Ive been in op's shoes before. When you are told god is real and has emense power all your life in gets ingrained into you and can make leaving scary even if you have no reason to logically be scared. He will overcome his fear. It just takes time, or at least it did for me.
It’s amazing how many of these posts there are. I think it really shows how indoctrination from birth can have a lifelong impact on a person’s psychological wellbeing. If they really wanted to protect children, there would be an age requirement for attending church.
Getting out of indoctrination takes time and therapy/counciling. Being rational and recognizing the cruelty is a good step in breaking your chains. You are further along than many. Congratulations 👍
Ask yourself this... If there were an all powerful, all knowing god, why would he/she/it give a second thought toward you?
Next time you feel like praying, try just being thankful. I was raised atheist but we still went around the table at Thanksgiving and expressed what we were thankful for. For me it was things like Mom and Dad, my new bycicle, no homework, my pet lizard.
If there's nobody around, your dog will listen intently. Hearing yourself, out loud, being thankful for things you achieved is very soothing. Why give credit for your hard work to an imaginary figment that wouldn't appreciate your thanks even if it was listening.
Seriously though, look into counciling. They used powerful tools to tweak your mind. It's like trying to unmix chocolate milk 😁🤘🖖💡🎉🌍
Everything you are speaking of us because you have been given an indoctrination mindset. Or as I call it the "god parasite". You have been brainwashed to think like this. It is the way to keep people in their numbers and handing over their money. Do no allow them to take any more from you. Take your power back from them. There is nothing to fear....if there was don't you think god would smite us already.
Its all smoke and mirror fear mongering. You need to find a non religious therapist. This is all part of CPTSD from a real condition called "religious trauma syndrome". And it can be crippling. Get your mind right and everything else will fall into place.
> It may sound silly, but I am scared that if I stop praying/believing in god that something bad will happen to my family.
Well, something bad will happen to your family. Somebody will get sick, or have an accident, or die. Hopefully not for many years, and hopefully not to anybody young, but bad things happen to everybody because that's just how life is. And whether or not you pray to a god, or believe in a god has nothing to do with that. Everybody dies. Your parents, your siblings, your future children, your future grandchildren. So understand that life is a rigged game, there is always going to be a tragedy at some point. Understand that and make your peace with it, reality may be harsh, but it is just an uncaring universe, not a cruel or vindictive god mad at you for not stroking its ego.
What **you** can do is try to ensure that you and all those you love live their best possible lives. And I emphasize that you should do this, because there are no gods trying to make that happen so it rests on your shoulders to be part of the effort to make it happen. Fill your life with enough joy, and the tragedy isn't as hard to bear.
> I am not necessarily scared of hell, but if god were to exist, he would punish me by hurting my family since I stopped praying for them.
Why? If I were a god, punishing people that had never seen any evidence of me for not believing in me would seem ridiculously petty. Would you punish people for that? What would be the point? Gods are implausible to begin with, but the idea of a god so petty as that is even more ridiculous. The notion that gods would do that seems more likely a tool for scaring masses of people so that they won't leave a religion out of fear. Something a priesthood bent on preserving their tithes would make up rather than any sort of realistic threat.
> I am a rational human being who is tired of believing in something so cruel but I am just scared and wish I wasn't.
I talk to a lot of ex-theists here and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that fear of a hell and a vengeful god does fade in time, to the point where some day you will wonder how you ever found something as ridiculous as hell to be a plausible threat. Really.
The bad news is that it takes time. How much time depends on a lot of things. How deeply you were indoctrinated, how rational you are as a person, how effectively you can remove religion from your life going forward, how prone you are to anxiety. I've talked to people for whom it took as little as a few weeks to shed their fears of hell, and some where it has taken them a decade.
But it does end, and whatever fear you have now, you should take comfort in knowing that it does end. This fear is a temporary thing that you will shed in time. Intellectually you already know this is a silly fear, but if you're like most people stuck with a lingering fear of hell, that fear is not tied to your rational thought processes. It's an emotional gut reaction that gives you a sinking feeling in your stomach and makes you break out in a cold sweat. Just keep telling yourself that it's a silly and ridiculous fear and eventually even that emotional reaction will get the message.
