Letters From Leavers

I was born in Zimbabwe and raised in a non-religious household. I went to an Anglican boarding school, and we attended chapel twice a day, every day. But I reckon most of that just washed over me as it it was just a part of school life, like school meals and sports.

At age 21 I met my wife at college. She was a born again Baptist, and to play ball I went along to church. Well, the preaching did its job and one day I went to the front after a call for sinners who want to give their lives to Jesus. I spent nigh on 10 years in the Baptist church and was very involved. Taught Sunday school, led the youth group. And I got pretty fundy about the whole thing. Literal Bible, young earth etc.

My father converted too, and he went in even deeper than I did. I remember once he accused my mother of being posessed because she wouldn’t agree with what we were saying. “Say ‘Jesus is Lord’” he told her. When she wouldn’t, he said it was she “couldn’t” because of evil influence.

My wife & I left Zimbabwe for England in 1990, and because we were tired of the amount of effort church required, we didn’t seek out a new church in the UK. Slowly, over the years I came to see that life isn’t black & white. Difficulty in having children and successful IVF treatment showed me where my loyalties lay when it came to the rub regarding fertilized embryos.

For many years I still considered myself christian and would vigorously defend my faith if the topic came up, but it was lip service. I certainly wasn’t living the christian life.

Exposure to critical thinking and skepticism through james Randi’s web sites and the JREF forum set me down the path to agnosticism and finally atheism. Once I started to laugh and mock the psychics and paranormal, I then realised that my Christian beliefs didn’t stand much scrutiny either.

I spent a month or so debating Christians on the worthy boards. http://www.worthyboards.com. They are a decent bunch there. there are some bright atheists arguing their corner and for a Christian board, I think they are very tolerant. Their replies to my questions, and finally evasion of my questions over the weakness of OT prophesy of Jesus in Isaiah helped to crystalise my thoughts.

It is taking a long time to rid myself of church habits and guilt. I always used to give a mental “thank-you God” when things went right as well as a mental “nice-one God” when I saw something beautiful.

My next mission is to get some kind of resolution with my father who is still bombarding me with Josh McDowell and Francis Schaeffer and telling me its crazy that we descended from monkeys! I am trying to get him to understand the basics of evolution. He is a VERY clever man and well capable of getting to grips with Dawkins stuff, but I know he will be reading it from a Christian perpective and wrtiting “bullshit” in the margins! He is pushing 80 tho’ and I think it’s not worth freaking him out in the final years of his life. If he thinks he’s going to meet Jesus then, what the heck.

So, no big dramas in my deconversion, no deaths or illnesses or big wake-ups. I find that my life, free of god and religion is a refreshing and exciting one that brings fresh challenge and wonder. I find the concepts proposed by humanitarianism to be uplifting and fair and just. I am posting some videos on YouTube as I explore humanitarian ethics and morality. My channel is at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=CarlaSimian

regards

Stew