Pros & Cons of becoming ex-Christian
By Amanda, a.k.a. newly not
It was a weird feeling the day I shifted my beliefs and discovered there wasn’t a God. For those of you who are also recently confirmed in the Almighty’s nonexistence, I offer some pros and cons to the new lifestyle in light of the slight mourning you may be feeling in the dissolved hope of eternal life:
Pros:
1.) You’re no longer required to force the following things into your daily schedule:
2.) You’re no longer obligated to attend church services and related activities once a week (or more!). Assuming the typical worship runs an hour-and-a-half and you attend one sixty-minute Bible study a week, that’s 130 hours saved a year. Automatically forfeiting sleeping in on one out of two of your weekend days will be a thing of the past.
3.) You can now choose to give your money in the amount you want, when you want, to where you want, rather than immediately writing out a check for a full ten percent to the church.
4.) Feel free to enjoy “worldly” things without guilt: you can now watch the shows you want, spend money on the things you want, do harmless but un-Christian things (read your horoscope, celebrate Halloween), and all in all, conduct your life without the pressure of God controlling it.
5.) God’s morals are no longer your morals. You can now think for yourself and stop pretending that you think homosexuality is wrong, that women are to submit to their husbands, or whatever else you secretly disagreed with the whole time you believed in God.
6.) You might be prompted to take better care of yourself and really live your life because you know that any day now it will be gone.
7.) You’ll lose your rep as the annoying/judgmental/close-minded “witness” for Christ.
Cons:
1.) You can no longer pray and expect a god to help you out, or thank him when things happen to go your way.
2.) When you’re dead, you’re dead. This is less of a con when you put into play that you really wouldn’t want to stick around Earth forever; what happens if we use up all of our resources, for example. Reality has the potential to be worse than being dead. If you get to be old and falling apart you may be more at peace with the idea. Also, you’ve already not existed for an infinite amount of time before your birth; each night when you go to sleep or when you are “put to sleep” you are in a state similar to death because you are unconscious. Most people don’t fear going to sleep because they trust in eight or so hours they’ll be awake again to start another day. Death still sucks, of course, but nobody can control it and you won’t be able to think about it sucking once it happens, so appreciate the gift that is life!
It was a weird feeling the day I shifted my beliefs and discovered there wasn’t a God. For those of you who are also recently confirmed in the Almighty’s nonexistence, I offer some pros and cons to the new lifestyle in light of the slight mourning you may be feeling in the dissolved hope of eternal life:
Pros:
1.) You’re no longer required to force the following things into your daily schedule:
- Read the often confusing, boring, contradictory, and vile text that is the Bible.
- Have a sincere chat with God (a.k.a. the ceiling), asking for anything to do with yourself last, mind you.
- Live for GOD and obey God’s Word, which, if taken literally, would include dozens of absurd laws.
- Serve God in your work (even if you work at McDonald’s) and love strangers (even if you innately don’t like people).
2.) You’re no longer obligated to attend church services and related activities once a week (or more!). Assuming the typical worship runs an hour-and-a-half and you attend one sixty-minute Bible study a week, that’s 130 hours saved a year. Automatically forfeiting sleeping in on one out of two of your weekend days will be a thing of the past.
3.) You can now choose to give your money in the amount you want, when you want, to where you want, rather than immediately writing out a check for a full ten percent to the church.
4.) Feel free to enjoy “worldly” things without guilt: you can now watch the shows you want, spend money on the things you want, do harmless but un-Christian things (read your horoscope, celebrate Halloween), and all in all, conduct your life without the pressure of God controlling it.
5.) God’s morals are no longer your morals. You can now think for yourself and stop pretending that you think homosexuality is wrong, that women are to submit to their husbands, or whatever else you secretly disagreed with the whole time you believed in God.
6.) You might be prompted to take better care of yourself and really live your life because you know that any day now it will be gone.
7.) You’ll lose your rep as the annoying/judgmental/close-minded “witness” for Christ.
Cons:
1.) You can no longer pray and expect a god to help you out, or thank him when things happen to go your way.
2.) When you’re dead, you’re dead. This is less of a con when you put into play that you really wouldn’t want to stick around Earth forever; what happens if we use up all of our resources, for example. Reality has the potential to be worse than being dead. If you get to be old and falling apart you may be more at peace with the idea. Also, you’ve already not existed for an infinite amount of time before your birth; each night when you go to sleep or when you are “put to sleep” you are in a state similar to death because you are unconscious. Most people don’t fear going to sleep because they trust in eight or so hours they’ll be awake again to start another day. Death still sucks, of course, but nobody can control it and you won’t be able to think about it sucking once it happens, so appreciate the gift that is life!
Comments
That's a lot there you said and I found myself agreeing with almost every word you said.
Welcome to the club. Hopefully, this forum will be a refreshing experience for you.
