Questioning everything

[Dsred19]

I am  40+ mom and scientist by profession. Was a Christian since I was 16 but now questioning everything. I really don’t know how I ever reconciled faith with what I learned from my education and training. I feel foolish now. On the one hand, it did provide my life with direction and hope. I have a wonderful marriage and family, but now I can no longer ignore the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, atrocities, mysoginy, etc of it all. I have slowly gone from a fundamentalist to more and more liberal with my faith over the years but I don’t think I can do it anymore. The turning point was my sister in law dying in front of me and despite our family crying out to god to save her we all knew she was gone and no amount of prayer would raise her from the dead. What was even the point of all this then? I knew darn well no god was going to answer our prayer so why bother with more of them? I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

Wow! That was powerful! Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Welcome to our humble forum, and feel free to spill whatever is on your mind. 

 

P.S. I can tell you are a scientist; fewer words.............

 

Moxie

50 minutes ago, Dsred19 said:

The turning point was my sister in law dying in front of me and despite our family crying out to god to save her we all knew she was gone and no amount of prayer would raise her from the dead. What was even the point of all this then? I knew darn well no god was going to answer our prayer so why bother with more of them? I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

Funny how death does that, up close and personal. I think it's the biggest offense xtianity has to offer, all they portray as the Afterlife and how they alone have exclusive knowledge of it. 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

2 hours ago, Dsred19 said:

I am  40+ mom and scientist by profession. Was a Christian since I was 16 but now questioning everything. I really don’t know how I ever reconciled faith with what I learned from my education and training. I feel foolish now. On the one hand, it did provide my life with direction and hope. I have a wonderful marriage and family, but now I can no longer ignore the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, atrocities, mysoginy, etc of it all. I have slowly gone from a fundamentalist to more and more liberal with my faith over the years but I don’t think I can do it anymore. The turning point was my sister in law dying in front of me and despite our family crying out to god to save her we all knew she was gone and no amount of prayer would raise her from the dead. What was even the point of all this then? I knew darn well no god was going to answer our prayer so why bother with more of them? I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

WELCOME!  I, and many others here can identify with what you are going through.  I also faked it for a long time before saying I can't take this any more.  Thankfully church attendance wasn't a requirement in my marriage, but it was with my employment in a church related agency.  

 

We are here to help you through a very trying time.  See our replies to another person in a similar cirdumstance who came here just yesterday (or day before).  And we will also respond later to your specific concerns. 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

See the "HELLO EVERYONE" thread in this forum.  I highly recommend LEAVING THE FOLD, by Marlene Winell.  Available in Kindle ebooks.  

 

Several of us have questioned how we ever fell for the biggest superstition in the world.  It is so big, it is part of our societal conditioning.  Let us know the other specific concerns you may have.

 

P.S. Ooops.  I see you are already following his thread.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Welcome Dsred19!

2 hours ago, Dsred19 said:

I can no longer ignore the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, atrocities, mysoginy, etc of it all

I think most believers see all of that and put the problems on a mental shelf so they aren't in the way of the social circle, which is an important human desire. Eventually, our minds see enough to where they don't want to pretend anymore. You start finding that the only thing in common with the others there is a shared imaginary friend who promises all sorts of magical powers in the stories, but then does nothing at all when asked. Why would a good god have to be begged, and even then do nothing? Simple answer, there is nobody there.

 

When I was a believer, I was part of a group that simply blamed believers for not believing enough to see miracles. I promoted a guy for 9 years that claimed to raise the dead multiple times. Eventually when I caught him making up long involved stories, I realized I had been in a cult. Then I realized that Christianity was also a cult, just a popular one. I began asking myself "What else have I believed that is a lie?" I still ask that, and am amazed at how many layers of imagination formed the matrix of my life. 

 

There is life outside the church. I had to find what I enjoyed doing (singing), find others who also like that and form a new social circle. It's also refreshing to not continually wonder why god isn't responding to pleas for help, and that there is no deep mystery to it, just simply nobody there. Simple and obvious once outside the daily self brainwashing with scriptures that are assumed to be true, and songs of groveling submission to a hateful bloodthirsty tyrant. Humans tend to love far better than this tribal blood god. 

 

I wish you well on your new path. 

