This thread is for stories of how and why you converted to a religion or of how and why you deconverted from a religion. Feel free to share yours! Feel even better by posting in the nude!
I've got a tale that involves both conversion and deconversion, and starts with my mother.
Mom was of the staunchly held opinion that religion was far too serious of a thing for the immature minds of children to make decisions about. Thus, she forbade my brothers and I from reaching any firm and fast conclusions about such things as whether god existed, which religion, if any, to follow, and so forth until we were "at least 18 years old". For most of my childhood I obeyed her.
Yet I rebelled for a few fervent weeks in middle school.
There were two reasons for my rebellion and brief conversion to Christianity. First, a couple of friendly, charismatic, young men in their 20s moved into town, rented a loft, and opened a youth ministry in it called "The Upper Room". It instantly proved to be a popular hang out for middle and high school kids, including myself.
The young men befriended me -- along with many other kids -- and spun a message of love, forgiveness, and salvation that I found attractive at the time. Even more attractive was the thrilling news that we were living in the end times and huge and great things were about to happen! The signs! The signs were all there! So I was already close to converting, when the second thing to encourage me to convert came along.
She was a straight A student, the finest artist in my class, and cute as a raccoon cub raiding its very first trash bin. She was devoutly religious and had already dedicated her life to, as much as humanely possible, emulating the ideal of Jesus by cultivating such attractive virtues as compassion, kindness, gentleness, and cheerfulness -- but without the wine drinking. Her values and the way she embodied them in action inspired me. I wanted to be like her -- but without her breasts. The night she invited me to pray with her, I converted.
Despite the more or less shallow initial reasons for my conversion, I quickly put my whole heart into it and became intensely devout almost overnight. I read the Gospels, passionately prayed several times a day, pondered Christ's message near hourly even when I should have been paying attention to my teachers in the middle school, and fell asleep at nights trying my best to at least just once make it all the way through the "so and so begot so and so who begot so and so" section of Genesis without falling asleep.
All went well for about three intense weeks.
But in the fourth week, I began to ponder the doctrine of hell and damnation. It dawned on me that my mother, my brothers, and my best friend were all most likely going to hell, for there was simply no converting them. As the week wore on, the realization they'd suffer eternal torment wore on me more and more. Then one night it came to an emotionally boiling crisis. That is, it became insufferable.
Not being able to take it any longer, I prayed to God. I told him that I could not imagine myself being happy in heaven if even one of the people I loved was in hell. Then I prayed that if he sent anyone of them to hell, he'd send me to too so that I might be with them. After that, somewhat generalizing from my family and friend to all of humanity, I explained to him that I could no longer be a Christian because I could no longer in good faith accept that some people would go to heaven when others would go to hell. And last, I reassured him -- just as if he needed reassurance -- that I wasn't trying to cut a deal with him. That is, I knew I was going to hell now by rejecting him, and I told him I accepted that, and wasn't trying to get him to send all of us to heaven by my refusal to go there myself unless everyone went there. All of that I was very careful to explain to him, just as if he needed an explanation.
Quite soon after my prayer ended, I felt more than mere relief, I felt at peace for the first time in several intensely troubling days. At peace not only with myself, but even with God.
That was my brief conversion to Christianity and my deconversion from it. Soon afterwards, I reverted to suspending any belief or non-belief in any deity, in obedience to my mother's wishes that I wait until I was an adult to make such decisions as those.
I've got a tale that involves both conversion and deconversion, and starts with my mother.
Mom was of the staunchly held opinion that religion was far too serious of a thing for the immature minds of children to make decisions about. Thus, she forbade my brothers and I from reaching any firm and fast conclusions about such things as whether god existed, which religion, if any, to follow, and so forth until we were "at least 18 years old". For most of my childhood I obeyed her.
Yet I rebelled for a few fervent weeks in middle school.
There were two reasons for my rebellion and brief conversion to Christianity. First, a couple of friendly, charismatic, young men in their 20s moved into town, rented a loft, and opened a youth ministry in it called "The Upper Room". It instantly proved to be a popular hang out for middle and high school kids, including myself.
The young men befriended me -- along with many other kids -- and spun a message of love, forgiveness, and salvation that I found attractive at the time. Even more attractive was the thrilling news that we were living in the end times and huge and great things were about to happen! The signs! The signs were all there! So I was already close to converting, when the second thing to encourage me to convert came along.
She was a straight A student, the finest artist in my class, and cute as a raccoon cub raiding its very first trash bin. She was devoutly religious and had already dedicated her life to, as much as humanely possible, emulating the ideal of Jesus by cultivating such attractive virtues as compassion, kindness, gentleness, and cheerfulness -- but without the wine drinking. Her values and the way she embodied them in action inspired me. I wanted to be like her -- but without her breasts. The night she invited me to pray with her, I converted.
Despite the more or less shallow initial reasons for my conversion, I quickly put my whole heart into it and became intensely devout almost overnight. I read the Gospels, passionately prayed several times a day, pondered Christ's message near hourly even when I should have been paying attention to my teachers in the middle school, and fell asleep at nights trying my best to at least just once make it all the way through the "so and so begot so and so who begot so and so" section of Genesis without falling asleep.
All went well for about three intense weeks.
But in the fourth week, I began to ponder the doctrine of hell and damnation. It dawned on me that my mother, my brothers, and my best friend were all most likely going to hell, for there was simply no converting them. As the week wore on, the realization they'd suffer eternal torment wore on me more and more. Then one night it came to an emotionally boiling crisis. That is, it became insufferable.
Not being able to take it any longer, I prayed to God. I told him that I could not imagine myself being happy in heaven if even one of the people I loved was in hell. Then I prayed that if he sent anyone of them to hell, he'd send me to too so that I might be with them. After that, somewhat generalizing from my family and friend to all of humanity, I explained to him that I could no longer be a Christian because I could no longer in good faith accept that some people would go to heaven when others would go to hell. And last, I reassured him -- just as if he needed reassurance -- that I wasn't trying to cut a deal with him. That is, I knew I was going to hell now by rejecting him, and I told him I accepted that, and wasn't trying to get him to send all of us to heaven by my refusal to go there myself unless everyone went there. All of that I was very careful to explain to him, just as if he needed an explanation.
Quite soon after my prayer ended, I felt more than mere relief, I felt at peace for the first time in several intensely troubling days. At peace not only with myself, but even with God.
That was my brief conversion to Christianity and my deconversion from it. Soon afterwards, I reverted to suspending any belief or non-belief in any deity, in obedience to my mother's wishes that I wait until I was an adult to make such decisions as those.
