Will I ever be free of religion bondage?

Last May, I wrote my testimony... since then, I really wanted to get away from "JC" and Christianity. Problem is, my wife, her mother and most of her family are persons of faith. See the issue?

Also, we have a 16-month old daughter, and my wife is expecting another baby. So there's also the kid issue: how to raise kids when parents do not share the same "beliefs". Heck, I don't even know if there is a God!!! Am I a Deist? an Agnostic? an Atheist who doesn't realize it?!?

Imagine what I can feel when we say "Grace" for her meals or when I attend church with my dear ones... Let's say it is really unpleasant.

I am in deep sh.. right now. I am so f....d.

Any advice?

"Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."

- Jon Stewart

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sorry pal, it may never happen. I have been an atheist for 56 years, but only openly professing it for about 30 years and the fact is, a LOT of people claim to be religious and get some comfort in either believing or the image that they believe. We are a minority and probably always will be. You can take satisfaction in the fact that god, nay, all the gods are man made myths and atheism is the logical default position. Sorry about you having to attend church....bummer!
Yukkione said…
Raising kids is a challenge even without religious issues. My wife and I have three...I am an unbeliever and she is Wiccan. We start by teaching out kids to be good people, to have respect for themselves, others and their environment. Do no harm, is a far deeper path to leading a good life than any set of commandments. We teach our kids about all religious beliefs as is age appropriate and as needed. They can choose for themselves as they grow what they will believe. I believe that teaching young children that they are sinners and are damned is child abuse. What is more horrific to a forming mind than those sick visions. Good luck to you.
Anonymous said…
You're in a tough situation, but you can handle it. I know, most of the people in my extended family are fundamentalist Christians.

The best you can hope for, I think, is getting them to respect your beliefs,that is, to not keep preaching at you and let you be who you are. At the same time, you'll have to respect their beliefs without preaching at them. As with any marriage/family situation, you want to avoid arguments, but when you do argue, you'll have to avoid ridicule and name calling. Keep a cool head and explain your position cleary, but you have to be firm with having them respect your beliefs. Tell them that respect must be mutual.

The first thing you have to do is decide what your beliefs are and be well informed about how to defend them. There are a number of websites that have this sort of information. A couple that come to mind are Skeptics Corner www.inu.net/skeptic/ Another one is www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com

Find a local support group; you'll have to look around on the Web for that. You'll need all the help you can get.

Good luck and keep us informed.
Anonymous said…
My sympathies to you; I understand your problems quite well. I am a devout atheist and my partner is at least non religious, but my widowed mother is a psycho christian. Her religiosity would be fine except that she cannot just live and let live. She is constantly hammering me with her bizarre beliefs (even among christians her beliefs stand out as wacko). She, like most people of faith, are totally immune to rational thought or logic, so there is no point in discussing anything.

Sorry, but you're either going to have to keep going through the motions, or face the conflict. But one thing you can do, is raise your children to be independent and to think for themselves. That is the best thing you could do for them; give them the tools to make their own decision.

--Brent S
Anonymous said…
"Fasten your seatbelt-it's going to be a bumpy ride"
-Bette Davis-
Rich said…
If you don't know the answer to the question, "is there a god", you are probably an agnostic. With a little study and reflection you can advance to being an atheist. If you are really pissed at all the time you wasted being a Christian and the nonsense of your family members, you might even advance to being an "angry atheist", and finally with just a bit more effort you might achieve the hallowed ground of being an "anti-theist". After that, the only stage left is anti-theist activist. Good luck, you are on the right path. Another comment writer made the point about teaching your children to think. Excellent. If you enter "teaching children to think" in your Google search box, Google will guide you. PS, I am an anti-theist activist, but I belong to the church of Google. Check it out. There really is a church of google.
Anonymous said…
This is something I can truly relate with you on. Unfortunately, as you probably suspect, there are no easy answers to this dilemma. I stepped down from the church as a pastor-in-waiting almost three years ago this month. I have four young children and my wife continues to follow the church.

My wife has actually become more steadfast in her faith as a result of my decision to leave. She feels as though it is her sole responsibility to keep that thread intact for the kids and even our marriage. What’s worse is that she sees it as a test of her faith by god that all of this has happened! She believes that I am comparable to Moses who killed the Egyptian and ran into the desert for forty years. She is certain that I am in the “desert” and that god is testing us in order to raise us up to lead the people from bondage. Meanwhile, she is very suspicious about my time with the kids and many other daily aspects of life which makes for a miserable existence for all of us.

The good news is; that while this is so, I can tell you that in the beginning this reality was tumultuous and unbearable, but over time it has calmed down a bit and we are all able to be in the same room for some length of time and even smile or laugh on occasion. The two oldest, out of the four, children have both come to me and stated that they can no longer believe in the Christian myth. I believe this has a lot to do with witnessing their mothers’ erratic behavior which serves to dismantle every promise that should supposedly exist for one who has accepted the “Holy Spirit”.

