You are not alone

Growing up in the church as a pastor's kid I had my fill of religious indoctrination, and for many years it did it's intended purpose, keeping me hinged to a theistic belief system.

From a young age I was taught to believe in God and His Son Jesus so that I could get into heaven and avoid eternal damnation. I never doubted much of what I was taught growing up and even into my twenties I never thought of abandoning my faith in God.

As my childhood faded and I became a teenager, I got involved in many church activities and was active in my church youth group. I eventually volunteered as a short-term missionary and attended training with a non-denominational missions organization doing volunteer work in South Africa, Mexico, and here in the U.S.

After that period of my life, circumstances led me back home and I got a job and began living a more normal life attending local churches and volunteering in my free time.

I had ups and downs throughout my Christian life but overall there was no defining event that caused me to reject faith.

Deep into my twenties, questions that had been with me all along began to resurface and despite the teaching I had been given to resist doubt, I secretly began to deconstruct the faith I had once so passionately adhered to.

I began to read various books and started to ask questions I had been afraid to consider before.

One of the books I read fervently was the Bible itself. I had read it cover to cover many times and yet with my mind set on truth I began to see things that deeply bothered me.

One, for instance, being the hero of the Old Testament, Joshua, who led the Israelites into Canaan and fought the famed battle of Jericho(according to the Bible). He had always been touted as God's holy warrior and was referenced in many sermons I had heard as if he was a great spiritual leader, who's life contained lessons that we could learn from today.

What I began to see with objective eyes was a mass murdering genocidal warlord who killed men, women, and children for land and power.

This was just one of many things contained in the Bible that deeply disturbed me. Rape, murder, abuse of women and children, and the acceptance of slavery joined the ever growing list of things I could no longer justify.

I tried for a long time to reconcile my beliefs with the realities I was seeing in front of me, but it was too late to go back...my mind had finally turned on and it would not be satisfied any longer. The mental gymnastics that had been engrained into me to ignore atrocities and blatant contradictions had been overpowered by simple logic and reason.

More and more I began to compare history and science to all that I had been taught to believe and slowly, but surely, I came to the conclusion that Bible was not only wrong on many accounts, but the things it condoned were contrary to the moral code which I was taught as a child in the church.

My rejection of faith was not by any means an immediate response to this information. In fact, I began to say things that I hear often from other Christians; including the most popular catch phrase these days: “I'm not religious. I just believe in God.”

After a while though I began to see the fallacy of believing in a deity at all and started to consider the possibility of no God.

For a very long time I hid these doubts and even put on a front that I still believed.

When I finally had the courage to break free of my faith I was still afraid to say the “A” word; I used the other “a” word for a long time calling myself an agnostic. This was because I knew the stigma that coming out as an Atheist would cause, especially with such a deeply religious family.

One day, I finally decided that enough was enough, and I grew tired of hiding my true beliefs out of fear.

It has cost me friends and family members, but it has given me so much more in that I finally feel free in my mind and the guilt and superstition of all those years has been lifted.

This entire journey has instilled in me a deep compassion for those still trapped in religious indoctrination and an empathy for the things it does to the mind.

I can't tell you the number of nights that I spent on my knees with a Bible fervently seeking god and the truth. I honestly believed that my words were being heard somehow and often tried to interpret what I now know were simply internal emotions, as signs from God or His impression on my heart.

At times it seems to some Christian friends that my criticism of religion is disrespectful and crude, but it was often those types of commentary that made me think and planted seeds of thought in my mind that helped me eventually break free of the chains of superstition.

If you are out there reading this and have stopped believing in God but are still in that Atheist closet I just want you to know there are many others who have been down the same road. There are many of us out here who have come to the same conclusion you have and we know how hard it can be to take that final step and admit it publicly.

Just remember, you are not alone.