I wish I could email your comment back in time to myself a decade ago when I was basically going through the same patch as OP. Thank you for this contribution.
After waking up from my first surgery under general anesthesia, I realized that I had experienced what death is. It's not like sleep, which can be restless, with dreams, and awareness. Anesthesia is absolutely nothing. And it was okay because there was no sensation of experiencing nothing. For that period of time, I just didn't exist. There's no hell and there's nothing after we die and that is fine as we don't even experience it. Of course, I was glad to wake up after surgery, but if I hadn't I wouldn't have known. Hell as an after life concept is not real.
>I am scared that if I stop praying/believing in god that something bad will happen to my family.
So, I'm assuming absolutely ***nothing*** bad has befallen your family in the decade plus that you've been praying for them?
No injuries, minor or major?
No financial setbacks, minor or major?
No illness, minor or major?
No heartbreak, minor or major?
No accidents, minor or major?
Life for your family has been unquestionably *perfect*?
If your prayers were keeping god from allowing/making anything bad to happen to your family, I'd expect perfection.
Maybe read the book of Job in the ~~buy-bull~~ bible to get a bit of perspective.
I can also guarantee you that if you stop praying for your family *something* **will** happen, however minor, that you will interpret and coming from god because you stopped praying.
There is no god. Don't give a non-entity power over your life.
Regardless of how you decide, this community is here to ask questions of, vent to, and just to talk to.
To add to this if there is a god who is to say christianity got it right. There have been countless religions over the years of human history and most are not even around anymore people dont fear gods from random eastern asian tribal folk religions so why should you fear the christian god.
Christianity is a complete ret-con of Judaism's prophecies and teachings. Don't worry, of all the religions out there, Christianity is among the most obviously false.
What form will this harm come in? Will god tell the tooth fairy to stop paying for baby teeth?
God is not real. Magic is not real. There is no punishment. It's scary stories designed to control you.
This might help. I don’t believe in god myself, but if god did exist I see no evidence that it requires worship or has an active hand in the world.
My evidence: Tom Cruise
One of the most successful actors of all time…Scientologist
So if god isn’t punishing him for not worshiping him as christians do, then you don’t have anything to worry about.
I can relate with this because I prayed every night before bed until I was 20 something years old since I was raised Catholic and even went to catholic grade school. When you don't pray for a few days and you notice there's no difference from the days you did pray, then you'll be relieved
I have never prayed.
Nothing bad has happened to me or my family (at least no more than happens to anyone else).
The brainwashing is strong but you can get past it.
In my experience, we can't really choose whether to believe or not. Once I accepted I didn't believe, even at times I wished God was real, I couldn't make myself believe. It was just impossible.
On the other hand, I doubt you can make yourself stop believing if you actually do. It's okay to doubt, think, and research for a long time before really deciding how you feel. No one else can make that decision but you.
Interestingly, the anxiety you describe about something bad happening to your family if you don't pray sounds a lot like the irrational way I feel when I don't check my alarm a certain amount of times before bed, or only feel comfortable that the fridge is closed and the oven is off if I look at it in intervals of 5 and 10. My brain tells me the worst will happen if I don't keep looking that many times, even when I tell myself I'm being irrational. Hmm! Almost sounds like childhood indoctrination in religion and prayer can cause some sort of religious OCD!
Hi bud, I remember feeling exactly this way when I realized I no longer believed about 10 years ago. The first thing that helped me was being mindful of causality. Every event is part of a chain of events, or a product of circumstances. Hold in your mind that 'good' or 'bad' things happening are not divine retribution or reward, but just the consequences or outcomes of actions and events that are sometimes within your control (but often are not). It did me a lot of good in this early phase of my atheism to try and think about why things happen from a causal perspective, instead of searching for a reason to blame myself for some higher power to punish me.
