My somewhat deconversion

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Hello, I'm not sure if I'm an atheist yet, but I'm not really an agnostic, deist, theist, or pantheist/panentheist either. I'm undecided on the matter of deity and still need to ponder and investigate it further.

I grew up as a fundamentalist creationists Christian. I was also homeschooled completely from elementary to high school (I'm actually glad I was homeschooled though, even though I disagree now with some of what I was taught). A grew up thoroughly understanding, believing and defending my worldview. Must have spent hundreds of hours watching "seminars" of my favorite creation "scientists" over and over oblivious to the fact that most of them were simple frauds. Even went to a summer camp for two weeks once when I was teen that taught Christian apologetics through lectures for 10 hours a day.

I think what started my "deconversion" was reading evolutionist refutations of creationist arguments through sites such as TalkOrigins. For a while I explored the various Christian accommodation views that tried to fit in evolution such as the long-ages theory, gap theory, framework hypothesis, etc. None of them really satisfied me because but they didn't really seem to respect the intent of the Biblical text.

What finally did it though was reading New Testament criticism from scholars such as those associated with the Jesus Seminar. I was already aware of them from reading fundamentalist books that tried to refute their findings and theories. Now that I'm actually reading their work instead of criticisms of their work, I see that their arguments are much more convincing and strong than I had thought. Before, in my mind, I thought these people were hacks similar to Dan Brown, but now I see I was misled.

Historical credibility of the Bible was the last thing that was keeping me believing and now that has been mostly destroyed now in my mind I'm afraid.

I'm still not entirely convinced Christianity is false. I'd say I'm about 87.6 percent convinced it is false, but that little bit left is still nagging me so I have to keeping thinking and investigating.

I don't find atheism very appealing. I can't see yet how it just doesn't turn into nihilism. And the arguments I've seen, whether logical or evidential, against the existence of God I haven't found convincing yet. Though I have found atheistic criticisms of popular theistic arguments very enlightening.

I'm still of course thinking about these things, and who knows, I might just end up back as a Christian (I doubt that happening though).

[Creed of Heresy]

Here is the thing, my friend. I come from a background of fairly devout methodism, and I, too, endured a period of "crisis of faith," brought on by reason stacking up against faith. But if you are 87.6% convinced it is false, does this not mean that the supposed word of god is not nearly as convincing as it should be? If the word of god were worthy of worship, you would feel no doubt. If it were worthy of worship, its defense would be victorious all the time, especially against reason, because it is supposed to be the "true word," is it not? If it's the true word...then why is it false, and proven so, so often? And why, if it were truth, did it and its propagators feel the need to mislead you and lie to you so much? How can you have faith at all in anything that lies to you, not once, not twice, but a hundred times without remorse?

You're scared right now because if you surrender that last 12.4%, that means you will have to turn on the light. You're in a dark room, and you have been convinced your entire life that the room is full of monsters but if you leave the light off, they will never harm you. Your curiosity compels you, your desire to know the truth demands you to flick on that light, to see for yourself whether or not there are monsters in the room. And not only that but you want to see what the room itself looks like. But that last 12.4% whispers that if you turn on the light, you're going to be devoured by the monsters and torn to pieces.

Take it from someone who flipped on the light; it's a beautiful room.

[Poetess]

Hello. Welcome to the forum. I'm fairly new here as well. A lot of what you've said sounds familiar. I held onto my last 5% over the last few years, until I decided to come out of the dark. I think what kept me boxed in was fear, the 'what if's', and of course everything that was drilled into my head that I couldn't get out. Like what was said above; it can be scary to come out of the dark. .... and it is, but logic, happiness, freedom, and truth are good things. I am happier now than at any point that I lived in fear and followed blindly.

Atheism isn't this bad thing that people make it out to be. In fact, all it means is that you don't believe in a supernatural being and aren't religious... It doesn't mean a group of hateful, inhumane people running amuck. Everyone is different; all people have their own way and personality. So if that's something that bothers you about atheism, don't think too much about it. I wish you luck in your journey.

