Why I abandoned my faith and now live life as an Atheist

I remember it as if was yesterday, sorry about the cliche but…. Deal with it. “You’ll love it, they have a rock band and everything,” said my mother, who had recently been to a new age Pentecostal-style church. “Nah I’m good,” I said thinking that it would be just another fad of the week thing for her and not thinking much of it.

My brother and I never grew up in a religious household so I had never really identified myself as a religious person. Besides being a child of divorce and losing my brother at a very young age, there were no life-changing events, that many attribute to a potential conversion to religion later in life to speak of. My relatives weren’t religious, aside from my Grandmother, and I didn’t attend a religious school. So how did I end up on the Christian bandwagon?

First experience with church

I remember it like it was yesterday, …“OK we get it”… The first few times I went along to church, out of courtesy to my mother and also out of curiosity. My first few visits were standard fare for a young non-believer. “What is happening?” “Why is that women speaking in what sounds to be a made up language?” “When’s lunch?” Again, standard fare. But after a few weeks of attending something changed in me. The music didn’t seem as corny, the messages of the sermons were less boring and I even met a couple of lovely people there. After attending for a couple months, a visiting pastor came down and I even decided to “give my life” to the Church.

Life, post-salvation

Life went on as normal, I went to school, hung out with friends, the usual stuff. Except now, I had a purpose, to live my life as a disciple of Jesus and devote my entire being and existence to him and to bring others to him. Life was good, I even joined the band, which I lead for a short while. I had friends at church, friends who didn’t attend church came along with me and some even stayed, I met girl, now my wife, and everything seemed to be great. I could go on here about my life as a Christian but because that’s not really the topic at hand I think it’s a bit superfluous. Plus, it’s not all that exciting really.

The cracks begin to form

Throughout my time as a believer I had the usual big questions, “Is Evolution a real thing?” “If God doesn’t interfere all of the time when we pray to him, why pray at all if it’s up to his plan anyway?” “How does God plan to reach the most remote of civilisations to save them from the impending doom of eternal damnation?” These questions never phased me though as I could typically find a passable answer so as not to question my faith. I began speaking in tongues, at least I thought I did but more on that later, and regularly attended prayer meetings. Life carried on. But as time went on new questions began to come up. “Why do the same people at church always end up doing all the work?” “Would God not intervene if a woman was being beaten by her husband over time just because she wasn’t Christian or was praying to the wrong God?” “How could such a passionate and loving God stand idly by while so much injustice happens in the world and we should still love him anyway?”

“Backsliding “

Eventually I started to get sick of church, I was on band almost every Sunday, plus I had least 2 church events throughout the week and it all started adding up. I knew that I was supposed to devote my life to the cause but I missed having a normal life as well. Now don’t take this as me complaining but rather my mind opening up to a newer way of thinking, “Why am I spending so much of my short lifespan on this thing that I’m not even sure is true anymore.” Christians would say I was merely “backsliding”. My faith was being tested and now was the time to reaffirm my faith and it would only get stronger from there. I took the easier route and stopped attending, my wife and I also had work occasionally on a Sunday. At the time it was only going to be for a short period but weeks turned to months and months to years.

A new way of thinking

Years passed and I hadn’t been to church in quite a while but I was still living an Agnostic mindset. For those who don’t know, an Agnostic is someone who doesn’t necessarily believe in a specific God or deity but believes there might be one out there. It was like living in the safe zone, I no longer truly believed in God but had the belief at the ready “just in case” I was wrong. Looking back on this time I can truly see what a waste of time it was. Why not fully commit to a belief system if you do truly belief and if not why not abandon it altogether?

So what changed?

Now we come to where my beliefs are now. Having looked at the facts that are out there and researched both areas of belief and non-belief, I can truly say I am an Atheist. Similarly to acclaimed biologist and famous Atheist Richard Dawkins though I can not 100% at this point in time prove there is no God. BUT, and it’s a big but, I can also equally not disprove that unicorns or Bigfoot exists. There are stories and eyewitness accounts for both but I believe each has the same merit. After committing to Atheism it feels like there is a large burden lifted of my back. No longer do I have to live my life trying to please some deity that watches and judges my every action, I can now live my life with the only meaning I believe it has; enjoy life, make the most of the short time you are here, don’t be a pain in the ass to others as they are only trying to live their life and love your friends and family.

Looking back at my Christian Days

One of the big arguments that most Christians and other religious people have against Atheism is “But I’ve spoken/seen (insert deity here), how can you disprove that?” Now I can’t really answer that question, chalk one up for the religious people right? Well……not really. One of the things I’ve realized since being an Atheist is that it is OK to not have an answer to a question. The importance of this is that it leads people away from coming to false conclusions. It’s OK that we don’t fully understand how life began, but that doesn’t mean we have to fill in the gaps with God or anyone else. Now, to answer the question above, I can only answer it from my perspective. Looking back at when I was a Christian I can without a shadow of a doubt say that I never spoke to or heard from God. I never truly spoke in tongues (seeing as I was just making up the noises) and I was never brought to my knees in awe of his wonder. So why lie? Well, I didn’t think I was lying at the time. For me I just wanted to fit in and be accepted by other Christians. I wanted to be an example to other new believers because that’s what I was taught to be. I really thought I was speaking in tongues but subconsciously I always knew I wasn’t. “The worship leader can’t speak in tongues? He’s not really a TRUE Christian,” I would think and now I can see that letting other’s opinions, even though I was self-imposing them, got the better of me, something I try to avoid nowadays. So sorry Christian friends who may read this, I was lying to you the whole time, even though at the time I didn’t think I was.

Forewarning for believers looking to become an Atheist

Just a quick disclaimer here for those who currently belief that may look at Atheism as an option after reading this, it can be hard if you let it. One of the things I have noticed since leaving the church is you see friends who still belief less and less. This is an obvious result as you aren’t going to church or attending church functions anymore. But also part of it is you lose a sort of common ground. This is not to say you will lose all of your church friends, I still see friends who go to church often, but there are quite a few acquaintances that you have to accept that you may no longer see. This sounds grim but don’t worry, if your friends are truly friends they will accept your new way of thinking no matter what it is, that’s what make them true friends.

Epilogue

Thank you for taking your time to read this. I’ve wanted to put my beliefs out there for a while because I know what it’s like to be a so called believer and have questions. This is in no way a conversion peace, I’m not out to actively try and steal believers to “the dark side” because that’s not who I am as a person. See it rather as an account of an ex-believer and if it opens up your mind to questioning any beliefs you have, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.