanted to accelerate the birth of the Anti-Christ. I found out later that there was a lot of weird sex crap going on in the leader's compound, with 'polyspermatic insemination rituals' whatever the frick that meant; but the short of it is that they were attempting to breed an anti-christ for Jesus to come down and defeat.
>The guy who owned the farm a bit down the road was an agent of the devil and I distinctly recall my mom encouraging me to throw rocks at his house windows whenever I went down the road with her to beg from motorists.
Outlast 2
Was just about to say this. Anon is literally just copying outlast 2 kek
Same. I was raised Catholic but I slowly lost my faith. Life has just become far more miserable and I am filled with existential dread that I have never felt when I was religious.
Honestly, vocal atheists should be executed. I keep my lack of religion to myself and I recognize that religion is necessary for society to keep functioning. Anyone that genuinely promotes atheism should just be killed for the sake of keeping society stable. The modern West proves how destructive atheism is.
nice false flag, bro but atheism is the truth and the truth as they say will set you free
I was a Muslim for a number of year (revert)
Islam is awesome if you’re a white dude, especially if you have the bare minimum of leadership skills. Within a year of my conversion I was running the masjid food pantry and coordinating volunteer work with the refugees that were in my city. I was leading prayers when asked, giving the adhan and learning Arabic. Being a Muslim was one of the only times I felt on point and moving with purpose.
Why did I leave? I had to keep justifying atrocious things. I learned the apologetics, stayed away from criticism of Islam and made dua for the doubt to go away. One day I just stopped, can’t really explain it past that.
Overnight I became a stranger in my community. I was still running the pantry, still leading prayers, still walking the walk and talking the talk but I just didn’t believe. Leaving Islam is a death sentence literally, and at the very least you will be ostracized from the community unless you repent.
It’s painful really. I truly love the community and knew at least what I was doing was coming from a place of care, but I couldn’t remain because if I remained I would be a hypocrite.
Yup. I was Catholic and briefly a Protestant after that. It was a great feeling though tough to build a life purpose from scratch. I wish I was never raised Christian because it would have been much easier to just learn about life without the useless detour until I was like 20.
Genuinely think it’s cruel to raise children religious, of course the parents often don’t know any better.
I was also raised Catholic (SSPX). My parents finished converting while my mom was pregnant with me and they took it very seriously. I took it very seriously as well, and I was an earnest believer up until about 17; when I left home for college. I think in my heart I never really believing, but moreso felt like I was trying to run from God in the pursuit of my own vices. It only made me deeply miserable, and I felt lost and confused. I professed agnosticism because I couldn’t truthfully say I believed in the absence of God. I only recently started going to Mass again, and while I still have a long way to go, I feel a deep sense of peace and comfort and direction with the grace of God in my soul again. For me it took being on the brink of suicide, and reduced to absolute misery in almost every aspect of my life for me to recant my errors and abandon my life of sin. The problem was that the further I strayed from the God, the harder it became to remember about how happy I was living in unison with Him The more I stifled my conscience, the less I even thought about God at all.
I remember my Dad once saying that sanctifying grace is like a single, but powerful, light in a large room. When the light is on, you can see things clearly and move freely. But when sanctifying grace leaves your soul, it’s like the light is turned off. At first, you can probably remember the layout of the room, and perhaps feel your way around. But the longer you stay in the dark, the harder it becomes to remember the way things looked in the light, and where the light switch even was to begin with. (The light switch being a metaphor for Confession).
I’ll pray for you Anon. I truly believe if you make a good confession and pray for God to show you the way, He’ll give you guidance.
Hey OP. The version of Christianity you knew (as with most Christians) was probably moron-tier and was forced upon you from a young age. There is a deeper undercurrent that can only be appreciated with a more in depth and study and open mind inquiry. In fact, finding flaws with the beliefs you were raised with is an important part of refining your beliefs and getting closer to the truth.
whoops accidental sage
Only Western Europeans except Italians have this problem. Russia doesn't have this issue.
No one actually goes to church in Russia, it's purely about Identity.
I was pretty staunchly Christian until I realized 2 things: I couldn't ignore the atrocities God was up to in the Old Testament and hell. Every time I'd bring this up to Priests, all I'd get is a "have faith" style argument. Thats when I realized that a lot of people don't even know what Christianity is. It's just some faith system that rewards a herd mentality. I think religions aren't really bad with shit like charity but than you start getting into religions like Islam.
I don't remember ever believing in God, I've always been an atheist. I was raised mostly Methodist but my family were church hoppers so I was exposed to most different kinds of Protestantism. (Methodist, Nazarene, Lutheran, Baptist, non-denominational, Presbyterian) I've also been to Catholic mass a few times with extended family. Also despite living in a rural area our town was very "diverse" religiously so I had friends that were Mormons, Apostolic Pentecostals, and JWs.
Despite going to church and Sunday School almost every week I can't say I've ever really believed, I was an atheist before I even knew what that was. I always just assumed God would click and just make sense when I was older but it never did.
I was raised Catholic and lost my faith because I realized that I don't really have good reasons to believe. It wasn't too painful for me because I'd never used faith as a cope, it was just another fact of life.