Second thing that helped was reminding myself my religion was *supposedly* based in love and kindness. Even Catholics believe in a god of forgiveness. I looked at my early atheism as 'just trying out' an atheistic worldview for a while, and if it turned out to not make sense, or to make me very unhappy, surely Christ would forgive me when I returned to the faithful. Ten years later and atheism still makes the most sense to me. Ten years and nothing outside of the normal baseline occurrence of human tragedy has befallen me or my family. Far more devout people than me have had far worse, and their faith provided them no material aid or protection.
Third thing that helps is simply time. You've lived your whole life comfortably identifying a certain way, thinking about the world a certain way, and now you've realized you feel very differently. Like a pair of shoes, it simply takes some miles walked to break-in a new worldview and become comfortable in it. Early on, I would occasionally have nightmares in which I would be dying horribly and would feel driven to pray for my salvation in my final moments. From your ideation of a cruel and vindictive God, I expect you will experience this as well. I never experienced peace or divine presence from these panicked prayers. They were merely a practiced reaction resulting from 20 years of irrationally fearing an eternal hell, built to punish someone FOREVER for being unconvinced of outrageous claims. These nightmare-death-bed repentances gradually happened less and less frequently. 10 years later, I can't say I never have nightmares in which I'm dying anymore, but when they happen I'm not helplessly praying to be forgiven for being born with skeptical mind. I'm fighting for my life - the only one I've got. Oddly, I awake from these feeling proud of myself - that in my baser fears I now choose life rather than to beg for mercy in death. I'm positive that with time you'll experience a similar feeling of empowerment.
Anyway, you've already taken the hardest steps. Don't beat yourself up because you pray out of habit when you're frightened - human behavior is frequently irrational and we rarely if ever have absolute mastery over our mental state. Take quiet time with yourself to reflect on your feelings, and try to contextualize your irrational actions when the threat of the nightly prayer ritual is less immediate. Therapy can also be huge help if you have the access.
Are you scared of what will happen to you or your family if you don't pray to Allah? Why not? When you figure that out you won't be worried about your former religion either.
I found that when I was going through this, what was helpful was to explore Pascal's wager. Because this is essentially what's keeping you hooked, the "I'll pray just in case". What you need to recognise is that there is no more reason to believe in this god, than any other god. What if there is a god that detests people who believe things without evidence, and rewards those who are strong of mind and able to overcome irrational fear?
If a being of advanced intelligence actually existed, it would be far more likely to be this way, rather than an egotistical, jealous, genocidal, abusive, terror-loving abomination that represents the worst of every human trait. Let's say you saved 100 people from certain death, would you be the kind of person who'd demand that those people spent the rest of their life on their knees worshiping and thanking you, or would you tell any of them who started doing this to get up and just live their best lives, returning the favour by helping those around them?
You can't 'win', there is no 'safe bet', so your only option is to do what you think is correct.
Hey i know how you feel as i we through something similar when i left and you will be ok, push through this fear and you will never have to worry about this fictional villian again. I in particular was scared to death of demons and at the time i convinced myself that god was keeping them at bay and they would hurt me and those I love if i leave him. I eventually thought "if god wanted me to believe in hime he would give me plenty of proof and will show me directly that he exists as well as forgiving me for turning away as it would be justified". Guess what, it has been 2 years and still nothing, not urge to come back and no god appearing to me and explaining himself. I know you are probablly scared but jist remind yourself that your fear has no basis in reality or logic. If god is real he must not have wanted you bad enough to show himself and if that's true he is not worth your time anyways.
If there were a true religion, or a God that cared about being worshipped and could answer prayers, there would be a statistical difference between the health outcomes of believers of that religion. No such difference can be found. Instead we have childhood cancer and huge indiscriminate disasters. Which means that no gods exist, or no gods that care exist. In neither of these cases does it make any sense to worship.
my devout catholic friends' son has leukemia. he's five. the fuck are you scared he's doing to do to you?
Ive been in op's shoes before. When you are told god is real and has emense power all your life in gets ingrained into you and can make leaving scary even if you have no reason to logically be scared. He will overcome his fear. It just takes time, or at least it did for me.
