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I once goggled "I feel I've wasted my life on Christianity" and came up with few to no results, which seems strange to me given the thousands of people who write letters to marriage/relations websites bemoaning how they've thrown their lives away on a bad marriage/bad relationships. Millions of people leave religion--not just Christianity, but all religions--every day and embrace agnosticism/atheism. Their reasons are varied, but primarily they boil down to these:
1. I see no evidence of a God; I don't see anything supernatural; how could He allow such human suffering if He were real?
2. The Bible cannot be the word of God; it is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, distortions of the truth, lies, etc. I just believe in it anymore
3. Churches are corrupt, man-made institutions with man-made beliefs
4. I don't need a religion to guide me
To me it's odd that with so many millions of people walking away from Christianity they don't seem to have any regrets having devoted the better part of their lives believing/following/making critical decisions based on the Bible, just to come to the conclusion it was all a waste; at least they don't express them publically. They believe now that that this life is all there is and that they're old or past their prime and have denied themselves so many pleasures they could have indulged in if they'd never been indoctrinated in religion from their youth. Now they're getting ready to die and pass into nothingness not having enjoyed or fulfilled themselves.
It's a tough thing to admit but does anybody feel this way--they've wasted the better part of their life on the lie of Christianity or any other religion?
My parents made me attend Catholic schools and they taught a false version of history, factually distorted and colored so as to always place the church in the best possible light, even when ...no...especially when the church did not deserve it. Being lied to is of course a massive waste of your time because later more time is required to study the same events without the lies and distortions.
And of course the religious instruction classes were a huge waste of time, hours and hours talking about things which had no established basis in fact yet was presented as the "sacred" truth, the most important truth one could experience in one's life.
As for attending mass, I went every Sunday between the ages of 5 and 15, that would be 572 hours, there were an additional five holy days of obligation each year, another 55 hours, and I was an alter boy for four years and served at about 70 additional masses each year, another 770 hours...which adds up to 1397 hours attending mass, or 58 full days of my life.
I once goggled "I feel I've wasted my life on Christianity" and came up with few to no results, which seems strange to me given the thousands of people who write letters to marriage/relations websites bemoaning how they've thrown their lives away on a bad marriage/bad relationships. Millions of people leave religion--not just Christianity, but all religions--every day and embrace agnosticism/atheism. Their reasons are varied, but primarily they boil down to these:
1. I see no evidence of a God; I don't see anything supernatural; how could He allow such human suffering if He were real?
2. The Bible cannot be the word of God; it is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, distortions of the truth, lies, etc. I just believe in it anymore
3. Churches are corrupt, man-made institutions with man-made beliefs
4. I don't need a religion to guide me
To me it's odd that with so many millions of people walking away from Christianity they don't seem to have any regrets having devoted the better part of their lives believing/following/making critical decisions based on the Bible, just to come to the conclusion it was all a waste; at least they don't express them publically. They believe now that that this life is all there is and that they're old or past their prime and have denied themselves so many pleasures they could have indulged in if they'd never been indoctrinated in religion from their youth. Now they're getting ready to die and pass into nothingness not having enjoyed or fulfilled themselves.
It's a tough thing to admit but does anybody feel this way--they've wasted the better part of their life on the lie of Christianity or any other religion?
Thrill, I have to say that I think it must just be a product of that particular search term. I have very rarely met a deconvert who does not feel some sort of regret or sadness at the religious portion of their life.
For me, I probably would not phrase it that way, as there were beneficial things I gained from my religious life. I was raised in a loving , if somewhat religiously disfunctional family. I got a very good education, and avoided doing a lot of dumb things as a teen and college kid. Not everything that resulted from my faith and the faith of my parents was bad, I want to be clear about that.
However, I absolutely regret the energy and intensity I wasted pursuing a non-existent God, the hours in tears and prayer begging for God to comfort, guide, and direct me, to give me a calling. I regret the fact that almost every friendship I formed until I left college is at best strained, and most damaged beyond repair because they were rooted in religion. I regret the fact that I internalized the doctrines of original sin and total depravity to an emotionally crippling degree. I regret the severe damage that religious guilt did to my marriage, to the point that 12 years later the relationship has not fully recovered. I regret that religion was such a part of my life, that my relationships with my family are strained now that I no longer believe.
I might have written something about how I had wasted my life on religion a few years ago, but time and distance brings perspective, as well. I would rather spend my time learning to live as a free soul, an independent conciousness, than to allow religion to continue to shape my thoughts and choices. It is better for me to focus on who I am and what I want now, instead of obsessing about what was. There is no point is dwelling on the wasted time and energy, the missed opportunities, and the artificial relationships. Better to move on...
It can feel that way, as with anything you've changed direction from, learn from it. No knowledge is a waste. I have felt that way with a prior career after I changed direction. I had to finally list what I learned and move on past the bitter taste. Talk a lot about it on here, with people of like mind. Communicating your disappointment helps. Life is a journey, none of it is a waste. The nicest part of being atheist is I have no goal to meet or rules to apply to my life. It can continue on, like a journey, until I no longer exist.
Last edited by PoppySead; 07-21-2014 at 12:55 PM..
I agree that crippling regret is a negative and a waste of time. However, it's an emotion and sometimes emotions overwhelm us despite our efforts not to allow them to. What's interesting is that bad marriages where one partner stays in the marriage for 30-40/whatever years, and when the marriage ends at least one of the partners is so bitter because they've been left alone in their old age they can't help feeling their lives have been totally wasted. It's odd, to me anyway, that religion doesn't elicit the same kind of gut resentment; religion is almost a marriage as well since you are married to Jesus Christ and then you effectively divorce Him, usually because He turned out to be an abusive, neglectful husband. I just see some sort of dichotomy in reactions; theists turned atheists seem to just go on with their lives, while spouses who got dumped are rife with hate, bitterness, resentment, etc.
