IF you deconverted in midlife, can you help?

[pocaracas]

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Hi, All, 

Most of the atheists I've met have been so for their entire lives, or at least since they were kids. I think those of us who leave religion in midlife or well into our adulthood have a different experience as we have a lifetime of conditioning to overcome. I'm really struggling, some days more than others. I hope you'll read the intro, but if you don't want to, please jump to the numbered list at the bottom. (thank you)

I introduced myself on the Intro forum a few weeks ago. As a recap, I was raised in a Christian Fundamentalist home full of lots of hellfire and brimstone and a literal interpretation of the Bible. Fourteen years ago, I converted to Judaism for a number of reasons, one being that I found the Christian concepts of original sin and Hell to be horrific, abusive, and meant to ignite fear. I never really enjoyed religion, not Christianity or Judaism, only went to services because it was a given in my mind that God exists and that I should worship him. Over the years, I just stopped going to synagogue. It lost its meaning for me. I didn't understand Hebrew and thus well over 75% of the service. I had no Jewish family or friends, so I went alone. It's a very family-centered religion, and I felt very alone.  

Feeling alone gave rise to concerns about being alone as I age as I am unmarried, childless, and have health problems. I am concerned about support or lack thereof as I get old. So I figured if I can't find the community I need in Judaism, maybe I can go back to Christianity? My fear of Hell has never completely gone away, so I wondered if maybe somehow deep down I knew that I needed Jesus. So I started conversing with a member of the Open Brethren gospel hall my family goes to. I also checked out a Messianic Jewish (believers in Jesus) synagogue and went to church another Sunday. All of these things felt really phony and like they just didn't settle my mind. 

So I started studying the Bible, creation, evolution, science, cosmology, and I came to the conclusion that the evidence for evolution is just too great to be denied. I realized then that the Bible cannot be literal. My belief in God, at least the God of the Bible, started falling like a house of cards. All of this happened over a period of a few weeks. I became very depressed as I lost my delusion of being immortal seemingly overnight. I would never see my family, friends or pets after I died. My world view collapsed.

I became the most reluctant atheist I can imagine. I did NOT set out to become an atheist, only to know what truth is, and that led to lack of evidence for Biblegod. 

I am seeing a therapist who was raised in a Christian cult and can relate to some of what I'm going through. I take medication for chronic depression, anxiety and OCD. I'm also in an online support group with Dr. Marlene Winell for people who are leaving harmful religion. I've been getting together with other Skeptics (mostly atheists) regularly. 

I'm sorry about that long intro, but I feel it's a necessary backdrop to the questions I want to ask: 

1. Fear of Hell - Despite rationally determining that the God of the Bible cannot be true and things like Hell can't exist, I am STILL afraid. I know it makes no logical sense--how can you fear what you don't believe in? But those fears are still in there. Did you or do you have this? How long did it take to lose it? Is there anything that helped you? I feel like I'm trying everything (reading, watching videos, talking with other atheists, etc.) and that nothing is working well enough. 
   
   
2. Existential angst/crisis - On some days I feel enlightened and a little relieved, but other days I am weighed down from the moment I awake with this feeling of dread and depression. These are some of the most uncomfortable feelings I've ever experienced. Did you go through this? How long did it take to get through it, and was there anything that helped? 
   
   
3. Fear of dying - Mosts atheists I've met say they don't have a fear of death because they believe they'll just cease to exist, but I don't really see anyone talking about having fear of dying--what the process is going to be like and feel like both emotionally and physically, but primarily emotionally. I am afraid that my irrational fears of an afterlife will flood me at the end, and the result will be terror. So to some degree, I fear feeling fear. 
   I have watched Christopher Hitchens' interviews and discussions as he was dying as well as read about his book Mortality, which he wrote while he was dying. As much as we can tell from a book, it doesn't sound like he had fear, only a sense of lack of meaning in the last days. I read that said that he wished his death itself could have some meaning, that he could die for something. I am very afraid of these feelings of desolation and that I will wish that I had somehow been able to still believe. Considering that you had a lifetime of religious indoctrination, do you think that these deeply instilled fears will somehow resurface at the end of your life? Do you know of any other atheists who have shared their dying experience with the public? I'd like to go view them.

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I'm rather miserable in the midst of these thoughts and fears, although some days are easier than others. It seems that the thoughts and feelings cycle: I'll feel like I'm doing well for a few days, and then I'll go back to a slew of days feeling weighed down by grief and fear. Was your process of deconverting similar? I am hoping you can share some of your experiences and that hopefully I'll learn that these negative feelings are able to be overcome. How long does it take? I want it to be over now, but it appears to have its own timetable. 

Thank you!

Well, atheists can't be of assistance for your concerns. However, if you still think they can ask them what that first thought was that rose from the dust finally after an infinite past? Must have been quite an event that first consciousness that recently took place that came from a brain that developed without any prior thought.

Really?.... This?
Are you suggesting that the evolution of the nervous system cannot bring about thought?
Surely, at first, a very rudimentary form, more akin to a reflex... But life and the world are complex systems and evolution complexified this initial reflex into becoming deliberation, intentionality as can be found in most mammals... And, eventually, into introspection, contemplation, and imagination as can be found in most humans.

I wonder why can you only see the final (so far) stage and decide imaginatively to attribute that to magic?
Educational failure?
Failure to understand life on earth?

Even metaphysically what you said is wrong.