From an article The Guardian about people who lost their faith and no longer believe:

‘I feel a lot more at peace’

During the Covid lockdowns, Stephen Hunsaker, 28, had time to step back and found he felt “so much better” when no longer practising his religion. Raised in the Church of Latter Day Saints in the US, the London-based researcher says he realised it was no longer something he identified with.

“I had been very devout my entire life, but when lockdown happened and I just stepped back, that made me realise there was so much that I no longer identified with. I felt like I had to justify it at every turn and it was bringing me an immense amount of guilt and hurt,” Hunsaker says, explaining that he also felt alienated by some Christians’ treatment of minorities and LGBTQ+ people. “Religion is meant to help you be a better person, but I felt like it was holding me back.”

Hunsaker says leaving his faith was the hardest decision he ever made. “I was very fearful that my relationship with my family and friends would be affected – my world was so wrapped up in it. [But] it went better than I thought.

“Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion,” he says. “But as I lived without religion and found other people in solidarity it allowed for me to figure out who I am. I feel a lot more at peace.”

So it can be done, although it also depends on your family situation, of course.

Good luck.

I was going to post this too, Tom. Here's the link to the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/02/i-couldnt-pretend-any-more-readers-on-why-they-left-the-christian-faith

A woman named Pauline is also mentioned. She was raised as "a strict Roman Catholic with Irish parents". She said that she eventually felt (around the issue of the church "hating" LGBTQ+ people) that the church was saying "Jesus loves everybody but only if they're like us". She was also disillusioned, she said, due to "the amount of money the Catholic church has".

That is a simple statement yet it cuts to the heart of the matter that bothers many, myself included: "Jesus loves everybody but only if they're like us".

Some of the more fundamentalist branches of Christianity definitely, and deliberately, hold with that teaching. I couldn't understand as a JW, for instance, why even those I considered fellow Christians were disdained by JWs as not being in the "true" faith.

Too, for significant numbers of various different Christian groups it isn't enough to be Christian - you must be a member of their particular persuasion. That felt claustrophic to me. And shortsighted. And unreasonable. As well as confusing as hell. It inevitably leads one to the question of how anybody is going to ever figure out what is the one true path, or if there is even supposed to be only one way. Why, I would wonder, is there such a wide variety of different people on earth, with varying life experiences, traditions and teachings but we're all supposed to think and do and believe the same. In many cases, "the truth" as the JWs call their faith, comprises ideas and beliefs that are literally foreign to those who are looked upon as potential converts.

Stephen, the former Mormon mentioned in the article, said he "felt so much better" when he stopped practising the religion.

He said that when he "stepped back" (during COVID) he realized there was a lot about the religion he "no longer identified with". Interestingly, he also said he felt "alienated" by the treatment (by some) of minorities and LGBTQ+ people.

"Religion is supposed to help you be a better person" he said.

Yup.

Since my "husband" is gay even though we were still attending. Didn't know what to do really as it was all we'd ever known, but we had some huge misgivings about staying in. He was cheating and was in the ex. sec. The bishop told me he was going to be one of the next 2 bishops and I went inactive. He wanted to talk to the bishop and I said NO--NEVER AGAIN will I talk to the mormon leaders. When he got released, he went inactive.

My life hasn't gone any worse since we stopped going than it already had been, the mess they had made of my life. Of course my husband left (he was going to live downstairs and we'd raise the kids together, but his MORMON therapist told him that wasn't fair to me--hell, I thought that was my right to make my own decisions).

Anyway--here we are how many years later? From the time he told me he is gay--39 years? All my siblings except my handicapped brother are out. My parents were supportive when they were alive. They were furious about what happened to me as I was their most devout child. My whole family was furious once they knew most of the story. My daughter is the only grandchild/great grandchild who is mormon. Most weren't even blessed.

When I resigned, it was like a huge burden was lifted. It was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

COVID is what got my last sibling out (except as above). She was going to stay no matter what as she thought our parents would want her to. My BIL I never thought he'd leave, but he did, too. Some of his brothers and sisters (13 children) from his stake president father have also left the church. Probably about half of them.

"I felt like I had to justify it at every turn and it was bringing me an immense amount of guilt and hurt."

That. In spades.

My family stopped going to church regularly when my father was seriously ill, and my mother was suffering from a deep depression as a result. I was about 12 years old at the time. My family was in crisis, and we simply didn't have the time or energy. The weird thing is that I don't remember our parish priest reaching out to us at all. My father always contributed generously, and my mom in particular had given a lot of volunteer time to the church (she was always one of the first on the priest's call list when he needed someone,)...and, from what I remember, there was nothing in return when the going got tough. Crickets.

You know who did reach out? A Unitarian Universalist minister who was referred by a family friend. I will never forget his kindness. I remember thinking it very odd as a child that a Unitarian minister was the one sitting in our living room, inquiring about my family's welfare, and not a representative of the Catholic church to which my family had given so much in terms of time and money.

Later, after my father died, I started to investigate feminist literature in my early to mid-teens. Still a believer at that point, I came to the conclusion that "artificial" birth control was the gift of a loving god to womankind. I started to think that as a budding woman, second class treatment was completely unacceptable. At that point I was done with Catholicism. But perhaps the seeds were sown when no one from the church reached out to our family when we most needed support.

Catholic induced guilt -- it took me decades to fully shake that. I came to the conclusion that it was excessive, unhealthy, and unproductive.

The odd thing is that even my mom, who was very devout, quit attending church at some point. From then on, she attended perhaps once every few years at best. She did continue praying before bed every night of her life. She prayed for the welfare of her family, and I still remember that with tenderness. It troubled her little that I felt no attachment to Catholicism. It did trouble her that I was questioning Christianity.

I have to wonder if religion is something of a habit, and once you get out of the habit, it is no longer quite as compelling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2022 07:01PM by summer.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have to wonder if religion is something of a
> habit, and once you get out of the habit, it is no
> longer quite as compelling.

There are a lot of habits in Catholicism!

So sorry. I couldn't resist - my little joke of the day.

I've just been to a friend's funeral (virtually) and was sitting here, feeling sad, thinking that at times of crisis sometimes a church family can lend utmost love and support when it's badly needed, as was evident today for the family members and friends grieving the loss of a wife and mother, a friend and mentor - a woman who did a lot of good in her community in one of the helping professions and who ideally should have had decades left with her loved ones and the communities she served. At least in her lifetime she knew she was cherished.

Sometimes you see the best of what religion can be. Other times, of course, not at all, so unfortunately.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2022 07:09PM by Nightingale.

I'll show you Catholic guilt.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujxDA9VsQG4

I think there's a difference between leaving a religion that doesn't require much of a member and leaving a religion like Mormonism that requires a life-altering commitment. No longer participating is a relief but the hurt remains. The Mormon church f'd up a lot of people.

My brain was not wired to think that Guilt Trips are a bad thing. If the Brethren say that guilt trips are good then of course my brain will think they are good. That's just this peculiar way of thinking.

All of this thanks to the wondrous day I first gained a very powerful testimony in Nursery that the Cheerios are true. That was the beginning of the beloved Correlation program carefully nurturing me and programming my brain through a washing of immersion to be hardwired to be Obedient to the Church. That's why I couldn't possibly ever think its bad for someone to try to manipulate me through a Guilt Trip. What I'll be thinking about instead is to try to be much more obedient. And thus I'll be easy prey for some Bishop with some agenda. But of course I'd never question whether such an agenda is good or not because I'm just so focused on being completely obedient.

Thank goodness when people read this they will think - "its so obvious that this person was not brainwashed and they can live such a wholesome fulfilling life thanks to being so free and non-brainwashed".