Looking for personal stories about walking away from their faith

[TRANSPONDER]

It's Faith, I am sure. Having Bought In to a particular belief, or having been indoctrinated (the religious know how important it is to Get kids at an early age and train them to reject doubt and question) it is very tempting to find all manner of excuses and pretexts to avoid unwelcome conclusions rather than change what seems to them the whole basis of their world.

It's quite fascinating, studying the what, how and why of faith. I'm particularly enchanted by the philosophy of polemics. The more people they can persuade to believe them, the more easily they can persuade themselves.

The whole philosophy of getting the bearers of the twin heresies and evils - Doubt and Question - to shut up and go away is what the debate is about, not about about getting at the truth.

But there's this amazing process that one hardly ever sees - deconversion. Those amazing people who do reason their way out. They are the prizes I suppose, which is why I value deconversion threads like this.

[mordant]

Originally Posted by Phil P

It's hard to know what drives people to hold on to beliefs despite so much evidence to the contrary. I think it's kind of like a feedback loop, as more evidence/arguments mount against a persons belief, they dismiss it based off of the I'm right because I have infallible truth and see the world as increasingly hostile towards them, in which case it makes them even less likely to consider another view...

I think this even has a name in psychiatry, IIRC it was the backfire effect. When we have a lot of ego / effort / time / money invested in something, demonstrating that something to be factually wrong or unsubstantiated becomes an existential threat -- not just to the person, but to the group that shares their beliefs. Many people will just "double down" as they say and become even more entrenched and utterly resistant to facts.

The best remedy when you're "outed" eventually is to appeal to your commonalities / similarities, to the things that make you part of the same group / club / family / whatever as the person you disagree with. In your case, you're a family member, a loving son or whatever, blood as they say is thicker than water. That you don't believe the same things theologically or existentially or philosophically isn't threatening because you're still good old Phil. Best you can do.

In my case my family deals with my unbelief by saying it's just a misunderstanding or a phase, they know that I'm a good person and so clearly I'll come back to the fold eventually. It's just part of my life journey to them. I allow them to think that.

[bawac34618]

I was raised Independent Fundamental Baptist. About a year after I graduated college, I fell away from my active church participation due to the fact I was gay and wanted to come out. However, I never could shake my belief in Christianity. I was out for about a year when I relapsed back into fundamentalism and committed to doing ex-gay conversion therapy. I also started going to a charismatic church and made some life decisions based off of their "prophets" that turned out to be terrible and I believed some doctrine that turned out to be flat untrue and made Christianity look foolish. Things really started falling apart after this. About four more years go by and we are at 2015 and same-sex marriage was legalized. Watching the tantrum Christians were throwing over that was a straw that busted the camel's back. I quit church and haven't been back since. Still not completely certain of my beliefs but I am a little closer to agnostic atheism than I was last time.

[TRANSPONDER]

Good for you. Irreligious theism will do fine.

While we atheists do not beleive (thus far) in an Intelligent Creator, and are sure the persional gods are inventions of me, we are willing to agree to disagree.

It is organized religion and the social evils it does of the kind that you described, that we are activist about.