[FallentoReason]

Here is the thing, my friend. I come from a background of fairly devout methodism, and I, too, endured a period of "crisis of faith," brought on by reason stacking up against faith. But if you are 87.6% convinced it is false, does this not mean that the supposed word of god is not nearly as convincing as it should be? If the word of god were worthy of worship, you would feel no doubt. If it were worthy of worship, its defense would be victorious all the time, especially against reason, because it is supposed to be the "true word," is it not? If it's the true word...then why is it false, and proven so, so often? And why, if it were truth, did it and its propagators feel the need to mislead you and lie to you so much? How can you have faith at all in anything that lies to you, not once, not twice, but a hundred times without remorse?

You're scared right now because if you surrender that last 12.4%, that means you will have to turn on the light. You're in a dark room, and you have been convinced your entire life that the room is full of monsters but if you leave the light off, they will never harm you. Your curiosity compels you, your desire to know the truth demands you to flick on that light, to see for yourself whether or not there are monsters in the room. And not only that but you want to see what the room itself looks like. But that last 12.4% whispers that if you turn on the light, you're going to be devoured by the monsters and torn to pieces.

Take it from someone who flipped on the light; it's a beautiful room.

[NoMoreFaith]

The only thing that really matters, is that you're thinking for yourself.

To most of us, atheism is the most logical statement regarding God. The majority would be more specifically called agnostic atheist.

The biggest problem with the world, is that people accept what they are told without question. Nobody is THINKING.

From what I've seen, you are thinking, and trying to do so for yourself. That doesn't mean you don't take input, merely you have to create your own mental filter for bullshit.

As an atheist, I don't feel nihilistic, I'm also a hard determinist, which is also a very nihilistic view.

If you want to know the meaning of life, its simple as far as I can see it. We are here. We are unique that we able to experience this incredible universe. It doesn't care if we're here or not, it doesn't barely factor in these specks of dust on a speck of dust in the cosmos.
We can stare at the universe, and we can love, and appreciate beauty, experience pleasure and it doesn't need a purpose, we can appreciate what is all around us.
Why on earth would we need to invent something more than this.. "this" is incredible and wonderful. You are free to create your own reasons, free to pursue your own dreams, not those of an invented deity. As long as it causes others no harm, you have the most wonderful freedom imaginable AND the ability to experience it and be aware of it to boot.

I can't think of anything less nihilistic.

[Phil]

Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. How you can say that leads to nihilism I can't understand. There are many atheists that are Humanists and there are also some atheists that call themselves Unitarian Universalists, how do you call either of those nihilism?

[Norfolk And Chance]

What's nihilism?

[FallentoReason]

What's nihilism?

That life is meaningless.

[Mister Agenda]

Good luck in your journey, wherever it leads. I kept a space open for God for some time and didn't identify as an atheist just because i didn't realize you could be an atheist and still be an agnostic. It was about 15 years from devout teenage Pentecostal to realizing that at some point along the way I had become an atheist. Of course, we didn't have the internetz in those days.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Thanks everyone. I feel like I'm in a theism recovery 12 step program now.

I didn't mean to imply by my nihilism comment that I think atheists are immoral. I don't think atheists are a gang of post-apocalyptic road warriors as cool as that would be. I know you're very moral and nice, probably more often than Christians. It's just in all my years of training as Christian I was taught that atheists are really deluding themselves into thinking life has meaning I'm still having hard time not seeing that. If you have an article, book, or video, that might present what you think to be an airtight case for purpose and meaning in a naturalistic reality, then please share it.

Most Christians think everyone knows God exists, but because of their sinful nature, most choose to keep him out of their knowledge. I have to make sure my sudden bout of reasonableness isn't just complete delusion caused by my sinful nature's bias to not wanting God. So, the Christian response to why doesn't God just show himself is supposedly that he has already, through nature and the human "heart" (whatever that is). Though, when I was a Christian, I did find pretty complexing those passages where God showed himself to a multitude of non-believers and they converted because of that. But supposedly it may be that if God has "middle knowledge" then he created the universe that has the most believers that would freely come to him out of all the possible worlds he could have created (I don't think this though this gets around those appearance stories in the Bible).

One of the things that always caused doubt for me was the sheer size of the universe. It seems a little too big just one race of sentient beings. Another thing is just the sheer incoherence of scripture. Most Christians don't read it because it's not very straightforward. It only seems clear to some because theologians have been trying to make some sense of it for 2000 years, and they can't even agree amongst themselves. Many can't even agree on what salvation actually is (Free grace? Lordship salvation? Baptism? Works? Universalism?). You would think that a divinely authored book would at least be clear on that.