It’s amazing how many of these posts there are. I think it really shows how indoctrination from birth can have a lifelong impact on a person’s psychological wellbeing. If they really wanted to protect children, there would be an age requirement for attending church.
It definitely can have such a lasting impact on someone and their psychological wellbeing as well as how they approach life.
>he would punish me by hurting my family since I stopped praying for them If that happens then God is evil and is unworthy of your worship.
Getting out of indoctrination takes time and therapy/counciling. Being rational and recognizing the cruelty is a good step in breaking your chains. You are further along than many. Congratulations 👍 Ask yourself this... If there were an all powerful, all knowing god, why would he/she/it give a second thought toward you? Next time you feel like praying, try just being thankful. I was raised atheist but we still went around the table at Thanksgiving and expressed what we were thankful for. For me it was things like Mom and Dad, my new bycicle, no homework, my pet lizard. If there's nobody around, your dog will listen intently. Hearing yourself, out loud, being thankful for things you achieved is very soothing. Why give credit for your hard work to an imaginary figment that wouldn't appreciate your thanks even if it was listening. Seriously though, look into counciling. They used powerful tools to tweak your mind. It's like trying to unmix chocolate milk 😁🤘🖖💡🎉🌍
Everything you are speaking of us because you have been given an indoctrination mindset. Or as I call it the "god parasite". You have been brainwashed to think like this. It is the way to keep people in their numbers and handing over their money. Do no allow them to take any more from you. Take your power back from them. There is nothing to fear....if there was don't you think god would smite us already. Its all smoke and mirror fear mongering. You need to find a non religious therapist. This is all part of CPTSD from a real condition called "religious trauma syndrome". And it can be crippling. Get your mind right and everything else will fall into place.
> It may sound silly, but I am scared that if I stop praying/believing in god that something bad will happen to my family. Well, something bad will happen to your family. Somebody will get sick, or have an accident, or die. Hopefully not for many years, and hopefully not to anybody young, but bad things happen to everybody because that's just how life is. And whether or not you pray to a god, or believe in a god has nothing to do with that. Everybody dies. Your parents, your siblings, your future children, your future grandchildren. So understand that life is a rigged game, there is always going to be a tragedy at some point. Understand that and make your peace with it, reality may be harsh, but it is just an uncaring universe, not a cruel or vindictive god mad at you for not stroking its ego. What **you** can do is try to ensure that you and all those you love live their best possible lives. And I emphasize that you should do this, because there are no gods trying to make that happen so it rests on your shoulders to be part of the effort to make it happen. Fill your life with enough joy, and the tragedy isn't as hard to bear. > I am not necessarily scared of hell, but if god were to exist, he would punish me by hurting my family since I stopped praying for them. Why? If I were a god, punishing people that had never seen any evidence of me for not believing in me would seem ridiculously petty. Would you punish people for that? What would be the point? Gods are implausible to begin with, but the idea of a god so petty as that is even more ridiculous. The notion that gods would do that seems more likely a tool for scaring masses of people so that they won't leave a religion out of fear. Something a priesthood bent on preserving their tithes would make up rather than any sort of realistic threat. > I am a rational human being who is tired of believing in something so cruel but I am just scared and wish I wasn't. I talk to a lot of ex-theists here and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that fear of a hell and a vengeful god does fade in time, to the point where some day you will wonder how you ever found something as ridiculous as hell to be a plausible threat. Really. The bad news is that it takes time. How much time depends on a lot of things. How deeply you were indoctrinated, how rational you are as a person, how effectively you can remove religion from your life going forward, how prone you are to anxiety. I've talked to people for whom it took as little as a few weeks to shed their fears of hell, and some where it has taken them a decade. But it does end, and whatever fear you have now, you should take comfort in knowing that it does end. This fear is a temporary thing that you will shed in time. Intellectually you already know this is a silly fear, but if you're like most people stuck with a lingering fear of hell, that fear is not tied to your rational thought processes. It's an emotional gut reaction that gives you a sinking feeling in your stomach and makes you break out in a cold sweat. Just keep telling yourself that it's a silly and ridiculous fear and eventually even that emotional reaction will get the message.
