You’re Not Alone If You Don’t Believe

When you first let go of your faith you can feel very alone. You might believe nobody has gone through exactly what you have, that no one has felt the same overwhelming grief. 

{And, yes, it is still a grieving process even though you made a conscious decision to leave your faith willingly.}

Even though intellectually you know this is not true, it’s very hard to get past that initial feeling of there’s no way that anybody else has ever felt this confused, this isolated, this alone.

However, you’re not alone if you don’t believe. Many people have been where you are. Other people are struggling right now just to get to where you are in your journey.

In spite of what it may seem when you scroll through Facebook, read other blogs, and look at friends’ hashtags, not everyone is feeling #blessed. Many of us do not believe in a higher power; we know that life in the here and now is all there is. We are just trying to make it through the day being decent humans. 

Trust me when I say you’re not alone if you don’t believe the same things “everyone” seems to. Still, it can be helpful to know others have similar tales of doubt. It can be reassuring to hear that people have been where you are and embrace a similar collective past.

The Myth of the Lonely Atheist

In addition to the false narrative that you are alone in your disbelief, two other falsehoods regarding non-believers have become pervasive in our culture.

One is that atheists, non-theists, agnostics, nones—whatever label you want to apply—are somehow lonelier than god-believing or even vaguely spiritual individuals.

I am sure you have seen the lonely, disgruntled, unsettled non-believer story play out in books and movies. Most of the time {but not always, of course} the atheist character is portrayed as angry, bitter, and devoid of meaningful relationships.

The other oft-promoted lie is that these poor unfortunate souls—bless their hearts—don’t even realize what they are missing. This has been referred to as the god-shaped hole theory.

Essentially we have propagated the idea that:

1. Your disbelief is an anomaly.
2. Not believing makes you inherently lonely.
3. If you believed, your life would improve.

Of course, those of us who have worked through the intense emotions of loving and then losing a faith know this is all bunk. Yet we remember what it is like during those first days, weeks—heck, years—of coming out of the fog, so to speak. It is a lot to process.

That is why I write posts like these. My intention is never to influence readers one way or the other in their own journeys. Recruiting may be ingrained in evangelical circles, but it is not the modus operandi of the non-religious. I have zero intention of attempting to “convert” friends or acquaintances to my way of thinking.

I simply want to share my own thoughts in the hopes that someone reading these words might find them relatable. I want you to know that you’re not alone if you don’t believe.

Know This First

Before I get too far into what is destined to become a very long post, I want to make one thing perfectly clear:

I absolutely do not have any animosity toward anyone in my past who encouraged me to follow a particular religion. It is what it is, and I truly believe people do the best they can with the information they have available at the time. This post isn’t meant to lash out at my religious friends and family, or to blame anyone for anything.

My goal here is simply to relay a few stories of my transition from belief to non-belief, with the hope that they may help someone reading to feel less alone.  In that sense I guess my target audience if you will is other folks who at one point did follow a religion—perhaps Christianity but perhaps something else—and now don’t. 

Having faith and then losing faith to me is distinct from someone who has never had faith at all or who was raised in a more humanist or atheistic environment.

We naturally crave reassurance that someone somewhere has been through the same situations and experienced the same feelings we have and therefore can relate. 

I share these personal tales from my past not because my particular path is so interesting, but because I think once we can see ourselves in other peoples’ stories, then we realize our journey is not so solitary after all. 

Please Note

I truly do not believe anything I write here will be triggering, as I am speaking only of my own experiences, and while I now look at them with skepticism, they were overall pretty bland and not at all traumatic in any sense.

Most of the stories from my childhood are brief, because I simply don’t remember much. The majority of what follows will detail my experiences as an older teen and then as an adult.  

Still, if discussion of religious indoctrination and pressure to conform to religious expectations causes discomfort because of your personal context, I just wanted you to be aware of the content before you dive in further.

The Early Years {Before I Had a Voice, or a Choice}

Like all Good Catholics, my family baptized me as an infant {at two weeks old, I believe}. This both solved the pesky issue of the original sin I carried around and also marked me as . . . saved? belonging to God? special? for all eternity. 

