Pushing Open the Door

The door to atheism creaked open more than flew open with some moment of enlightenment. A number of factors made me step, tentatively, through into the realms of disbelief more than anything else. It hasn't been black and white and I think that's what surprised me. When I converted to Christianity, it was through lots of exploration, but ultimately, what clinched it for me was a very emotional moment. That's not a bad thing at all and that's very much me. I am a very emotional person and will put a lot of emotion into whatever I do. It can be detrimental, but I believe it also shows a lot of integrity. I like that I'm emotional.

So a lot of emotional factors have definitely played a part to becoming an atheist. I grapple with depression for a start. It is something I struggle with most days and causes me to go to dark places so it's hard to see clearly. It can sometimes disable me even physically, but ultimately I am on top of it and through the support of others and mantras I try to use about myself, it won't drag me down.

It's the causes of my illness though that have turned me away from Christianity and any belief in a god. Quite honestly the actions of many people within the church put a mental burden on me that I could no longer deal with and I guess my brain shut down. I felt an immense amount of pressure to be someone I could never be and granted I put a lot of that pressure on myself, but also there was so much judgement and condemnation flying around, it was hard to gain a positive sense of self. I don't really feel I need to get into the details, but I have felt so much resentment towards so many people within the church (internationally as well as locally) I couldn't bear to be a part of that anymore. With such disillusionment with so many people, it caused me to question so much about the belief system I held on to with such passion.

As I questioned it, it caused greater disillusionment with the God I believed to be perfect and all loving. In fact, I began to find him lazy, impotent and even cruel. I'll expand on that in another post.

But what has happened is I could not deny that I no longer believed in God and had to push the door to atheism open to see if it was just the Christian God or all gods. I realised I was much happier when I realised I believed this existence is finite.

So I've stepped through and here I stand.