I used to fight against the thought of brainwashing going on in my wife and children under the banner of extreme devotion and love, but I have since realized that actions speak louder than words. From my Pastoral days I used to use this quote a lot “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words”. I guess, if I were to give any advice here it would be to simply let go. (If you love something well enough let it go, if it was true love it shall return). Explore the world of opinions out there. Develop your new world view. Let love and acceptance of all things reign supreme particularly where your self is concerned. I think you will find that you can single handedly realize what religions have never been able to.

I don’t go to church anymore except when the kids have to put on their Christmas plays and what not. But I do it for them not for the movement. I try to be an example to the world around me. The church likes to play on the changes in ones life after becoming “born again”, well I try to exemplify the changes in my life after having left all my prior beliefs behind.

I feel for your discomfort, but hang in there. “Time heals all wounds”. And the world needs your testimony against exclusive religious practices.
Anonymous said…
I could not be in a marriage with someone who was religious. I don't know how anyone can live their life that way.

Maybe you can educate yourself on religion and then educate your wife. It's a long road. Don't expect miracles! Literally!
Anonymous said…
"I could not be in a marriage with someone who was religious. I don't know how anyone can live their life that way."

I always had better romantic relationships with Non-christians than I ever did with christians.
resonate11 said…
You might want to ask Sweet Reason. She does have good advice usually.

Sorry I don't know how to insert a link to her web page. The URL is below.

"Molleen Matsumura -- a humanist, activist, writer and mother living in Berkeley, California – Sweet Reason offers practical, empathetic, dogma-free advice for dealing with problems in the everyday lives of America's fastest growing "belief" group -- nonreligious people. Published weekly by Humanist Network News, Sweet Reason uses compassion and common sense to help readers from around the world find their own answers to questions like, "How do I break the news of my 'non-belief' to my family?" "What should I do about the co-worker who is trying to convert me to their faith?" "How do I get my in-laws to stop taking my kids to their church?" also tackles questions about other life issues – whatever you might write to your newspaper's advice columnist – but always from a humanist viewpoint."

http://sweetreason.org/
Anonymous said…
Hey, I'm not a parent, so I am unable to give you any advice. But my thoughts are with you, pal. All I can say is that you sound like a very smart guy. You'll figure it out--sooner than later, I hope. Just give yourself time and hang in there.
Lance said…
Hi Philippe,
Thanks for your honesty. I feel your pain as I am in the same situation, except my kids are older (12, 10 and 7). I still go to church with the family, but my wife and kids knows where I stand.

I am learning to be more gracious than the christians, in that I can let them believe their stuff without getting in their face too much. I have read enough philosophy to be happy in my beliefs concerning this world, but I am learning that religion is something that is just part of human nature and society. I am learning to be more tolerant of the craziness.

So where I am right now is that I think of myself as kind of a subversive. I go to church because my wife wants me to, but I am not afraid to tell people that I am not a believer. I don't go attacking them directly, but I do continue to ask pointed questions and try to make them think a little. I find that if I go on a full frontal attack their defenses go up and the conversation goes nowhere. But if I politely throw an idea at them now and them, they seem to stop and think about it a little. But I don't push it to far since I am on their turf. I think of it as the drip system of free-thinking.

I find that there is a substantial amount of doubt inside the church, but without someone like me there it get squashed out. It takes someone like me on the inside to gently blow on the embers and hopefully fan them up a little.

Some would say that I am being sneaky and dishonest, but I am not hiding anything. I honestly say what I believe, but only in limited quantities. When I really come out full blast with everything at once it tends to offend people and close any pathway into their brains.

If we leave the christians to themselves, they never get challenged and their strange beliefs go unchecked. They need little doses of reason now and then to combat the weirdness.

This is not to say I have never crossed the line. There was a time when I was just plain offensive to anyone that claimed to know god. I had to apologize to several people for being an asshole during my early discussions as my anger flared up. I find that while that felt good, I do a better service as working subtly on as an agent behind enemy lines.

Now about the kids, I think having them attend church is a good thing, sort of like a vaccine. They go get one hour of fairy tales, and then get a week of me subtly telling them not to believe such crazy stuff. I hope that when they get older they will have seen enough of it not to get tempted by some dynamic christian speaker.

So stay where you are for now. We need more people on the inside.

And about wondering what you believe, check out a book called "Doubt, A History" by Jennifer Micheal Hecht. It details over 2000 years of the ideas of doubting thinkers. It was a great resource and helped me come to peace with the fact that so many people need this thing called religion.

Since we are in the same boat, I'll give you my email address if you want to converse more.