I have a Con that goes along with Pro #7. You may lose your rep about being an annoying/ judgmental/ close-minded christian, but you are now surrounded by annoying christians that worry about how you live your life and incessantly tell you that they will pray for you. I especially hate that concerned, patronizing look they get on their face when they find out you have left the fold.
I find it interesting now to realize that non-christians I have known for a long time never felt it necessary to tell me how to live my life when I was a christian. This is a much better approach to life.
Do you mean we no longer have to hang pictures of someone's concept of Jesus, on our walls?
Do you mean we no longer have to leave gospel tracts laying around for the hell-bound infidels to find?
Do you mean that we no longer have to pretend that we are praying to god in public, so people can see us praying before eat each meal?
Do you mean that I no longer have to pretend that the preacher is special called from god and put him above all others?
Do you contend that the bible is all a lie?
What will people think of me now?
I'm so worried about what other people will think of me now.
I will no longer fit-into the majority of brainwashed christian cultists' now, oh dear me!
I wonder how the christian cult got started in America, let me think....oh yeah I know, Christopher Columbus brought over the bible with him...hmmm!
Before 1492, there had never been a Bible or church built on American soil, so all the Native Americans are burning in hell right now, because most of the Natives were killed by the white god-fearing christians.
Anyone been to a (Native American Indian)church lately?
Anyone bought any land from a Native American Indian, lately?
God works in mysterious ways, wouldn't you all agree?
Down with christians and their self-righteous cult!
Christians go back to Europe and take your lie-spewing christian Jesus cult, back with you!
Such a shame the majority of americans will live most of their lives living saturated in a man made fabricated lie.
"6.) .....You might be prompted to take better care of yourself and really live your life because you know that any day now it will be gone.........."
Dan adds:
6.) A. If you are a fat slob, you might stop asking Jesus to help you loose weight, and actually stop eating after just one plate full of food.
6.) B. You just may start walking two or three times a week to extend your life here on earth, rather than just sitting around in waiting rooms of doctors trying to figure out why you feel so bad, and putting up with it, till you can get to that imaginary, next life where everybody will be perfect and happy.
6.) C. You may come to realize that the drug companies are in the business to make money. They know that the side effects of their drugs are usually worse than the symptoms of what they are treating.
6.) D. You may wake up one day and realize that the way you were created mandates that you don't anguish over imaginary concepts like original sin, immaculate conceptions, heaven, hell, angels, demons, but does require you to be intellectually true to yourself, use every muscle in your body or lose it, and the most important one is your brain.
If your brain is locked up by an imaginary man made mystical religion, it will never get up off its ass, and start thinking.
Dan
8.) You may feel prompted to take better care of the environment since you can no longer use the excuse "God is going to destroy the Earth anyway and make a NEW Heaven and NEW Earth" - or - "Jesus is coming s-o-o-n, before global warming can become a real threat, probably in our lifetime!!".
telmi - This website is the best I've stumbled across so far when it comes to waking up. :)
lance - Ah, you're right, I did leave that one out. So far I have only told three people about my switch back to atheism, and one person had more of a reaction than I expected. It is for that exact reason that you state that I have decided to be very selective about who I tell, as I wouldn't want to lose my employer, neighbor-friends, or get countless "you're going to hell" lectures for not being a Christian anymore. I'm a military spouse, though, so soon enough we'll move and perhaps I can just be forefront about my real identity at our next base.
I enjoyed everyone else's comments, too.
xrayman - Yeah, I was sick of getting up early (I'm a twenty-something, so I stay up into the wee hours most nights). I left the one service we had been going to because to me, it was getting to be too much of a cult: people crying hysterically five minutes into the greeting and saying "Hallelujah" over and over again for twenty minutes straight. The one we switched to always had a lukewarm message; it was like what's the point, go to "pay my dues"?
there...i've said my piece...i'm done. thx
Did you read the header on the homepage of this blog? This is not a place for preaching, so shake that dust off your sandals and go elsewhere.
Don't you guys have much respect for yourselves, and/ or feelings of self worth ? ?
small i's = small thinking
P.S. Funny, isn't it, how your loving god forgave every murderer in the bible who killed a woman, every murderer who speared a baby, every murderer who laid waste to towns inhabited by "undesirables'....
I see your 'God' as a blood-thirsty, Schizophrenic tyrant ...and I don't think any of us 'will fall on our faces'......but you fell on your face the moment you let a lie control your thoughts, your life.
Calling guest a Poe was another way of saying that guest's post was so dumb it had to be somebody just having a little fun playing the part.
Last time *I* checked, there was no evidence for your god.
"when he sends his tribulation like he prophesied in the bible it won't be boring anymore."
And you're looking forward to this, are you?
You are truly a shameful excuse for a human being, hanging your life's hopes on the mythical bloodbath described in Revelation.