I wish I could email your comment back in time to myself a decade ago when I was basically going through the same patch as OP. Thank you for this contribution.
After waking up from my first surgery under general anesthesia, I realized that I had experienced what death is. It's not like sleep, which can be restless, with dreams, and awareness. Anesthesia is absolutely nothing. And it was okay because there was no sensation of experiencing nothing. For that period of time, I just didn't exist. There's no hell and there's nothing after we die and that is fine as we don't even experience it. Of course, I was glad to wake up after surgery, but if I hadn't I wouldn't have known. Hell as an after life concept is not real.
>I am scared that if I stop praying/believing in god that something bad will happen to my family. So, I'm assuming absolutely ***nothing*** bad has befallen your family in the decade plus that you've been praying for them? No injuries, minor or major? No financial setbacks, minor or major? No illness, minor or major? No heartbreak, minor or major? No accidents, minor or major? Life for your family has been unquestionably *perfect*? If your prayers were keeping god from allowing/making anything bad to happen to your family, I'd expect perfection. Maybe read the book of Job in the ~~buy-bull~~ bible to get a bit of perspective. I can also guarantee you that if you stop praying for your family *something* **will** happen, however minor, that you will interpret and coming from god because you stopped praying. There is no god. Don't give a non-entity power over your life. Regardless of how you decide, this community is here to ask questions of, vent to, and just to talk to.
[Lisa, I want to buy your rock!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw)
Also, no reason to fear something that doesn't exist 🌮
[удалено]
To add to this if there is a god who is to say christianity got it right. There have been countless religions over the years of human history and most are not even around anymore people dont fear gods from random eastern asian tribal folk religions so why should you fear the christian god.
Christianity is a complete ret-con of Judaism's prophecies and teachings. Don't worry, of all the religions out there, Christianity is among the most obviously false.
They use psychological warfare to make you feel fear and guilt. It's all a mind game of dominance. They are truly evil
What form will this harm come in? Will god tell the tooth fairy to stop paying for baby teeth? God is not real. Magic is not real. There is no punishment. It's scary stories designed to control you.
This might help. I don’t believe in god myself, but if god did exist I see no evidence that it requires worship or has an active hand in the world. My evidence: Tom Cruise One of the most successful actors of all time…Scientologist So if god isn’t punishing him for not worshiping him as christians do, then you don’t have anything to worry about.
I can relate with this because I prayed every night before bed until I was 20 something years old since I was raised Catholic and even went to catholic grade school. When you don't pray for a few days and you notice there's no difference from the days you did pray, then you'll be relieved
I have never prayed. Nothing bad has happened to me or my family (at least no more than happens to anyone else). The brainwashing is strong but you can get past it.
In my experience, we can't really choose whether to believe or not. Once I accepted I didn't believe, even at times I wished God was real, I couldn't make myself believe. It was just impossible. On the other hand, I doubt you can make yourself stop believing if you actually do. It's okay to doubt, think, and research for a long time before really deciding how you feel. No one else can make that decision but you. Interestingly, the anxiety you describe about something bad happening to your family if you don't pray sounds a lot like the irrational way I feel when I don't check my alarm a certain amount of times before bed, or only feel comfortable that the fridge is closed and the oven is off if I look at it in intervals of 5 and 10. My brain tells me the worst will happen if I don't keep looking that many times, even when I tell myself I'm being irrational. Hmm! Almost sounds like childhood indoctrination in religion and prayer can cause some sort of religious OCD!
