Your prior expectation was that deconversion would bring you sadness, and now you are sad. Perhaps there’s something at play like a performative effect or a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least that could be part of it.
I grew up in an environment where religion and especially faith was a very individual and private matter, with nobody talking about it publicly. Most of my parents and friends were neither true agnostics nor true atheists, but rather not interested in the subject. I was among this category. Churches and Christian artifacts were simply art, history and culture, like Greek, Roman or Egyptian traditions and remnants. We had great interest in this cultural aspect. I became a true atheist after reading Dawkins and various philosophers.
I’ve never seen the atheist condition as something sad. You are a free and genuine moral agent, you don’t do good out of fear of being thrown into hell. You’re not subject to a mysterious supernatural will that could ask you to sacrifice your son or cast a meteor shower on your town because your friend is gay, nor to miracles violating causality. Nature shows terrible things but also beauty and happiness, which you can seek, cherish and cultivate. It’s up to us humans to make the world a hell like Mordor or a paradise like the Shire or Lothlórien. Nothing is written, you’re not a character in God’s novel. You are the author, you write the story. Life is yours.
However, I didn’t go through deconversion myself, and I can understand that you might endure a feeling of loss, the loss of a promised paradise, of an enchanted world. Religion was part of your life, of your childhood; this was a very courageous move and not an easy one. You must be facing something like mourning.
However, maybe Gendlin’s litany can help ? The world was already as it is when you were a child, it has not changed, nothing is truly lost, happiness is still there, just where it was. Maybe you can go back to the places you cherished in your childhood, even the church—it’s still there, you can still enjoy the place. And look at the children playing. The enchantment was always in their eyes, not in the world.
Maybe part of what you feel is mourning for childhood itself. I also feel that, but atheism is not guilty.
An excellent response. Thank you for describing your experience—I kind of wish I’d grown up in a similar environment.
I’m familiar with Gendlin’s litany, but I’ve often found it slightly lacking. Humans are imaginative creatures, and our beliefs about a subject hold genuine psychological power. If we imagine that a placebo is beneficial, it becomes so. If I believe that death is impermanent, it loses much of its sting. To invert Gendlin, I’m uncertain if I can stand what is true, for I never really had to endure it.
I’ll still keep your points in mind—they’re valuable. Thank you for sharing them.
Your prior expectation was that deconversion would bring you sadness, and now you are sad. Perhaps there’s something at play like a performative effect or a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least that could be part of it.
I grew up in an environment where religion and especially faith was a very individual and private matter, with nobody talking about it publicly. Most of my parents and friends were neither true agnostics nor true atheists, but rather not interested in the subject. I was among this category. Churches and Christian artifacts were simply art, history and culture, like Greek, Roman or Egyptian traditions and remnants. We had great interest in this cultural aspect. I became a true atheist after reading Dawkins and various philosophers.
I’ve never seen the atheist condition as something sad. You are a free and genuine moral agent, you don’t do good out of fear of being thrown into hell. You’re not subject to a mysterious supernatural will that could ask you to sacrifice your son or cast a meteor shower on your town because your friend is gay, nor to miracles violating causality. Nature shows terrible things but also beauty and happiness, which you can seek, cherish and cultivate. It’s up to us humans to make the world a hell like Mordor or a paradise like the Shire or Lothlórien. Nothing is written, you’re not a character in God’s novel. You are the author, you write the story. Life is yours.
However, I didn’t go through deconversion myself, and I can understand that you might endure a feeling of loss, the loss of a promised paradise, of an enchanted world. Religion was part of your life, of your childhood; this was a very courageous move and not an easy one. You must be facing something like mourning.
However, maybe Gendlin’s litany can help ? The world was already as it is when you were a child, it has not changed, nothing is truly lost, happiness is still there, just where it was. Maybe you can go back to the places you cherished in your childhood, even the church—it’s still there, you can still enjoy the place. And look at the children playing. The enchantment was always in their eyes, not in the world.
Maybe part of what you feel is mourning for childhood itself. I also feel that, but atheism is not guilty.
An excellent response. Thank you for describing your experience—I kind of wish I’d grown up in a similar environment.
I’m familiar with Gendlin’s litany, but I’ve often found it slightly lacking. Humans are imaginative creatures, and our beliefs about a subject hold genuine psychological power. If we imagine that a placebo is beneficial, it becomes so. If I believe that death is impermanent, it loses much of its sting. To invert Gendlin, I’m uncertain if I can stand what is true, for I never really had to endure it.
I’ll still keep your points in mind—they’re valuable. Thank you for sharing them.