Even now, as an adult capable of making coherent decisions and changing my mind, some doctrines will profess nothing I do or feel or say can alter that.

Going to church was a normal part of what we did; it was a normal part of what everyone we knew did. I didn’t know anything else and I pretty much thought that everybody attended church weekly {and sometimes on holidays} and this is just how things were. 

My earliest memory of the Catholic Church—aside from how it always smelled like old building and incense—is my overwhelming confusion about the priest.

For a lot of my very early childhood I literally thought the priest was God. They kept going on about God and how great he is, but I couldn’t see anybody other than the priest at the front leading things, being in charge, taking control. I assumed they were referring to him.

First Communion, First Confession, First Questions

Although I would not have framed it that way at the time, I think my first real “skeptical” moment came in the second grade while preparing for my first communion. Of course, preceding this I had my first confession.
 
Did anyone else never know quite what to say to the priest during confession, whether a face-to-face interaction or one of those weird confessional booths? I recall there being a specific pattern of speaking—certain things I was supposed to say and then certain things he would say—but honestly I never knew what to confess.

I mean, at seven I didn’t understand what the church meant by “sin” and I don’t think I had committed any sins at that point. After a while I just kind of gave up and started inventing things—it was easier that way.

I don’t recall much detail about the next several years. I continued to go to church every week with my family and take communion, because . . . well, because. We did go to confession regularly, although I don’t remember what the “requirements” were. Maybe once a year or twice a year or whenever you felt the need?

Around that time that—as young as I was—I also started to develop an awareness  that some people truly believe this to be 100% legit. Yet to me it was all more of a obligation where I did what I was supposed to do because what other choice did I have? 

I remember being extremely young, sitting there in church, and thinking I must be the only one who thinks this way. I better get with the program if I don’t wanna be left behind and alone.

I don’t ever remember feeling wow this is something I’m super excited about or anxious learn more about. It felt more like a duty. Like something you do just because how could you not?

Deciding for Myself?

Eventually it came time for my confirmation— basically making a formal commitment to the Catholic church {or to whatever church, because I know that other Christian denominations have a confirmation as well}.
 
I was 13 and I didn’t exactly have other options, so saying I was consciously making a commitment to this particular church by choice and that it was well thought out and something I truly wanted is misleading at best.

Looking back now I would say this was indoctrination at its finest, but at the time I don’t know if my eighth-grade self saw it as such. I went through the motions, because it was expected of me. 

Did anyone reading this legitimately think at the time of their own confirmation, I am stoked to be doing this? 

Honestly, the height of puberty is probably not the best time to be asking kids to make lifelong commitments to organized religion. Or maybe that’s exactly why we ask them then?

The Teenage Years {How I Became a Jesus Freak}

When I started high school, I fell in with a group of friends who invited me to attend these mysterious weekly “meetings,” which turned out to be a Jesus recruitment program. They were fun and I got to hang out with my friends one evening a week doing whatever ridiculous teenage things we did back then, so I went with it.

Even though my confirmation had come and gone, and I had been attending a Christian {Catholic} church my entire life, it still felt new to me. Hearing about Jesus in this setting, with these people—made it different, somehow. It felt more relevant, more real. Or, at least it did at the time.

The summer after my sophomore year, I went on a week-long trip to Ocean City, New Jersey, with this group. How and why my parents ever even considered letting me do this will baffle me until my dying day.

During the morning and afternoon we were mostly on our own to navigate the beach and boardwalk, but each evening we would gather together in this huge auditorium with all the other high school groups attending. We were the perfect captive audience for the emotional manipulation that was to follow.

If you think manipulation is too strong of a word, perhaps you’ve never been in a situation where the music, the lighting, the energy, the people, the topic, the speakers, etc. are all aimed at encouraging you to feel a certain way. More important than that, making you feel like you need to act on this feeling in order to fit in with all the people around you. 

I succumbed. At the time, it seemed real. It was real. I made a commitment and “invited Jesus into my heart” or however it goes.

Looking back now, I realize it is not a decision I would have made if I had the chance to weigh everything rationally. I was swept up in the storyline, wanting to merge with what was happening around me.

