Struggling with transition from Christian to agnostic/atheist

[SuspiciousLampshade]

Hi, hoping others who have given up their Christian faith can give some advice as to how they did it and how to cope with the weird grief/guilt I have about it?

Basically have been following some kind of Christianity my whole life but became a “born again” Christian (do they still call it that?) 13 years ago. Married to a Christian DH, his family are all Christian while mine are not really that bothered. Over the past few years I’ve been struggling with different aspects of Christianity - mainly this idea that God is all-powerful and loving yet the world is basically going to pot. It makes me sick thinking about how I used to boast about always getting my prayers of parking spaces answered but people are still suffering and dying despite praying steadfastly…

Anyway I’ve quit my church, stopped praying/reading the Bible, and had some uncomfortable conversations with some Christian friends - though most of them don’t know because for some reason I feel guilty about “giving up”? I am also struggling with grieving my loss of community, changed relationship with Christian friends (about 90% of my friends) and of course the change it’s made on my family life, as DH is still very much a believer and though we fortunately agree DC should make their own minds up he still wants them to be brought up in the Christian faith. I’m not against that but obviously I’m not partaking in it which sometimes makes Sundays a little awkward.

I also have pangs of panic about “what if I am actually going to hell” and moments of deep sadness because of the comfort I found in believing. But I really do feel like that ship has sailed.

Sorry this is long - I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has experiences they’d like to share and if they also had these feelings. Do I just wait for them to pass? How do you re-establish a whole community in your mid 30s? Feeling a little lost. Thanks for reading if you made it to here x

I too can only share solidarity I'm afraid and funnily enough I only rejoined Mumsnet today to post a very similar thread to yours! Hence the user name!
The biggest thing for me in the decades since I stopped believing is realising what a number it all did on me mentally. Like pp, in the back of my mind I feel frightened that I'm wrong, and going to hell, in spite of believing it's the fear of hell that controls people.
I miss feeling loved unconditionally by god and the comfort blanket of believing he had a plan for me. But I also feel massively angry. I was told from childhood that god loved me, but also that he could read all my thoughts, punish me for doing/thinking things he didn't like, and ultimately send me to eternal damnation. And the devil- also reading and infilitrating my thoughts and trying to tempt me away so that I ended up in hell. To be told that throughout your formative years by every adult in your life is so mind-boggling to me now. I'm anxious, I apologise constantly for fear of upsetting people, I doubt myself, I struggle with my self-esteem.
I feel so drawn to a kind of secular pagamism and feel it would fill some of the void left by religion for me. And yet still, in the back of my mind, is the fear that exploring anything spiritual but not Christian is going to lead me to hell. Rationally, I don't believe it at all. But how do you undo those teachings?

Prayer is not about getting parking spaces!
the problem of evil has been debated for a long time. Maybe you'd find it helpful in cementing your views to read around this? But it seems an odd thing for your faith to have rested on (that your personal wishes were granted).

Do you think you’re trying to take things too far from one extreme to the other for you? It doesn’t have to be an either or.

perhaps trying to label anything take a step back from things but be willing to go with the flow a bit more. It sounds like you were living fully immersed in it so finding the new balance will take time.

I just felt angry and let down: that I’d been brought up believing such nonsense and being made to feel guilt and fear for walking away.
But being free of it is the best thing I ever did

I think I'm less helpful as when I lost my faith I found it had been so shallow anyway that it was more like some pretty cut flowers dying and needing to be thrown away. I think that's the nature of the religion we are taught as children- the Girl Guides stuff about doing the washing up or whatnot.

I remained open to the idea of God for a long time. But my dh died five years ago and I feel it would be genuinely insulting to his suffering to say that there was any extra-human consciousness aware of it in any way. I can't find peace with the idea of God now. So for me it's the other way round.

Having said all that, you may find that reading a bit more could be helpful - there is more adult theology around, or Christian poetry. Ultimately it doesn't help me because in the end it comes down to whether you consider the Bible to be divinely inspired or not - as an atheist obviously I don't think so.

It's face it none of us really know if ago exists or not. And in what form. Why not keep an open mind about it all. At times in my life I had a strong faaith. Now I dont think its likely God exists but it makes no difference to anything. Because in the end we just dont know.

I think all the emotions you feel are very normal. Remember this is a process.

I have had a fast and slow deconstruction. I think I changed my mind really fast about three years ago - but it did take me about two years to actually be free from it all.

I don’t even know what I think now, and it’s sort of fluid - so I am open to letting it change as I change. I am at a place where I do believe in a higher power/spiritual realm but I do not believe the bible, all the certainties of the evangelical church plus I see it as very manipulative on the whole.

I can see it’s difficult because there is a tension where there wasn’t before in your marriage. I also know what you mean about losing your community and friendships. However, I have intentionally used the time freed up from
church to do things such as go to a bookclub, more exercise and volunteer at something I really want to do. It takes time but there are new friends to be made out there.

I guess my advice is see it as a process rather than every thing has to be sorted all at once.