Peace,

Lance (Lkasari at bendcable.com)
Anonymous said…
Lance wrote "I find that there is a substantial amount of doubt inside the church."

I initially trained as a teacher and one of my favourite bits was the psychology element. The idea of group dynamics was fairly well hammered in - although it took another 20 years before I applied it to the church and found exactly the same results.

Basically, the group takes on a life of its own. People within the group will say what they think the group wants to hear, rather than what they actually think. This moves the normative thinking of the group in a particular direction. When many people do the same thing you end up with people saying things they don't believe in order to remain in a group which appears to require them to say those things. All groups, religious or not, follow the same basic guidelines and there is repeated experimental evidence to show that people suppress what they know to be true in order to fit in with group norms.

Like Lance, I also found many questions and questioners within church, but most were simply willing to be told that the question didn't have an answer ("the Lord knows" or "is it for us to know the mind of God?"). People were extremely reluctant to offer those questioning views in a church group setting because it would be seen as subversive and threatened their membership of that group, and there are many perceived benefits of remaining a member.

In terms of Jon's original post - I have no idea how you resolve that situation because it's similar to my own. My wife expresses considerable doubts, she no longer believes the Bible is truth but is some sort of catalyst, she no longer believes the church is sacrosanct but she is afraid to stop going, she isn't sure whether there is a God but she feels there must be one because of how she feels (which is probably a result of how she was brought up).

I haven't trusted church for a couple of years now - and I worked out recently that trust was the key issue in my relationship with my wife. I simply don't know how you reconcile your life partner belonging to a group that states it loves everyone yet has rejected you. I don't trust church not to brainwash her and, because of a few sudden "changes of heart", I don't trust her not to succumb to it. It's something I'd love to work out.

Helen
Anonymous said…
Seriously, take your wife and move far far away from her family. If you can't do it right away, make plans and start the ball rolling.

Are you the bigger breadwinner in your family? If she is having babies, she might be a stay at home mom, in which case, you have the upper hand when it comes to power distribution in the marriage.

Stand up and tell her you won't lie to your children about what you do and don't believe. She'll have to give on that point no matter who has more power in the marriage.

Then tell her what you really think of Christianity. She will probably argue that religion is the only way to instill ethics and values as all love and truth comes from God etc. Bone up on all the counter arguments to this kind of debate. Check out Richard Dawkins website or the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

If she won't drop the religion, you might be able to compromise by attending a Unitarian Universalist Church with her. Her beliefs and yours would be equally accepted there. Your wife would find some familiar rituals and a sense of community while you would escape the dogma.
matt.f said…
My wife and I went through a very similar situation. Most of our 13 years together have been wrapped up in Christianity. My dad is a pastor, and all of our friends are evangelical Christians. We started dating at a young age and would do devotions together, played in the worship band, lead youth groups, etc. 3 years ago I started to question my faith. However, I kept my wife informed of everything that I was going through. She was with me on my journey to agnosticism/atheism. She understands some of the serious problems with religion, and my reasons for leaving my faith. However, she still strongly believes in the Christian god. Her faith has changed slightly because of me, but she is still a believer and attends church (although less often). At one point, a year after our son was born, it became an issue. However, after many shed tears, we came to realize that the reasons we came together in the first place were because of our love for each other and not because of religion. I respect her religious choice, and she respects my non-religious choice.

We do have some challenges ahead, in particular with what to teach our children. However, we have discussed a plan. She will teach our son (and future son) about her religious beliefs. I will teach them about all other religions and non-religions. As our children age, this plan may change, but we're open to change.

So, I think you need to ask yourself what is more important: converting you wife or living with your wife. Trying to convert your wife may end up in divorce. However, it is possible to have different religious beliefs and yet still maintain a healthy loving relationship. I can attest to it.
Anonymous said…
I would like to add my thoughts on this issue as well.

I am atheist and am still married to my wife of 26 years and she still attends a Southern Baptist Church. However, she is nothing like a typical S.B. She is very liberal in her thinking now but loves the idea and social aspects of church. I have not attended church since 9/11. I didn't attend much before then but that was the defining moment in my life. I love telling believers that I haven't been to church since the muslim god kicked the shit out of the christian god.

My wife and I had different ideas on how to raise our two boys. They are now 19 and 22 and both are nonbelievers and don't attend any church. I guess I had a lot to do with that.

As for any advice, I would say to keep your arguments brief and as friendly as possible. Let your love for your wife and family guide you and things will work out. Jim Earl
Anonymous said…
Hi all

If anyone is interested, I am in the opposite position to those posting above.

I'm a Christian, but my wife (our 25th anniversary this year!) has lost interest in religion, the church, etc, and has only rarely attended church with me in the last couple of years.

Lance said: "I am learning to be more gracious than the christians, in that I can let them believe their stuff without getting in their face too much." I hope some of us are gracious - I don't get in my wife's face about this at all, never mind too much. Like Fishead, I can attest that you can still maintain a loving, healthy relationship.