Peer pressure for Jesus. Just like he would have wanted.

Honestly I relate this as my “saved” story, but I don’t know how much I actually changed after that moment, that night, that vacation. I don’t think I truly felt the intimate relationship that some folks claim to experience. 

So if you want to stop reading now, smug in your assessment that I was never a true follower of Jesus anyway, bye, I guess?

You would think I learned my lesson after this, but in college I actually pledged and joined a Christian sorority. I don’t even know what to say about that one. I kept in touch with exactly no one from that time in my life. 

I bring it up only to illustrate the point that on some level I clearly still sought this out intentionally, even if I didn’t understand why at the time.

When It Started To Break Down

Fast forward a bit, and we enter the Huge Mistakes I Made in My Twenties portion of my life story. 

I’ll summarize: too much drinking, not enough studying, lots of job-hopping, unwillingness to end a disastrous relationship, marrying the wrong person, divorcing said wrong person, moving to a new state, securing a more fitting job, finding and marrying the right person.

So after that tumultuous decade, I am happily married, popping out kids, and generally satisfied with life. I decided to throw myself wholeheartedly into this Jesus jam, and it seems that maybe I am finally getting it right. Or am I?

A huge influence on my religious journey at this point in my life is the Lutheran church I attended for roughly seven years, from shortly before Hubby and I married until about a year after our second child was born. This is where I thought I belonged, and this is where it all started to crumble.

I had been fed the message of God being necessary for a fulfilled life for so long, it was incredibly difficult see clearly during this time. The God-shaped hole narrative was hammered home for me during these years. If you don’t believe that you are worthless without God {Jesus}, then you will be all on your own and helpless. You need a higher power to back you up. 

Everywhere I turned the loud and clear message became: you are nothing without your beliefs. All glory to God, amirite?

The Bible Study

One of the most significant memories that stands out to me when I think back on this time is a women’s Bible study I attended for several years {and in fact led at one point}.

Growing up Catholic, I had never read the Bible—it’s not typically a thing that Catholics do. {Maybe that has changed in recent times, but when I was younger it simply wasn’t done.}

So this Bible study is my first experience with reading “God’s word” for myself {not just hearing the selected passages read to me in church each week}. I had claimed to be a Christian for three decades at this point. 

Truth be told I found it to be quite fascinating, but probably not in the way that the other folks at the Bible study expected me to find it fascinating. 

I always felt like I was the one pointing out inconsistencies and bringing up various semantic issues and wanting to talk more about the language and the metaphor and what the story was meant to show, not necessarily the literal words.

As you can imagine this was not exactly received as I had envisioned it being received, but it definitely set me on a road toward wanting to investigate more.

One particular moment I recall: We were discussing a passage—I can’t even remember which one—but we were using a study Bible and one of the questions asked something along the lines of what do you want most in your life?

I remember being somewhat surprised {perhaps naively?} when almost everyone else in the group listed something like to know Jesus better, a closer walk with God, to understand what God wants for me in my life, to listen to God more closely, to learn how to obey God more.

Because I was definitely thinking in terms of more worldly things: I want a long and happy and supportive marriage, I want my future children to be content and grateful and fair and kind, I want equality in the world, and other basic humanistic values. This kind of thinking made me the oddball.

But it also planted a seed—a seed that maybe has been planted in many of you. Maybe looking back now you can choose a time in your life when something just wasn’t right with the whole god narrative and how it related to your own personal values.

The time I spent here became that moment—that seed—for me, although I don’t think I realized at the time. It’s very difficult to see growth {especially painful growth} in your own life while it’s happening. It can only be appreciated with hindsight.

The Friend I Tried To Save

Around this same time something else is going on, and it’s honestly a little embarrassing to relay now but I’m gonna tell the story because I think it’s one that many will relate to.

And, of course,  the primary purpose of this entire post is sharing potentially relatable stories, so I will lay it out for you here. 

I met this friend at the gym. I’ll call her Barb. Because her name is Barb. 

