Sorry for the reddit link. I didn’t want to give this woman my clicks and views.
If you asked me growing up, I would have said that I’m a Christian. I was surrounded by Christians, my family were Christians, and I went to church almost every Sunday until I was 18.
But I never truly believed. I always felt something was wrong with it all, that it just made no sense. I looked around at my peers and thought “why don’t I feel god in me like everyone else?”. I wanted to believe so desperately that it made me feel like there was something very, very wrong with me.
I thought “well maybe it’s because I go to a non-denominational church” so I asked if we could go a southern baptist church instead. Nothing. Then I thought “maybe I need to be more involved in the church”, so I went to Bible studies every week and volunteered for mission trips and vacation Bible school. Nothing. Then I thought “maybe it’s because I was never baptized”, so I got baptized. Nothing.
After years of this, I was anxious, depressed, and suicidal. It wasn’t until I moved out and went to a school across the country that I could finally admit to myself that I just didn’t believe and I likely never would.
After many years of self-reflection and deconstruction I am finally happy and in a place where I feel like I am living my authentic life. I’ve never been happier.
Forcing kids into religion is fucked and does damage to them that lasts for years, if not a lifetime.
Damn that’s rough. I just was an obnoxious annoying little shit that wouldn’t shut up and my mom was too embarrassed to take us and couldn’t leave us unattended so she stopped going too. Then when I could read I read the bible and thought wtf is this shitty fanfic.
I somewhat disagree with your last statement. I think the process you went through can be a beneficial framework for challenging your core beliefs for the rest of your life. Few people ever do that, because it’s difficult, uncomfortable, and scary, but we’d be better off as a society if everyone did. I went through the same journey, not necessarily arriving at the same conclusion, but close, and I learned a lot about myself, the world, religion, and humanity in the process. I feel like it was a healthy experience. Plus, I appreciated the guidelines and ethics instructions I received through the church, even though I often fought against them. I do think that it made me a more empathetic and less judgemental person throughout my life.
You are talking to a person to whom religion caused damage and denying the validity of their experience. That is pretty rude.
It’s okay, I didn’t mind. That was his experience and that’s totally fine. I didn’t take it as invalidating what I went through.
But I do appreciate you looking out for a stranger!
That’s not my intention. I am attempting to illustrate other aspects of that internal struggle which can be healthy for our personal development. I did acknowledge that it’s uncomfortable, scary, and difficult to go through it though.
There a things about religion that are unique and good. The unique things are not good and the good things are not unique
It’s all good man, I didn’t take it in a bad way. I totally get that not everyone has the same experience and outlook when going through something like this.
Have a good one!
I told my mother that I thought Jesus was a fairy tale around age nine. She wanted to know who said that to me. I told her I just thought it wasn’t believable.
Proof. Church can indoctrinate. That’s not the same as it will.
I had foster parents that forced me to go to church, 3 times a week. (Wed & fri youth groups, and Sunday)
The more I learned from it all, the more atheist I became.
(1) obviously; (2) yeah I’m not clicking that… - is it archived anywhere?
It’s basically just a christian mom admitting to torture her own son psychologically, during his complete childhood, in order to get him to believe in god. Sunday after Sunday he was forced to go to church, under threat of having his dear belongings taken from him.
Thank you - yeah even Jesus hated that kind of religion. :-|
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Being forced to go to church as a kid is why I became an atheist.
