Recovering from Fundamentalism

I've been thinking lately, about how incredibly relieved I am to finally be done with what I called my "existential panics". They started when I was around 8, and continued until last year (I was 32). They could be triggered by anything, darkness, being awake alone late at night, thoughts about existence and life, thinking about eternity, thinking about not being a christian, thinking about trying to be a christian again, and so on.

When they first started they scared the heck out of me, I would break down crying, sometimes in the middle of supper, or at school, or just anywhere. I would start thinking about eternity, and how long it was, and about whether there was a god or not, and what would happen after i died if there wasn't a god, and what if there was a god, and i was bad, and there was eternity to be punished with no hope of relief if I got sent to hell. It was absolutely terrifying. I remember being comforted by my mother, who would encourage me to just have faith, and to believe.

I couldn't articulate why I was questioning god. I guess even then some of the inconsistencies must have at some level been clear, but it was nothing I could articulate beyond "what if there isn't a god?"

Even as I stopped being a christian, and moved firmly into agnosticism these anxiety attacks persisted. The feeling that I couldn't survive them was overwhelming, the hopelessness took days to get over. I became afraid of being alone ever. The first time I tried to read the selfish gene I had to stop, because it made the panics worse than ever.

It was a conscious choice to decide to overcome that fear. I had to learn to let myself think about what it means to be a finite being. To be able to think about the history of the universe, and the future of the universe, and to see myself as a cosmic spark somewhere in there. Richard Dawkins' spotlight analogy was very helpful. I deliberately spent time reading books about the origin of consciousness, and about evolution. Essentially, what I've spent a year doing is deprogramming myself from the fear and superstition. On some level it was an act of faith, trusting to reason instead of superstition. I had to give myself permission to go against the indoctrination; to decide that whether or not there is a god, I was unhappy living a christian life, and I was unhappy being afraid of eternity, and I was unhappy with the guilt, and the self-hatred, and with the false face of christianity.

I can't say it was easy, and how I wish that The God Delusion had been written earlier, so that I could have had such a manual for deconversion right from the beginning, but it was worth it. Embracing the natural worldview lets everything be just as it is, instead of having to read a "deeper meaning" into everything. It is such a huge relief.

I see christians I know struggling so hard with appearing to be a good person, and I just feel pity for them. They don't even see that they could just be a good person, to them it's all about seeming so to the other christians. I remember that, and I never want to go back.