"But, rest assurd when you fall on your face and cry out for him to take you back. Thank God that in all his compassion for you he will!!!"
Not going to happen, Guest. No one, and I do mean no one will have that experience. There is almost certainly no tribulation, no heaven, no hell, and no pseudo-compassionate god to grovel before.
There are, however, superstitious and fearmongering trolls like yourself...
(reaches for Her Clue-By-Four™)
*BONK*
Go away and don't come back.
there...i've said my piece...i'm done. thx
xrayman - Yeah, I was sick of getting up early (I'm a twenty-something, so I stay up into the wee hours most nights). I left the one service we had been going to because to me, it was getting to be too much of a cult: people crying hysterically five minutes into the greeting and saying "Hallelujah" over and over again for twenty minutes straight. The one we switched to always had a lukewarm message; it was like what's the point, go to "pay my dues"?
One of the biggest pros is that now you can read whatever the heck you want. _Including_ all the stuff that you used to read and that the surrounding Xtians are still reading. The difference is that now you are free to make that only a _part_ of what you read, not the beginning middle and end of your reading intake. You are free to read as much, or as little, of the old stuff as suits your moods and purposes.
8.) You may feel prompted to take better care of the environment since you can no longer use the excuse "God is going to destroy the Earth anyway and make a NEW Heaven and NEW Earth" - or - "Jesus is coming s-o-o-n, before global warming can become a real threat, probably in our lifetime!!".
telmi - This website is the best I've stumbled across so far when it comes to waking up. :)
lance - Ah, you're right, I did leave that one out. So far I have only told three people about my switch back to atheism, and one person had more of a reaction than I expected. It is for that exact reason that you state that I have decided to be very selective about who I tell, as I wouldn't want to lose my employer, neighbor-friends, or get countless "you're going to hell" lectures for not being a Christian anymore. I'm a military spouse, though, so soon enough we'll move and perhaps I can just be forefront about my real identity at our next base.
I enjoyed everyone else's comments, too.
"6.) .....You might be prompted to take better care of yourself and really live your life because you know that any day now it will be gone.........."
Dan adds:
6.) A. If you are a fat slob, you might stop asking Jesus to help you loose weight, and actually stop eating after just one plate full of food.
6.) B. You just may start walking two or three times a week to extend your life here on earth, rather than just sitting around in waiting rooms of doctors trying to figure out why you feel so bad, and putting up with it, till you can get to that imaginary, next life where everybody will be perfect and happy.
6.) C. You may come to realize that the drug companies are in the business to make money. They know that the side effects of their drugs are usually worse than the symptoms of what they are treating.
6.) D. You may wake up one day and realize that the way you were created mandates that you don't anguish over imaginary concepts like original sin, immaculate conceptions, heaven, hell, angels, demons, but does require you to be intellectually true to yourself, use every muscle in your body or lose it, and the most important one is your brain.
If your brain is locked up by an imaginary man made mystical religion, it will never get up off its ass, and start thinking.
Dan
Do you mean we no longer have to hang pictures of someone's concept of Jesus, on our walls?
Do you mean we no longer have to leave gospel tracts laying around for the hell-bound infidels to find?
Do you mean that we no longer have to pretend that we are praying to god in public, so people can see us praying before eat each meal?
Do you mean that I no longer have to pretend that the preacher is special called from god and put him above all others?
Do you contend that the bible is all a lie?
What will people think of me now?
I'm so worried about what other people will think of me now.
I will no longer fit-into the majority of brainwashed christian cultists' now, oh dear me!
I wonder how the christian cult got started in America, let me think....oh yeah I know, Christopher Columbus brought over the bible with him...hmmm!
Before 1492, there had never been a Bible or church built on American soil, so all the Native Americans are burning in hell right now, because most of the Natives were killed by the white god-fearing christians.
Anyone been to a (Native American Indian)church lately?
Anyone bought any land from a Native American Indian, lately?
God works in mysterious ways, wouldn't you all agree?
Down with christians and their self-righteous cult!
Christians go back to Europe and take your lie-spewing christian Jesus cult, back with you!
Such a shame the majority of americans will live most of their lives living saturated in a man made fabricated lie.
I have a Con that goes along with Pro #7. You may lose your rep about being an annoying/ judgmental/ close-minded christian, but you are now surrounded by annoying christians that worry about how you live your life and incessantly tell you that they will pray for you. I especially hate that concerned, patronizing look they get on their face when they find out you have left the fold.
I find it interesting now to realize that non-christians I have known for a long time never felt it necessary to tell me how to live my life when I was a christian. This is a much better approach to life.
That's a lot there you said and I found myself agreeing with almost every word you said.
Welcome to the club. Hopefully, this forum will be a refreshing experience for you.
Post a Comment