Hostage to fear

[Jenny A]

As I started to investigate my own religion, I began to cast out doctrines like hell... because you have a very difficult problem with theodicy if you hold to it.  I then decided that the evil that occurs now is the most pressing issue if hell is out of the equation.  What use is my God if He doesn't intervene?  Therefore, God must not be a personal God.

I know the bible is not historically accurate, we can prove the documents are fables.  I know we have no evidence for the suspension of physical laws to allow for the possibility of miracles.  I know human biology doesn't allow for something like a virgin birth.

I just can't seem to give it up.  If I've cast out the doctrine of hell, you'd say I have nothing to fear.  I've drawn out all that I cannot hold to if I am going to hold to that which is true, there's nothing left.  Absolutely nothing.  My fear is entirely irrational.

My own Grandmother threatened me with hell.  A girl I liked in high school... I asked her "So if I don't believe in Jesus, but am a good person, I'm still going to go to hell?"  When she said "I'm sorry, but yes."  I literally burst into tears in art class.

Perhaps it's those experiences that still hold me hostage to the Church.  My Grandmother sends my children books that I have to go through to weed out the crazy shit.  I'm embarrassed and ashamed to tell this story, but my eldest boy toasted the end of the world in front of my atheist parents during their last visit before supper.  The reaction he got sent him into tears.  I, of course, comforted him.  I teach my children that there is no hell, but then he clings to the return of Christ when this loving God comes back to destroy the Earth?

It's all complete and utter bullshit.  But I'm so f'ing scared to denounce it for my children's sake.  I am programmed to not say anything bad about Christ.  I literally can't... and I've even tried.  I can even tell you honestly that I love Christ (seriously, no joke).  But when I look at these things critically, there's nothing left for me to hold on to.

Church has been so good for my wife and children, though.  I'm afraid of what my wife will think of me.  I'm afraid I would be taking something good away from them if I am openly agnostic.  I'm not incredibly smart or anything, but they look to me for standards of goodness.

If I go to the clergy with these thoughts, I'm afraid I'm only going to get more of the same.  That's why I'm posting here.  I could use a little unbiased encouragement, maybe, from someone who has been through the same thing.

Hi, I can't address the fear of hell part of this because thought I was raised in a Christian household, hellfire was not denied so much as politely ignored, like grandmother's farts.  And I never actually believed.

What I get absolutely is the fear of hurting Christian relatives by telling.  I also get that the church can be an important social place and that parts of it can and are good for some people.  But, perpetually lying is good for no one, you included.  It doesn't do good things for your sense of well being, integrity, or self respect and it won't do good things for your relationship with the people you are lying to whether it's your wife or your kids.  And pretending to believe what you do not is lying.

I would be lying to you if I said it won't matter to your wife.  It will matter.  It certainly mattered to my parents when I told them and it still matters to my mother.  She alternates between willfully forgetting and attempting conversion and it's been a good 35 years now. . .  But she's still my Mom and we still love each other.  I suspect that if you tell your wife and you don't vilify Jesus in the process that the results may be similar.