Hostage to fear

[robvalue]

You're most welcome

That is just awful. Religion causes so much harm. You're right, because it's all "unseen" you can't get your hands on it. It's all psychological manipulation.

Maybe this will help a bit: if there is a god, and it's a good god, it will be pleased if you lead a good life and do well by people. If it's a dickhead god, then you can't expect it to keep its word no matter what, and it's not worthy of worship.

Or more realistically, if there is a god, he has no interest in us. Think how insignificant we are cosmically!

Please let me know if I can help in any way

[Minimalist]

My wife knows that I am more a deist than anything,

We have some great deists here, too.  When Deist Paladin shows up he'll make you feel right at home.

Personally, I think deists are just atheists who can't let go with the other hand....but at least they don't ring your doorbell and sprinkle bullshit literature all over the landscape.

[robvalue]

Sure, a true deist™ is in all practical terms an atheist, because it makes no actual difference whether there was a creator or not if he's no longer a factor.

[SteelCurtain]

SpaceTime!!!

Just like any other thing in your son's life, you have a certain amount of influence which wanes as he gets older. You can only hope to live your example of skepticism and inquisitiveness and hope it rubs off.

There are still some wonderful benefits of church--namely the community--that you can still reap. If you are a cultural Christian while not believing in the dogma or the divinity crap, I would argue you are right in line with a good chunk of Christians in America today, whether they'd like to admit it or not. You can see it in their eye when you talk about Noah's Ark or Jesus' miracles. It's the only thing I know of where a person is proud to act dumber than they are.

Go with the flow until the cognitive dissonance get to be too much, or the other side of the coin, if you go back to the comfort of it. Hopefully by that time your sons are old enough that you're not ruining anything for them.

And shame on your parents for making your son cry.

[Pyrrho]

...  I've never felt so uncomfortable as I do right now, at this moment.
...

If it makes you feel any better (and even if it doesn't), many people who lose their religion report being upset during the process, but are much happier after a while.  I was raised a Christian, and was sufficiently serious about it as a child that I thought that maybe I wanted to be a preacher when I grew up.  However, I had doubts and ended up rejecting religion entirely.  The process of de-coverting was painful, but after a while, I became much happier than I had ever been before.  I have now been a complete and total atheist for over 30 years, and am still quite happy.

So, your current feelings are common, but such feelings commonly do not last.

Take your time and think carefully about things, reading things that interest you, and don't rush to any conclusions.

You should definitely read things on the subject, as it will help you have greater confidence in your ideas about there not being a god, and in the absurdity of Christianity.  What would be best depends on your temperament and so forth, so I am hesitant to make any specific recommendations.  Do your atheist parents have any suggestions, or do you not wish to talk with them about this for some reason?

And welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, they are my only personal experience with atheists, and they are very bad ones at that.

If I tried to talk to them about it, there would be "told you so" moments that would make this thing so much more difficult than it already is.

Thank you!

Okay.  In that case, you might want to take a look at the writings at:

http://infidels.org/library/


I also rather like Epicurus:

http://www.epicurus.net

Particularly, the Principle Doctrines and Letter to Menoeceus.  Feel free to ask questions about them.

I've lived my life entirely in fear of this concept of being "outside of God's grace".  Like most men, I'm a fixer.  Show me the problem, I'll fix it.  The problem with Christianity is, you can't do that.  It doesn't fix anything.  It only confuses your problems further.  Once I ditched the doctrine of "once saved, always saved", I had to accept that I could do things to lose my salvation.  Holy crap, what a bad thing to have over your head.  It turned me into a heavy drinker and sent me into the worst depression, because I struggle to meet God's standards.  And the doctrine of the Church is always there to make you feel so fucking horrible about yourself.

It makes me wonder if I can live a more holy life, if I didn't have this thing hovering over me making me want to sin to self-medicate my depression that the thing itself has caused.

I don't know when or where, but I have sort of made myself promise to talk to my wife about this soon.  Maybe she'll be down with sleeping in on Sundays. 
...

I think it is common for people to be better when they get rid of their religion.  In my case, I am more tolerant of others, as I do not believe in a god who wants me to be intolerant to others.  Ridding oneself of religion gives one a good opportunity to rethink one's values.  That, too, can be unsettling, but it can also be quite liberating.  Just take your time and think things through before doing anything dramatic.  Not every command in religion is completely bad, so it isn't as simple as just doing the opposite of what you have been taught.