I also agree with Jim Earl "Let your love for your wife and family guide you and things will work out." (Except in my case, I add 'my faith' to love for your wife and family!).

Best wishes to all
Lance said…
Just another thought.

Be careful when telling your wife about your thoughts on christianity. Be honest and point out the theological errors you have a problem with, but try to avoid angry outbursts about religion or god, as those may be construed as personal attacks on her.

My wife felt that I was making attacks on her when I said stuff like "The whole belief system is just insane." or "I can't believe I was such a sucker for all that crap." Which she took as me saying she was insane and a sucker.

Please feel free to use this forum, or like-minded friends, for your flaming outbursts, as we all need those on a regular basis. But don't dump them on her. She does not deserve it, and it won't help your relationship.

Instead, use the typical "I" statements, such as "I can't find any good reason believe that the bible is the inspired word of god." Rather than "People that believe the bible are idiots."

Just my two cents from my own mistakes in this area.

Good luck.

Lance
Lance said…
Hi Bill F.,
Thanks for your comment. And you are right, I was generalizing on a few extreme people I know when I mentioned about Christians getting in my face. Most people in my church tolerate me just fine, and are in fact very gracious. I am in fact still on good terms with many Christians.

There are a few that simply can't seem to understand, and thus keep putting devotional notes or bible verses on my chair at work, or dropping me emails of concern. They are so worried about my eternal salvation that they can't seem to drop the subject. With these folks, you could say their heart is in the right place even if their tactics are a little annoying.

Another group thinks I am demon possessed and treat my like a pariah. They look at me as an enemy combatant, which I guess I am in their book. They are definitely not gracious, and it is these folks I was thinking of mostly.

But even if you add up both of these groups, they are still a fairly small minority. Most people thankfully don't take their religion that seriously, or are at least comfortable with the thought of me going to hell, or have enough healthy doubt as to allow other people to have other beliefs. I hope it is the latter, but I think it is the first.

So the bottom line is that my comment about Christians getting in my face is indeed overblown and unfair.

Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing it out. I will modify my comment to instead say "I try to be more gracious than the few zealots that treat people like me harshly."

Peace.
-Lance
Telmi said…
Just continue to be honest with yourself, with regard to your beliefs.

If your wife is steadfast in her religious beliefs, let her be.

Do not let your relationship with others turn sour because of differences in beliefs.

As you can see from the comments from the others, many of us are living in an environment not dissimilar to yours.
Anonymous said…
My wife represents the vast majority of so called Christians. She is clueless of the contents of the Bible and I think she believes just because most everyone else does. When asked by an outsider she will always proclaim to be a Christian, despite the fact I have a sneaking suspiscion that deep down inside she really has doubts. We have two kids whom we had baptized during our very short run as a church going family.

My 13 year old daughter couldn't give two shits about any aspect of religion and my 18 year old son I believe has taken the logical step and sees religion for what it is. Complete man made bullshit. I will be such a proud father when he finally comes out and calls himself an atheist.

My wife is fine with my atheism, yet she will tell me to shut the fuck up about it on many occasion. I will whole heartedly admit I can be very fourthright and obnoxious around my home when it comes to my thoughts on religion, but my wife is too God Damn stubborn to ever listen and to admit she could be wrong.

It is my longterm goal to slowly chip away at her beliefs and get her to see reality. Stay tuned.
gap said…
"Imagine what I can feel when we say "Grace" for her meals or when I attend church with my dear ones... Let's say it is really unpleasant."

Here's my advice:
Suck it up.

It could be far worse. You could be disabled and totally dependent on your family to towel you off, apply your laundry or make your bed, do your laundry, etc. Sheesh. I've been just in that place and I have to tell you, whether you're subjected to hearing grace several times daily or constant non-stop Dr. Laura (as I was) is unimporant. At some point we all have to suck it up one way or another.
DaBrains said…
well, all i can say is that you should suggest to your wife that you raise your kids without indoctrination (i.e. don't tell them that jesus is god etc. as fact, just tell her that some people think that. just make sure that you teach her to think critically (if you can get a child to question the world around her at a young age then believe me, she'll be intelligent)
DaBrains said…
Oh and also, church isn't so bad, it's good time for sleeping or meditating... you can laugh, but i'm serious. Just try your utmost to bite your tongue when your rellies start praising christ etc. That was always the one thing i could not do.
Anonymous said…
Dabrains Said:
"Oh and also, church isn't so bad, it's good time for sleeping or meditating... you can laugh, but i'm serious."

It's also a good place to pick up girls. I will admit that the one thing I miss about church is getting laid all of the time.

I praise Jesus and give him all of the glory for all of the girls that I slept with that I met in church.

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