[older]

Hi Dsred19, and welcome!

 

Yes, being a scientist certainly does reveal a few things. One of my favorite sayings is "correlation is not causation." Someone's prayers were answered? I don't think so. Someone's prayers were not answered and therefore God said no? Yeah, right. Bring me observable, testable, independently verifiable facts.

 

Science also knows that the human mind is susceptible to hallucinations. And that fear is perhaps the primary human motivator. Afraid of death. Afraid of the unknown. 

 

It's all so preposterous. There is this invisible being up in the sky that knows everything, exists everywhere, created everything, and can do anything it wants. And he/she/it loves you. (Unless you don't love him/her/it back, in which case he/she/it will send you to an eternity of misery and suffering.) I don't remember who asked this question — Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris? — but what about children dying slow painful deaths from bone cancer? What's up with that?

 

And once in the past everyone was behaving badly (which he/she/it knew would happen since he/she/it knows everything, and even caused it to happen — it's all part of God's plan) and they were so bad that The Only Way that this all powerful god could figure out how to handle it was to drown everyone including all the innocent children (with a couple of exceptions). What about just sticking it's head out of the clouds and telling everyone to knock it off?

 

As someone wrote, God sent himself to Earth and then killed himself in order to avenge himself for a curse that he put on us because one of our distant ancestors and a rib woman ate fruit off a magical tree after being told to do it by a talking snake. Makes perfect sense to me.

 

Sorry for the rant. Welcome and please contribute as you can.

[☆ pantheory ☆]

On 7/6/2024 at 2:47 PM, Dsred19 said:

I am  40+ mom and scientist by profession. Was a Christian since I was 16 but now questioning everything. I really don’t know how I ever reconciled faith with what I learned from my education and training. I feel foolish now. On the one hand, it did provide my life with direction and hope. I have a wonderful marriage and family, but now I can no longer ignore the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, atrocities, mysoginy, etc of it all. I have slowly gone from a fundamentalist to more and more liberal with my faith over the years but I don’t think I can do it anymore. The turning point was my sister in law dying in front of me and despite our family crying out to god to save her we all knew she was gone and no amount of prayer would raise her from the dead. What was even the point of all this then? I knew darn well no god was going to answer our prayer so why bother with more of them? I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

 

Yes, questioning everything and being a skeptic go hand in hand. Not only should you question every aspect of religion, but every aspect of science also if you want to be a good scientist. The old adage goes something like this: Believe nothing of what you hear, question everything that you read no matter what the source, and believe only half of what you physically see. That makes a true skeptic and a great scientist IMO.

 

As to the Bible, no one in the physical sciences should ever believe in the Bible verbatim since the Book of Genesis can be easily disproved by a mountain of objective evidence.

 

Happy first posting to you, with a great welcome and hope that you will like it here and bless us with your continued postings Cheers to you.

[Casualfanboy16]

On 7/6/2024 at 5:47 PM, Dsred19 said:

I am  40+ mom and scientist by profession. Was a Christian since I was 16 but now questioning everything. I really don’t know how I ever reconciled faith with what I learned from my education and training. I feel foolish now. On the one hand, it did provide my life with direction and hope. I have a wonderful marriage and family, but now I can no longer ignore the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, atrocities, mysoginy, etc of it all. I have slowly gone from a fundamentalist to more and more liberal with my faith over the years but I don’t think I can do it anymore. The turning point was my sister in law dying in front of me and despite our family crying out to god to save her we all knew she was gone and no amount of prayer would raise her from the dead. What was even the point of all this then? I knew darn well no god was going to answer our prayer so why bother with more of them? I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

Hello! Welcome to Ex-C! I, like many others here, have all experienced a point in our lives where we simply can't get past the inconsistencies, contradictions, lack of evidence, and other such things.

 

I also relate to how my previously held Christian faith provided me with a sort of direction and hope. It might've been a false sense of direction and hope that I only thought was real because I thought God was leading me somewhere; but in reality, it turned out to be a desperate attempt by myself, in a way, to find  an illusion of direction and meaning since I didn't know where I was really going.

