42 thoughts on “Leaving Religion”

  2. How fortunate and lucky I am never to be caught up in the web. Oh, I know all the verses and sang all the songs, drank the juice and chewed the wafer.
    The greatest epiphany I ever had was learning I was not the only one.

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  3. I’m thankful every single day that I was not raised by religious parents, my brothers and their wives were not religious, I had no overtly religious friends ever, my husband and his parents were not religious and I find them mostly, the most appalling mean hateful people in our society. None of them follow any religious teachings from their various books on kindness,tolerance and not judging others. It’s nothing but a money game for the churches and the pastors conning the brain deluded..

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  4. I unconverted as a young teenager. This story has nothing to do with that.
    In the mid-80s I chanced to visit a family in Poland (before the Iron Curtain fell). The family I was visiting had no room for me in their house, so put me up with the preacher of their Orthodox Church. He welcomed me grandly, as he lived all alone and had no friends in the community. The first night I was there he brought out a bottle of vodka, and asked me to join him in a glsss or ten.
    Of course I refused, as I had given up mind-altering drugs years earlier. So he drank alone, eventually drinking himself to sleep. After two more nights of this bedtime ritual I asked him, why do you dtink so much?
    His story was shocking. He was the 2nd born son of his family, which meant his older brother would inherit everything when his father died, and he would get nothing. Instead he was shipped off to seminary school, and he learned to be a priest. It was in seminary he discovered his teachers were hypocrytes, and most of them did not believe in God. They were like him, 2nd sons, and it was their tradition and duty to supply the Church with future priests. So they did this as a job, not because they believed it was their calling. Eventually he stopped believing in God after he was sexually abused by his teachers, and when he told his father he was told it was his duty too, so he should not tell anyone else.
    Jump ahead 10 years, and he was given his first Church. He wanted to be different from his teachers, and not abuse boys as he had been. So he tried to stay celibate, but the need for sexual congress became too hard, and he began an affair with a parishioner. She of course soon became pregnant as contraceptives were forbidden, and the truth came out. But rather than let him leave the Church his elders moved him to a new church, and told him to find a boy to use, because having sex with girls had visible consequences. So instead of doing as he was told, he took to drinking himself to sleep every night to kill his sexual urges.
    I listened to him pour his hesrt out to me for three nights running. He was in such mental and spiritual pain he was considering suicide. I asked nim why not just leave the Church, he should not have to to this to himself. He told me in total seriousness that in his culture, every 2nd son had to be a priest, and to do anything else was a sin against God, and family! He was trapped, with no way out but death. I tried, but family responsibilities were too strong. He was told if he left the Cnurch his family would be excommunicated. He firmly believed this, despite knowing the Church elders were almost all atheists.
    I don’t know what happened to him, my vacation ended and I had to go back to Canada. The family I was visiting had found out I was an atheist and had rescinded their sponsorship for me to be in Poland. I was only too glad to leave.
    But the priest’s story has stuck with me all these years. If I knew how to put it into fiction I would, but when I tried I could not write some of the scenes he described. They were just too horrible. And I could not get into the heads of his father, his teachers, or the Church elders, and nor could I write it as fact because I had no proof what he told me was real. Though there was no doubt, the man was a physical, mental, and spiritual wreck. If he committed suicide it would have been a blessing, but what a waste of a life!

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      • It almost made me join him in getting drunk. But I was in a foreign country with very strict rules for tourists. I almost never made it out as it was. If I had gotten into any ,ind of trouble I might not have got out at all.
        But knowing his story — I can’t even remember his name — was one of the worst yet best experiences of my life. I know know, 2nd hand, how cruel humans can be to numans. I thought until then my own childhood was bad, but I had nothing on him. As bad as my father was, especially to his daughters whom he raped, this buy’s story was beyond believing. It was neverending.
        But I also know it was true.

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        • This poor man and others like him should be determined to pack a bag and leave to a permanent overseas destination and reject their own families and the church people for putting them into this traditional life of horror. How primitive and cruel these nutjobs can be.

