I'm specifically interested in hearing from anyone who used to at one point believe in a personal God that you related to like, well, a person, prayed to, attributed human characteristics like jealousy, anger, love, mercy, etc to God. If you now see what you once called God as more of a mysterious force (like, say, the Tao/Dao) that does not interact with you on a personal level in the form of answered prayers or expectations of worship, but nonetheless envelopes you at all times, how did you arrive here?
I grew up believing Adam and Eve literally existed somewhere in the present-day Arabian peninsula 6,000 years ago, that demons were real and haunted houses, that angels were seen every now and then saving people from disasters, that God answered prayers, that there were constant miracles happening, and that angelology and demonology were genuine studies of supernatural beings with scientific rigor on par with biology. I believed that NDEs gave us glimpses into the afterlife.
I thought that anyone who didn't believe in God was an idiot, because all of the above gave us so much evidence for his existence. I believed that practically everyone in the world recognized this and were Christian. I believed in all of this evidence because I went to Catholic school on the weekdays and a Southern Baptist church every Sunday. The same people who told me how ice works, how our digestive system works, what the names of the planets were, and so on were the ones telling me that God was real and Noah's Flood actually, literally happened. I believed them because I was a kid and I trusted adults to know things and not lie to me.
As I grew up, I began to discover that a lot of the evidence for God did not check out. There probably was no Adam or Eve. Angelology and demonology are messy and nowhere near as systematic as genuine science, without any physical evidence backing their findings whatsoever. Study after study was showing that prayer doesn't work, and I myself realized that my prayers were not really being answered any more than I would expect from chance. Most of the miracles I heard rumors about were apparently hoaxes. NDEs have natural explanations.
The nail in the coffin was when I began to study Biblical history and comparative mythology. That's when I realized that the Bible itself is mostly mythology, no different from what I would read in Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American religion, or even Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hellenic, Celtic, or Germanic paganisms.
Was it difficult to make the transition?
Absolutely. I learned early on that there were some questions you're not allowed to ask at church, like "Why didn't God stop the Holocaust?" My entire journey had me questioning everyone in my family and community that I trusted and depended on. Not only that, but it ripped apart my entire worldview. If the story of God condemning homosexuality was just another myth, then what about the times that I said bigoted things to bisexual and homosexual people I personally knew? I was completely in the wrong and hurt them for no reason, thinking that I was going to save their souls from a non-existent fiery afterlife.
And if I can't trust my own parents and the authority of the church to tell me the truth, who could I trust? Can I really trust anyone? I still haven't recovered from that. They're all liars. None of them put any amount of effort into making sure that what they taught impressionable children was actually true. It's not right. I understand a bit better now that they're just stupid and don't know any better, but the damage to my trust is already done.
Did you have to go through a grieving period of losing that relational intimacy you once felt you had with God?
Ha! No? God was clearly a monster. He drowned the entire world in a global flood and threatened to send me to Hell for committing thought crimes that I had no control over. He watched silently as the children in Africa starved and the Holocaust happened. Even when I was a small child, it was clear to me that God wasn't a good guy. I didn't think he was evil, I just thought he was neglectful while we're alive and then way too strict after we died. I could never really fully understand why people kept calling him loving or good.
Did anything replace for you what a personified God used to do for you?
Sort of. God to me was someone I could pray to and speak to, who witnessed that I was trying my best even when people around me judged me, and who I could feel spiritually connected to in churches or in deep prayer. I don't believe in prayer or any other form of magic now. However, I do believe that there is someone witnessing my efforts: me. In many ways, I'm a harsher judge of myself than God ever was, so this doesn't let me off the hook, but at least I actually know what I'm judging myself on rather than trying to guess which denomination or preacher has the "correct" criteria for avoiding eternal damnation. I can still feel connected to nature, just now with the awareness that it has no agency.
What would you say are the pros and cons of both views?
It was never about that for me. I just wanted to know what was true. That's all that's important.
I miss believing in Heaven and that God and the angels were watching out for me to make sure nothing too bad ever happened to me. I miss feeling like I would receive genuine justice when I died, even if, looking back on it, that belief terrified me more than it comforted me. Above all, I miss being able to trust others and feel safe.
At least as a pantheist, my God is observable and I can understand him through study and experimentation. I don't have to wonder what I did to make him abandon me when things are going horribly wrong. I don't have to live in fear of having a wrong thought that will make me burn forever in a nightmare realm. I also have a better understanding of how the world works in general and am no longer surprised by its cruelty.