Well OP you’re braver than me because I haven’t really believed in god for well over a decade now but I only admitted it to my husband this year (I thought he’d guessed… turns out he hasn’t and it has been quite difficult for him to come to terms with) and I still go to church most Sundays even though I can think of so many other things I’d rather do with that time. I’m counting down until my youngest is at school and I don’t feel obliged to be on the creche rota any more!

I find it incredibly hard to talk to most Christians about this because they usually just try and convince me /argue with me about why is all true and it’s not that I don’t want it to be true, I just can’t make myself believe it anymore.

One of my friends recently joined a liberal high CofE church after having been in an evangelical church and she’s finding it really refreshing. But whereas she feels a spiritual need that needs meeting, I don’t really feel that. So I don’t know if that would be helpful for me.

I totally understand the need for community though. That’s one of the big reasons I still go to church, because I’ve yet to find such a diverse and loving community as my church is.

This....

I'm so utterly angry that my parents involved me in something where I spent my teenage years being told that investigating your sexuality was wrong, that having a boyfriend was wrong, that going to church three times a week was the right thing to do....

There are other Christian churches that might offer another perspective? They don't all even pretend to have the same take on things.

Thanks to you all for taking the time to respond - I really resonate with a lot of what you’re writing. Like the anger - I was so angry at everything because it felt like I was sold this beautiful idea of walking with God and then dying and going to eternity, and now I just don’t know what to base my life and meaning around (though this is gradually getting better).

@Snowdayplease obviously I can’t discuss my entire basis of my faith in just one post on a forum - it was definitely not based on God being like a genie and granting wishes! That was just an example of something that meant Christianity hasn’t sat right with me for a while, the idea that God cares about every detail of our lives even down to trivial things, that as we pray our hearts align with his desires and our prayers will be answered, but only some of them, and we should be worshipping and grateful when they are answered (like I genuinely felt they were when I used to pray for parking spaces and they appeared - but also with other prayers throughout my life) but when they weren’t answered even though they theoretically aligned with God’s desires as we understand him in the Bible, it was all about “not yet” or “free will” or “Satan” or any other excuse people can make to explain why kids are dying or people are in chronic pain etc. I’ve read a lot about evil and suffering - many of my friends are theologians and my husband has a bookshelf crammed with study books as he’s a bit of a theology nerd - but it just doesn’t add up for me.

Other pp have mentioned being open and not black and white - I am trying to be open, and perhaps that will come more in time when I don’t feel betrayed by the whole concept/religion. But I’ve actually been way happier the past few months as an agnostic/atheist than I ever was as a Christian.

Brought up in a vicarage I was a weekly (and more) church attender up to when I had my first child, who is baptised. And then I realised explaining to him as a toddler what I believed that, well, I didn’t. In fact it sounded ridiculous.

my subsequent children haven’t been baptised, I’m sure my parents have twigged but we haven’t had The Conversation.

My DH has never been a Christian but has been supportive and is slightly upset that one of our children is baptised and the others aren’t, but as it was me (not him) saying the baptismal vows then that’s up to me…

I had to rebuild my entire life, friendships, job, interests, self in my 40s. It’s very hard but can be done. I’m six years in and still working at it.

I think replacing the community of church would be very hard. That weekly meet up really helps to build solid friendships. As well as the base of shared beliefs. I haven’t found anything close to that.

How is your marriage coping?

Some counselling might be helpful as it’s a major life change

Did struggle with the whole community aspect but re reading your bible and highlighting the inconsistencies/ bad teachings helped me to see how damaging it can be (I have really really bad sexual/ religious trauma though).

I feel like on reflection religion at its core is can be quite narcissistic and is possibly a survival mechanism because frankly life is just bizarre and weird. I found watching documentaries about the Big Bang/ universe and how we got here so comforting💕

Good Luck and welcome to the terrifying life of there possibly being no purpose to our existence 😌 it’s actually quite freeing and humbling. Although I have started to believe we’re in a simulation which at its core is probably just the same principle repackaged

I was raised as a staunch Catholic, by very strong believers.

Who then got divorced. My dad was having affairs.

Then we had the church (priest) condemn my mother. Nasty. And my mother held out every single day to her death that she was still married in the eyes of the church so when she died she'd be joining my father in heaven. How is that going to work? My baby sister had died unchristened and was going to float about in limbo for all eternity, until the church changed their mind on that. Nice of them.

I just felt there were too many stupid rules (I was 12)... and then Jane Asher (of all people) said in a newspaper interview " It is OK to not believe", and a switch went in my head... of course it is. And a heavy weight lifted, no guilt, no fear.

Hi OP.
I have a large number of Christian friends who don't know that I am an atheist. I'm a regular church goer (church choir) and recently have joined the PCC. Something that has surprised me is to discover that I am not alone in my complete lack of belief amongst my church going friends, but he odd comment or conversation can sometimes give it it away to a fellow atheist 🤣. The vast majority of people at church will assume that I have the same belief set as them.
What I'm suggesting is that if you value your church friendships, you don't have to let people know your beliefs (or lack of them). You can happily let them make assumptions without correcting them.