 

I can also at least partially relate from trying to go to a more fundamentalist to a more "liberal" faith, as I never got too far into the more liberal denominations or interpretations of scripture before I decided that I couldn't ignore certain things about the Bible, or myself anymore. It's been a wild ride, but you can read my ex-timony (Ex-Christian testimony) in the post titled "God, Gay, and Existential Dread" in the Ex-Christian Testimonies section for that whole shebang.

 

I'm sorry for your loss, by the way. I know it's hard to lose someone close to you. Hoping you can heal from this! 

[older]

1 hour ago, pantheory said:

The old adage goes something like this: Believe nothing of what you hear, question everything you read no matter what the source, and believe only half of what you physically see.

  

In journalism the saying is, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

[Dsred19]

Thank you everyone!

[older]

On 7/6/2024 at 2:47 PM, Dsred19 said:

I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships.

  

A wise idea. In most cases I see no reason for a big, dramatic, announcement. Just slowly and quietly backing away is, IMHO, a good way to handle it.

 

Hope to hear more from you in the future.

[TABA]

Hey @Dsred19, welcome to our community!  I hope you will find it as helpful as I have done over the years, especially in the early stage of realizing I no longer believed.  Since than I have enjoyed the benefits of no longer believing this tortuous theology and its supposedly loving god.  I look forward to hearing more from you.  There are a lot of resources here, both old and new.   
 

You didn’t mention whether your spouse and family are believers.  If they are, I would repeat the advice I gave just today to @Purplecat, another member: I strongly suggest taking a very gradual approach to revealing your unbelief to your loved ones.  Many people here never revealed their unbelief to parents or other older relatives.  And with a significant other, most people here would advise taking it slowly.   Give them time to adjust to your “questioning”, even if you are past that phase and fully out of Christianity.  Let them see that your being a good and loving person is because of you, not religious beliefs. 

 

Again, welcome!  Being willing to walk away from long-held beliefs takes courage and character:  Congratulations!   

[freshstart]

On 7/6/2024 at 5:47 PM, Dsred19 said:

I am mostly keeping my doubts to myself for fear it will hurt my marriage and other relationships. Thanks for listening.

There are different schools of thought on this. For some, staying in the proverbial closet is comfortable. For others, it is absolutely claustrophobic. For me, it has been a journey and I am starting to resent the feeling that I should hide my true feelings to "save the peace." I've decided if it comes up organically, I'm going to be authentic about what I believe or don't believe. I'm not into conditional love or conditional friendship anymore. But that's just my 2 cents

[◊ Weezer ◊]

3 hours ago, freshstart said:

 

I'm not into conditional love or conditional friendship anymore. But that's just my 2 cents

 

 

But there are diplomatic ways of handling the situation.  The book, LEAVING THE FOLD has excelent suggestions.

[freshstart]

1 hour ago, Weezer said:

But there are diplomatic ways of handling the situation.

I absolutely agree. I don't believe in being obnoxious or hurtful no matter what side of the fence you're on (even though I'm sure I've been guilty of that at times). But I also think if more people who have "left the fold" would speak up (when appropriate) it would be helpful on many levels.  Its one thing to be diplomatic, quite another to be silent (which is, in essence, inauthentic). 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

19 hours ago, freshstart said:

 

 I'm not into conditional love or conditional friendship anymore. But that's just my 2 cents

 

 

Perhaps I read something into the statement you did not mean.   With my parents we came to an understanding that our relationship was "conditional".  We loved each other, and continued to visit, but with the understanding, or condition, that religion would not be discussed.  And I have friends I regularly do things with, but it is understood that politics will not be discussed.  There is a bond that goes beyond our personal beliefs.   The same is true with my marriage.

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

15 hours ago, freshstart said:

But I also think if more people who have "left the fold" would speak up (when appropriate) it would be helpful on many levels.  Its one thing to be diplomatic, quite another to be silent (which is, in essence, inauthentic)

I have yet to find that appropriate circumstance other than here on this forum. I have usually been outnumbered by xtians and have gotten myself into big trouble speaking up at times. The fine line between diplomacy and inauthenticity is a very fine line indeed. 

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

1 hour ago, Weezer said:

 

Perhaps I read something into the statement you did not mean.   With my parents we came to an understanding that our relationship was "conditional".  We loved each other, and continued to visit, but with the understanding, or condition, that religion would not be discussed.  And I have friends I regularly do things with, but it is understood that politics will not be discussed.  There is a bond that goes beyond our personal beliefs.   The same is true with my marriage.