I think if you can become more "settled" in your lack of religious beliefs, you will likely be happier and better.

[Longhorn]

Welcome, friend. I know all too well what you mean. Trust me, it will fade with time, gradually. You've been brainwashed and lied to and it won't take an afternoon to recover.

From what I can recommend..... Hitchens. God Is Not Great, also look up his best moments on you tube. Dawkins' The God Delusion is pretty good so far.

You need anything, let me know. Hang in there. You're not alone

[Spacetime]

You folks are really friendly and warm in your welcome... thank you, sincerely.

I don't know why today... nothing special or out of the ordinary happened that caused me to take this step.  I just felt the walls were coming in on me the moment I woke up.  Something very similar to the episodic behavior of my manifest PTSD, but this time it was different.  Much deeper and more difficult to bear.

Despite being told to take it slow, I had to find comfort in my wife with all of this as it was happening to me.  So I brought it up earlier today after making my initial post.  I asked my wife if she really believed that Christ raised up from the dead after 72 hours of being clinically dead, with the premise that her answer would have no impact on my feelings about her.  I assured her over and over again that her answer couldn't possibly move the sheer mass of my love for her (know this is an idiot statement in that emotion has no mass   ).  She started to cry, and said "no, not really."  Then I asked her if she truly believed that Christ was born of a virgin.  She replied, again through tears, "No, because I know that can't happen."

Long story made short, I've been living with another doubting Thomas for the last 11 years and never thought to touch that topic with the person that means the most to me.  I didn't make that reference to her because I wanted to be clear that I knew there would be no God-man appearing in the room with wounds similar to those victims of crucifixion suffered to prove us wrong.  

After a long period of silence, she said, "I'm going to have to think about this for a while."  After I read my original post from this thread to her, she said, "You should know me better than to leave you over something like this."  I reassured her that we could keep going to church, keep praying together as a family if that made her happy, etc.  But that if that was her choice, that I could at least be openly agnostic with her.  She agreed.

... my hope for every man ... is that they find a woman as cool as my main chick (that's white boy slang for "I have no side chicks").

So tonight, for the first time in a long time, we didn't say the Lord's prayer before eating our supper.  I asked that everyone sit down and just be thankful that we are so lucky to have something to eat while children around the world... equal in age to my own... were going to bed hungry.  That was brave because I wasn't prepared for the long conversation about global markets and food science that would have logically followed the innocent question of, "Dad, who are we thanking?"  I think I would have said, "I bought it, Mom preheated it, and together we carefully removed it from the oven so as to avoid painful injury."

I'm thankful [to wife] that it was all around, a good experience.  The fear is still maddening, I'm still horrified at the prospect of giving up on trying to have faith (something I am pretty sure you cannot force), however... at least my wife is sympathetic and shares some of my views.

One last point; one week ago, I reached out to probably one of the most learned men in the field of theology in the United States, hoping he would respond so that I could ask him to explain theodicy to me like a 3rd grader.  Just 1 hour ago, I got his reply.  I hadn't yet asked him to present his argument for his views on theodicy, but he replied and the opportunity is there.  Part of me wants to abandon it, and another part of me wants to ask him outright... "Why does our personal God sit idle when children smaller than my own are starving to death?  Why, when we know He can, did God not write down the ultimate guide to human understanding? If his insight is so infinite why, then, did he leave us a book that compounds the complexities of the practice of worshiping Him."  The latter part of me is screaming, "too late, motherf*cker... if you had it, you would have presented it on YouTube."

Anyway, I feel like I'm learning to walk all over again.  I feel like I'm watching the most beautiful part of me disappear in the rear-view mirror.  And why am I still scared of hell, despite having every reason to believe that it doesn't exist?

Thanks, guys/gals... srsly.

[Minimalist]

Invite her to join.

[Spacetime]

Invite her to join.

I'm going to.  It'll be interesting to see what she has to say about the invitation.  I suppose a body in motion........

I sort of started that body's motion this morning.

[Minimalist]

So tonight, for the first time in a long time, we didn't say the Lord's prayer before eating our supper.

It's okay....just keep it real.