Anyway, Barb is about a dozen years older than I am and had her children way younger than my husband and I had our children, and so she was in a different place when we met. But we still became friends and chatted and often got together outside of the gym to meet for coffee or whatnot.

Somehow I got it into my head that Barb was going to be my salvation project. She was going to be the one that I led away from her peaceful, happy, humanistic, agnostic life and brought to The Jesus Side.

You may have a similar story to tell—perhaps you also thought it your mission to “save” a friend, acquaintance, family member, or coworker. But why? 

I mean yeah I get the whole go out and make disciples stuff, but why did we do that to our friends, to people who trusted us? Did we think we had all the answers? That we alone could “fix” them?

Barb and I don’t keep in touch anymore {not because of this}. She moved away, I moved away, and even now that I’m back in the same city where we originally met she’s in another state and not active on social media.

But if I could talk to her now I’m not sure what I would say to her. I’m not even certain I would try to bring that back up and apologize for it. 

I do think that she would be at least mildly amused that her friend—who used to show up at coffee with her open Bible sitting there tauntingly on the table, trying to interject praying or Jesus or God into every conversation, while she sat there so patiently letting me have my moment—now considers herself an atheist. 

The Beginning of the End

When I first began to seriously doubt that Christianity—or any religious dogma—needed to be a part of my life going forward, I had an overwhelming desire to throw myself back into it once more, to give it one last wholehearted chance. 

I wanted to make absolutely sure whether this path I had already begun to head down was my new truth, or if I should just try harder to recapture what I always thought to be true. Was this the beginning of my journey to non-belief? Or would I feel led back to the God I thought I knew?

I had attended large, non-denominational Christian churches in the past, but never what could be described as a megachurch. For some reason, I convinced myself this would be the way to go if I were going to re-commit myself to this worldview. Strength in numbers, perhaps? Maybe on some level I still feared being alone.

Anyway, I chose one nearby, dropped the kids off at their respective age-appropriate classes, and found a nice, anonymous spot in the back of the ginormous auditorium.

The catchy, contemporary, Jesus-praising music swelled up to start the service. People sang. swayed. waved their arms overhead. called out. The room transformed into something powerful and surreal. And I began to cry. 

Well, “cry” doesn’t convey the incredible, visceral response I had to being there. I had zero control over my emotions. I felt lost and at home at the same time. I could not understand why it all affected me so strongly. Could it be that I still yearned for this? 

The short answer is no. While it took considerable reflection, visits to several additional churches, and a few more years {yes, years} of untangling, I eventually realized my deep-seated reaction was not a plea to nor a sign from Jesus, or the Christian God, or any god for that matter. It was a final release of a part of myself, which for too long I denied was a facade. 

My journey to non-belief had been set in motion long ago, but something clicked now. I wasn’t distraught because I wanted to turn back, I was relieved because I was at last on my way to being free.

When I Finally Admitted It To Myself

Let me tell you about the day I broke things off with Jesus for good.

In early May 2015, I sat in my last Christian worship service. Oh, I had wrestled with many doubts over the years prior to that {clearly}. Yet up until that exact hour I maintained a sliver of hope. Then in a blink, I lost it.

I can’t even fully articulate what happened. Years of doubt had led to this precise moment. An epiphany? Maybe. But I knew unequivocally it was over.

That Sunday, my husband had stayed home with our youngest and the girls were at their Sunday school class, so I sat by myself for this particular service. I remember debating whether I should take communion or not. Should I go through the motions one last time?

I thought about leaving right away, but stayed for the rest of the service because my brain could not even process getting up and walking out. I sat blankly, wondering if anyone could sense my despair. 

Having doubts is one thing, but now I was calling off the whole thing. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.

It is hard for me to comprehend that morning at church happened over five years ago. Because it is no longer raw for me personally, I feel I am ready to share my journey help others realize you’re not alone if you don’t believe. Many of us have similar stories of faith and doubt, belief and skepticism.

I hope what you’ve read here encourages you, makes you see something in a new way, or simply confirms that your feelings are valid. Being a non-believer in a sea of believers does not mean you are on your own.

You are not alone if you don’t believe.

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