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        • You are totally correct, except their cultures didn’t allow that kind of freedom. Remember, this was a Communist country at the time. It was fighting for freedom, but travel was not openly allowed. The piwers-that-were liked to keep track of their citizens, not like in the de ocratic world.

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    • I think death would be a liberation for him.
      Would this contradiction in this priest’s life been resolved if he was allowed to marry?
      Would he be a good priest like Messlier and write his testament to his parishioners and tell them all he has seen of his superiors and teachers- the custodians of their beliefs and faith?

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      • Maybe, but Orthodox priests are not allowed to marry. His problem was believing all the hype about family. I tried to talk to him, but 30 years of believing in family was too strong… He was the saddest person I have ever met.

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    • Just one more in a long, long line of stories of religion destroying or ruining a life. It (still) goes on and on.

      That story is really tragic.

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      • I held onto that story for years because it was so tragic. But I said enough, and put it into the world. I doubt if the guy is alive, and no one can identify him from my story anymore. But I hope he worked it out.

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    • Many years ago our local and small Catholic church found itself in a predicament, one of the last in a long line of ‘new’ priests had been discovered molesting altar boys. I don’t blame him, as much as the way the entire subject was hidden from public view for a very long time.
      I don’t blame him, because he knew it was wrong, and many pederasts are so horrified at what they do that they commit suicide.
      He apparently met with the Bishop and was told not to be concerned because they would cover for him–and quietly sent him to a different parish. Several times.
      Finally he was outed by one of the choir boys and his term was ended. The church in its charitable wisdom decided to point all their outraged fingers at him, in shock and disbelief.

      This time, however, people already knew the whole story.
      All the man had asked for was to be taken away from having to deal with altar boys, and saying Mass. He knew what he was. Putting him back in a church was equivalent to insisting a druggie should be responsible for overseeing drug shipments…

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      • I don’t believe in hell, but if there is one, I hope every Catholuc/Orthodox Pope and Cardinal and Bishop, etc etc etc are in it. Appearance is more important than reality. Forget what happens to the people, the dignity of the Church is all that mattersThis is off topic, and I am not Catholic, but I am Indigenous, and to me the apo.ogy the Pope finally gave to the Indigenous peoples of Canada is not heartfelt.
        The truth just came out: The Cabadian government and the various Indigenous organizations who worked together to bring the Pope to Canada paid $81,000,000 for the privilege of being lied to.

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  5. Every sentence of that long-ass article was heartbreaking. And here I am, some dude that just lost belief. I can’t imagine being raped by the priest, or told to die alone for not giving money, or being cut off from family.

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  7. I tried and tried, on and off, for my entire life (about 60 years). The last time, after 12 years or so, I was president of the Parish Council and had recently backed out of being ordained. With all the shocking and revealing stories listed here, mine is simple.

    I finally accepted that I did not believe any god or gods (angels, saints, devils, etc.) existed. It took a few more years for me to openly express my atheism (one of the best days of my life), but I did.

    Religions are social clubs (cults, if you prefer) based upon the existence of deity of some sort. No god, no need for any pointless religion. I miss none of it.

    This allegory I wrote shows how it happened best: https://pluviolover.com/2018/11/12/an-allegory-of-conclusion/

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  8. We all have our crosses to bear, row to hoe. G’ma said. Best to bear them in silence, which reminds me a lot about what Jesus had to say about prayer, pontificating on street corners

    She also taught me about superstitions; of coyotes (pronounced kai-yote, rhymes with tote) and crows, mushrooms and little blue flowers that grow on the coast; apes up the mountain

    Been long gone and many years of study yet … there are tendrils. Some hurts never heal

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  9. One day I was doing a bit of I Ching for fun, and meditating a bit, and I suddenly realized that meditation is a searching inside yourself for answers, and religion/prayer is looking outside, and usually Up. God gets the credit, while you do the work.

    And that was the end of that. Now I take allll the credit. And the blame.

    Ten Bears, I hear that. Kind of a rhematism of the heart, isn’t it.

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