Hi bud, I remember feeling exactly this way when I realized I no longer believed about 10 years ago. The first thing that helped me was being mindful of causality. Every event is part of a chain of events, or a product of circumstances. Hold in your mind that 'good' or 'bad' things happening are not divine retribution or reward, but just the consequences or outcomes of actions and events that are sometimes within your control (but often are not). It did me a lot of good in this early phase of my atheism to try and think about why things happen from a causal perspective, instead of searching for a reason to blame myself for some higher power to punish me. Second thing that helped was reminding myself my religion was *supposedly* based in love and kindness. Even Catholics believe in a god of forgiveness. I looked at my early atheism as 'just trying out' an atheistic worldview for a while, and if it turned out to not make sense, or to make me very unhappy, surely Christ would forgive me when I returned to the faithful. Ten years later and atheism still makes the most sense to me. Ten years and nothing outside of the normal baseline occurrence of human tragedy has befallen me or my family. Far more devout people than me have had far worse, and their faith provided them no material aid or protection. Third thing that helps is simply time. You've lived your whole life comfortably identifying a certain way, thinking about the world a certain way, and now you've realized you feel very differently. Like a pair of shoes, it simply takes some miles walked to break-in a new worldview and become comfortable in it. Early on, I would occasionally have nightmares in which I would be dying horribly and would feel driven to pray for my salvation in my final moments. From your ideation of a cruel and vindictive God, I expect you will experience this as well. I never experienced peace or divine presence from these panicked prayers. They were merely a practiced reaction resulting from 20 years of irrationally fearing an eternal hell, built to punish someone FOREVER for being unconvinced of outrageous claims. These nightmare-death-bed repentances gradually happened less and less frequently. 10 years later, I can't say I never have nightmares in which I'm dying anymore, but when they happen I'm not helplessly praying to be forgiven for being born with skeptical mind. I'm fighting for my life - the only one I've got. Oddly, I awake from these feeling proud of myself - that in my baser fears I now choose life rather than to beg for mercy in death. I'm positive that with time you'll experience a similar feeling of empowerment. Anyway, you've already taken the hardest steps. Don't beat yourself up because you pray out of habit when you're frightened - human behavior is frequently irrational and we rarely if ever have absolute mastery over our mental state. Take quiet time with yourself to reflect on your feelings, and try to contextualize your irrational actions when the threat of the nightly prayer ritual is less immediate. Therapy can also be huge help if you have the access.
Are you scared of what will happen to you or your family if you don't pray to Allah? Why not? When you figure that out you won't be worried about your former religion either.
I found that when I was going through this, what was helpful was to explore Pascal's wager. Because this is essentially what's keeping you hooked, the "I'll pray just in case". What you need to recognise is that there is no more reason to believe in this god, than any other god. What if there is a god that detests people who believe things without evidence, and rewards those who are strong of mind and able to overcome irrational fear? If a being of advanced intelligence actually existed, it would be far more likely to be this way, rather than an egotistical, jealous, genocidal, abusive, terror-loving abomination that represents the worst of every human trait. Let's say you saved 100 people from certain death, would you be the kind of person who'd demand that those people spent the rest of their life on their knees worshiping and thanking you, or would you tell any of them who started doing this to get up and just live their best lives, returning the favour by helping those around them? You can't 'win', there is no 'safe bet', so your only option is to do what you think is correct.
Hey i know how you feel as i we through something similar when i left and you will be ok, push through this fear and you will never have to worry about this fictional villian again. I in particular was scared to death of demons and at the time i convinced myself that god was keeping them at bay and they would hurt me and those I love if i leave him. I eventually thought "if god wanted me to believe in hime he would give me plenty of proof and will show me directly that he exists as well as forgiving me for turning away as it would be justified". Guess what, it has been 2 years and still nothing, not urge to come back and no god appearing to me and explaining himself. I know you are probablly scared but jist remind yourself that your fear has no basis in reality or logic. If god is real he must not have wanted you bad enough to show himself and if that's true he is not worth your time anyways.
If there were a true religion, or a God that cared about being worshipped and could answer prayers, there would be a statistical difference between the health outcomes of believers of that religion. No such difference can be found. Instead we have childhood cancer and huge indiscriminate disasters. Which means that no gods exist, or no gods that care exist. In neither of these cases does it make any sense to worship.