Have always been an atheist so can’t help with the leaving religion side but hell doesn’t exist so don’t panic about that. It’s just blackmail used by religious groups to stop you trying to think for yourself.

I grew up in Ireland where mass attendance was compulsory, belief was compulsory, guilt and shame were used significantly in religious control, if you didn’t believe what we did growing up then you believed what they did which when I grew up, they was a handful of church of Ireland or an thimbleful of atheists and other really minority religions here.

After all the abuse scandals here the scales truly fell off for me at least. From my point of view the church was/is rotten to the core. It has never healed and I suspect although the vast majority of people are culturally religious here, it never fully will. The reason I say this is there was no conversations, groups of people stopped attending mass, some still do, some quietly retreated from what they believed before, others haven’t rarely do people discuss their changing beliefs but most spoke about the horrendous abuse. You will experience what you experience and you will feel how you feel about it but it isn’t compulsory to share those feelings with anyone else. None of my friendships ever changed over my change in belief. In your case your husband is still a believer so those links are there with church anyway. You don’t have to make this the decider on relationships just don’t discuss beliefs with others.

I've never been religious so I might be about to talk absolute nonsense but why can't you continue to have the community and the friendships without the blind faith?

Religion has always somewhat baffled me because it seems to be the focus of so many arguments but when you step back and look at the foundations everyone seems to be aiming for the same things regardless of whether the religion is Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism,,,,,

• be good and considerate to others
• don't hurt each other
• be charitable and generous

So taking the sermons and individual interpretations of scripture with a pinch of salt, can you not just participate in the community with those kind of objectives in your mind.

True faith is tested. I would listen to the pull or grief you are feeling. Your doubts are basic . The fact that we live in a broken world is pretty much the foundation of Christianity. Faith is what saves us, Jesus saves us in this broken world. No one ever said God makes everything perfect here on earth .

You have never thought about it. That's a charmed and protected life you have led. You are growing and maturing (sorry if that sounds patronising). A lot of people have surface, unquestioning, childlike faith.

The reason for God by Timothy Keller is a very good book on Christian apologetics. I found such books very helpful when I moved from agnosticism to Catholicism.

I'd encourage to talk to God about your doubts. "I don't believe in you but. .." It can't hurt and it might help.

Evangelical faith is quite black and white and based on quite uplifting experiences. I can understand how you'd feel loss of faith once that "wears off". Look for God in the ordinary parts of life. Your friendships and your family. If you stop to look you might realise you are truly blessed. If you don't feel blessed you can still find the bedrock of God's love on which to stand and face the world we live in. Right now you are flailing and drowning. I pray you find a lifeline and you can find your way back to stronger, more stable faith.

Honestly I would stop trying to categorise everything and just ‘be’ and do what you feel is right in each moment. If you wanted to address feeling guilty etc you could look more into the science of the modern world as that might reassure you on heaven/hell etc. I definitely get the impression from your post that you still ‘believe’ - you aren’t saying what a load of rubbish it is, you’re saying you feel guilty for the suffering in the world. Many people who aren’t religious at all also feel that way. I feel guilty that we are warm, safe and fed and that there are people in war zones like Gaza who have lost everything and life is about survival. I don’t see that as anything to do with god because both of those scenarios have been created by a series of decisions made by people. For me I recognise that life is unfair and unequal, and I reconcile that within myself by appreciating the things we have in life and doing good where possible for others. It seems to me you feel that also, but there’s a whole religious element to it aswell which makes it very complicated and actually maybe prevents you from seeing the people who have made choices leading to these situations for what they really are. Xx

Hi, brought up with the heavy burden of being a Catholic, I remember being in a confession booth with a Priest behind a screen, I must have been about ten, he asked what I'd done wrong and I was wracking my nervous child's brain, I hadn't done anything but must have said something and got ten Hail Mary's? My beautiful Mum was a devout Catholic but died of a horrible brain tumour and suffered the worst death aged 54. Stopped believing years ago. I don't profess to know everything maybe there is a God but if there is he or it has a lot of explaining to do. I'm just human and try and be a decent caring person, if I'm going to Hell then so are most of the population I guess.

This is a common experience when leaving a religion that was so intense it was a way of life and a huge part of identity but it does get easier.

Just brainstorming ideas: you can still be spiritual without a religious or a deity, checkout humanist society, exchristian meet up groups, i think there are agnostic Quakers and they meet up, online or in person talks and meetings for atheists and agnostics, you could try redefining your identity and connecting with communities based on other aspects of yourself such as hobbies, being a parent, language, culture, dog walkers,cat lovers... you get the gist. Religion is like a cult as far as im concerned and they do exclude you when you leave as an example to others and punishment. Nasty stuff.

The most important thing for me is to accept I don't have all the answers but I know with enough certainty that I don't believe in religions. When you are in faith they brainwash you to speak with such certainty, blind faith confidence serene in the fact that you are right. It's pretty smug and delusional actually.