I certainly could have done without the guilt imposed upon me by the churches I attended while in High School and early college. It took me about a decade to fully rid myself of those feelings -- which I know now I accepted without question from people who were frightened of life and death and actually knew nothing about either.
I agree that crippling regret is a negative and a waste of time. However, it's an emotion and sometimes emotions overwhelm us despite our efforts not to allow them to. What's interesting is that bad marriages where one partner stays in the marriage for 30-40/whatever years, and when the marriage ends at least one of the partners is so bitter because they've been left alone in their old age they can't help feeling their lives have been totally wasted. It's odd, to me anyway, that religion doesn't elicit the same kind of gut resentment; religion is almost a marriage as well since you are married to Jesus Christ and then you effectively divorce Him, usually because He turned out to be an abusive, neglectful husband. I just see some sort of dichotomy in reactions; theists turned atheists seem to just go on with their lives, while spouses who got dumped are rife with hate, bitterness, resentment, etc.
I think those feeling are there, and are proportional to how strongly you have invested in religion, and how strongly coupled your sense of self is to that dogma. It took me probably 2 years to work through that mess, and for some it takes even longer. Like I said, I think it is probably just a quirk of search engines that you didn't find anything. That sense of betrayal and waste is present for a lot of people, and just like grief it takes time and distance to process. But just like thereis only a very small portion of people who are so torn up over a death or a relationship that they simply cannot function, so too the number of people who cannot get over the betrayal of religion and move on...
I once goggled "I feel I've wasted my life on Christianity" and came up with few to no results, which seems strange to me given the thousands of people who write letters to marriage/relations websites bemoaning how they've thrown their lives away on a bad marriage/bad relationships. Millions of people leave religion--not just Christianity, but all religions--every day and embrace agnosticism/atheism. Their reasons are varied, but primarily they boil down to these:
1. I see no evidence of a God; I don't see anything supernatural; how could He allow such human suffering if He were real?
2. The Bible cannot be the word of God; it is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, distortions of the truth, lies, etc. I just believe in it anymore
3. Churches are corrupt, man-made institutions with man-made beliefs
4. I don't need a religion to guide me
To me it's odd that with so many millions of people walking away from Christianity they don't seem to have any regrets having devoted the better part of their lives believing/following/making critical decisions based on the Bible, just to come to the conclusion it was all a waste; at least they don't express them publically. They believe now that that this life is all there is and that they're old or past their prime and have denied themselves so many pleasures they could have indulged in if they'd never been indoctrinated in religion from their youth. Now they're getting ready to die and pass into nothingness not having enjoyed or fulfilled themselves.
It's a tough thing to admit but does anybody feel this way--they've wasted the better part of their life on the lie of Christianity or any other religion?
That does seem odd, as I know that many deconverts have deeply regretted the time they spent on religious matters. Perhaps the keyword was too direct and one needs to access deconversion stories or ex -christian sites.
I once goggled "I feel I've wasted my life on Christianity" and came up with few to no results, which seems strange to me given the thousands of people who write letters to marriage/relations websites bemoaning how they've thrown their lives away on a bad marriage/bad relationships.
Well there's your problem right there, you needed to google it, not goggle it.
Seriously though ... I agree with NoCapo, it's probably an artifact of the search term.
I often say I have no real regrets about anything, but lots of disappointments. I was, even as a believer, true to the understanding I had of life at that time, and that's never anything to regret. It would be like regretting being a child, and considering childhood a waste of time. Everything must happen in its time and every developmental phase must be worked through. Besides, no one sets out to become a Christian, it is a product of indoctrination, usually when you are vulnerable as a child. If anyone should regret anything it should be the indoctrinators.
But people tend to use "regret" more loosely than I do, so ...
Try this search term:
atheist regrets about being an ex-christian
Perhaps Google just isn't comfortable with feeling kinds of questions like your original one. ;-)
Ah, okay I figured a Christian would chime in eventually.
I was using "lie" in a more general sense of all the exaggeration, distortions, and outright invention in much of Christian theology that eventually gets so bogged down in detail that most Christians don't know anything else except what their pastor tells them every Sunday morning. 99% of Christians never open the Bible to see for themselves what a confusing mess of conflicting details, theologies, historicities, etc. it really is. Anyone, certainly most atheists here who were brought up in Christianity did some digging on their own and saw the bald-faced conflicts so readily apparent such as between Paul's pre-destination so beloved of Calvinists and free-will of Jesus so beloved of Arminianists. Or eternal torment vs. annihilation vs universalism. Or was Jesus crucified on the day of Passover per the synoptics or the day before Passover as per John.
I'm digressing. These conflicts and inaccuracies have been stated by myself and others over on the Christian forum time and time again to no effect. But that is what I am referring to when I say, "the lie". I mean the untruths that result from trying to interpret all these thousands of conflicting details found within the Bible. I think of Shakespeare's line, "Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive." The early church had no idea how convoluted they would make Christian theology when they started building lie upon lie upon this interpretation upon that interpretation until no two Christian theologians can agree on anything 100% today.
Oh, and mordant. Your google suggestion worked. I did pull up dozens of testimonies.
Last edited by june 7th; 07-23-2014 at 08:01 AM..
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