(no subject)

[nemorathwald]

On Overcoming Bias, commenters were asked to advise Jo, who had left this message in a previous discussion:

"So here I am having been raised in the Christian faith and trying not to freak out over the past few weeks because I've finally begun to wonder whether I believe things just because I was raised with them. Our family is surrounded by genuinely wonderful people who have poured their talents into us since we were teenagers, and our social structure and business rests on the tenets of what we believe. I've been trying to work out how I can 'clear the decks' and then rebuild with whatever is worth keeping, yet it's so foundational that it will affect my marriage (to a pretty special man) and my daughters who, of course, have also been raised to walk the Christian path.

Is there anyone who's been in this position - really, really invested in a faith and then walked away?"

My response:

I've been there, Jo. I was raised a tent-revival fundamentalist, and graduated from Pensacola Christian College. My father was a pastor for six years, and is a deacon and sunday school teacher. My wife and I sang a duet at our wedding, "We'll build a household of faith." I worked for a church.

When I finally admitted that God is an idol of wood and stone, it was the end of my job and my marriage. Needless to say, leaving the church strained my relationship with my relatives.

It was worth it. I had been deeply depressed because I was so alienated from everyone in my life. I started spending time around people whose company I actually enjoyed, and have been living a wonderful life ever since, full of love and companionship. I finally fit somewhere.

There is a line between privacy and a double life of secrets and lies. You cross that line when you are dependent on pretenses to sustain a relationship with someone who thinks you are intimate with them. It's different with acquaintances. Be private with strangers and acquaintances, because they have no reason to expect you to confide in them. But your loved ones? I had to admit that the people I was hanging on to, I didn't really have, and they didn't have the real me. What does it profit a man, if he gain an afterlife that doesn't exist, and lose the only life he has?

Your situation might be different from mine. Your loved ones might accept you for who you are and not consider you degenerate. Perhaps you are comfortable married to a stranger. Some people are. But how many people in your social circle are going along to get along? How many of them are faking Christianity because they think if they don't, it would hurt you? Are you really better off for their choice?

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Great to hear from you. I've friended you back.

[atropis.livejournal.com]

well said.

[rachelann1977.livejournal.com]

Very well said indeed. It reminds me again of a line from that poem that got Chuck and I together, "I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy." I think this is exactly the kind of situation that line refers to, and the fact that it is so hard to understand, and even harder to accomplish, is most likely why so many people change that word to faithful.