Welcome to my Agnostic Advent Adventure. For the next 24 days I will expand on my list of "Myths of my Deconversion from Christianity" that I posted on Halloween. Please join on my daily dive during Advent. Let's learn together.
Myth #1: I chose this.
There are a lot of things in life that I didn't choose, but once I was on that path, I just tried to make the best of it.
Let's start with life itself. I didn't choose to exist. I don't even know if it was my parent's mental assent. They had sex and I was the consequence. Maybe my deconversion is something like that. I was exposed to some things and the consequence of that exposure is the train derailment of Christianity in my life.
Did I have a choice of what I was exposed to? Was it really about changing my mind? Maybe not anymore than sex is a only a thought process. Sex is a response.
Over the years, I've responded to those things that led me to leave Christianity as a practice and belief system. It wasn't an overnight decision anymore than a baby is an overnight creation. A woman can hide her pregnancy for a few months and then gradually the baby starts to show. Then it takes more time before the new human makes an entrance into the world. After that… there is a life time of changing for that human. They will never be the same at any one moment again.
The next question might be… "Well, if it was a choice… would you have stayed?" I guess I will never know. I can't unlearn the things in my brain that make Christianity make no sense for me now. I enjoyed a lot of things in those days… but as I look back, it was mostly about the entertainment and the people. The religion, it's places and it's practices were what brought that joy and those people in my life. For the most part, I tolerated the system of rules, regulations and expectations to be entertained and be with people. If I could have found entertainment and a community of people outside of Christianity, then was Christianity ever required?
(written December 1, 2023)
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