I think THIS is that fine line I just spoke of. Thanks Weezer. 

[Dsred19]

A little more background, my husband does believe, my kids are undecided. It’s weird because the church we go to now is probably one of the more liberal churches we’ve gone to over the years and I really do have a lot of respect for the people there. They are truly kind loving people who I genuinely like and care about. The pastor is someone we have known as a friend for many years and I have great respect for as far as his integrity and authenticity. Despite all that, it hasn’t stopped my doubts and questions. I still can’t reconcile it all anymore. I thought being in this church that is at least kind, genuine, and loving would be enough, but it’s not.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

For most people, religion is simply a qualitative assay: it's either pass or fail, true or false.  Scientists like ourselves have a hard time getting around the need for quantitative analysis; and so we obsess over how much falsehood can this hold and still be considered true?  Have a cup of tea and relax.  

[◊ Weezer ◊]

7 hours ago, Dsred19 said:

 I thought being in this church that is at least kind, genuine, and loving would be enough, but it’s not.

 

I, and others here, can really understand that.  If you let your honest self be known, what would happen?   This was what happened with our family. 
 

We were with what we thought was a rational minded and loving congregation, that was considered liberal by other congregations.  Their elders were the board of directors for the agency I was program director for.  But when I could no longer take being quiet and questioned whether the Bible was inerrant, it started to unravel.  Long story short, some friends turned out to be not such good friends, and my position was dissolved in a reorganization of the agency. 
 

and of course both our families were not happy when we stopped going to church.  We lost several “friends”.

 

 

[older]

Have any of you tried the Unitarian Universalists? I have heard that they look for spiritual growth but have no specific creed. I have friends who go to a local church but I've not tried it. I can see a benefit in a social system through that if someone wants that but doesn't want an underpinning sacred creed.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

2 hours ago, older said:

Have any of you tried the Unitarian Universalists? I have heard that they look for spiritual growth but have no specific creed. I have friends who go to a local church but I've not tried it. I can see a benefit in a social system through that if someone wants that but doesn't want an underpinning sacred creed.

I attended one for several months.  I understand how they came to have their name, but a better description of them (at least the one I attended) would be Humanitarian Universalist.  They fellowship anyone and the one I went to had quite an array of characters.  From college professors, to plumbers, to mentally ill people.  One big burley guy with hairy legs and arms wore a dress and ladies hat to church.  I think they had belonged to his deceased mother.  I admired the congregation for accepting everyone, but I had never enjoyed the ritual of worship, my wife didn't like it there, and I eventually dropped out.

[older]

9 hours ago, Weezer said:

I admired the congregation for accepting everyone, but I had never enjoyed the ritual of worship,

Thanks for your comments. I went to a wedding there once and also didn't feel completely comfortable. To me it was church-but-not-church. My way of finding peace and renewal is through hiking. Once a week I go with a few friends up to the mountains or foothills and spend the day walking through nature. Savoring the sights and sounds of reality, away from the artifice of the city, is most rewarding. Running my hand over the bark of a fir tree, watching the carpenter ants chewing on a fallen log, smelling the pines, looking at the puffy clouds drifting through a deep blue sky, and feeling the breeze past my ears, is what makes me feel alive.

[☆ pantheory ☆]

12 hours ago, older said:

Have any of you tried the Unitarian Universalists? I have heard that they look for spiritual growth but have no specific creed. I have friends who go to a local church but I've not tried it. I can see a benefit in a social system through that if someone wants that but doesn't want an underpinning sacred creed.

 

It sounds like the kind of church that I could easily go to as a total atheist. But for me I might go once in awhile primarily for socialization purposes. I had similar feelings when I went to Buddhist and Hindu Temples.  For the most part people are not talking religion, mostly listening and visiting.

 

As to hiking, it would presently be too much for me. I just need to do more walking for health reasons. Although I liked it when I was younger, it's no longer my bag. But you're right, I also love the sights and sounds of nature but I can also somewhat enjoy them on a good online visual tour. But your version of it could be really nice if one is up to it.