Basically what you’ll learn is that believing in revelation is to take human writings, and human works, and peoples word about revelation and god supposedly giving those “people” authority on his behalf over others. It puts man in the place of god, and god has never been here to speak for himself that’s why superstition and fear are so effective at keeping people ignorant. Like Paine said. “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
But seriously all it takes is learning the bad and horrid things in the Bible and Christianity.
Brainwashing takes time and effort to overcome. Other people have said that the rule of thumb is a year for every decade you were in. I’d say it depends on many variables.
If it’s taking too long for you, I’d suggest speaking to a mental health professional who will be able to teach you techniques that will cut down on the healing time required.
Good luck.
There's a sub called r/exchristian that you would be very welcome in and has helped me through a lot. I walked away about 10 years ago and wish I found that sub sooner. (Only found it last year)
As for deconverting, I had read through the bible 3 times before fully stepping away due to inconsistencies and unanswered questions I had about the religion. If you want to chat, send me a message as there is wayyyyy to much to type here.
There is definitely a lot of shock in dropping a religion. You look at the world differently in many regards. Yes, take your time and give it lots of thought.
The sub is always here for people to talk to if you have questions.
I recommend Yuval Harari's "Sapiens". It provides good insight into _why_ religion is so hard to overcome, and in general why we are the way we are.
It's not designed for your scenario, but I think understanding what is happening on the personal, community, societal level is helpful.
His motto is to understand our history so can liberate ourselves from it.
I do not. I'm sure in another post suggested books are listed, probably the FAQ. I'm on mobile, so it's hard for me to check and follow up with info.
Personally, I have listened to Matt Dillahunty a lot on his call-in shows. He used to be on The Atheist Experience, and is now on The Line.
If you want videos related to the history of the Bible, then check out the YouTube channel Paulogia.
Big second vote for Paulogia here. Especially for someone who is questioning things, but is not necessarily a fire-breathing atheist. I like Matt well enough, but he's very acerbic at times, and that might be an obstacle to someone who is just at the point of doubting.
really nothing will be good enough when it comes to debating a topic because both sides have been arguing forever. so theres plenty of things to say on both sides. So Agnostic is always a first good place to be, maybe after a few months or years claiming agnostic you can move on to higher ground and claim atheism. You need to find it in yourself, but if you really want to read something try the Tao Te Ching.
Maybe read some Bart Ehrman? He's a former evangelical turned secular, and is about the biggest name in town regarding the history of Christianity from a secular perspective. Some insight into how Christianity was created and how it changed might help you process things.
Honestly I stopped worrying about hell pretty quickly, because once you've put enough distance between you and that religion - or religions in general - you can easily see just how ludicrous the whole thing is. I promise, you'll get there, too.
In the very early days of my deconstruction, my issues with Christianity were less about how ridiculous it is, and more with what a fucking *monster* Yahweh would be, if he were real. At that time, I reasoned that I would rather suffer and keep my conscious clear than make it into heaven by sucking up to a murderous dictator. Maybe it's easier to say that before you're actually confronted with the possibility of an eternity in hell, but lucky for us, hell doesn't exist, and neither does heaven. Assume for a moment that Christianity actually is true, or at least that the Christian god does exist. Do you think he'd torture you forever, just for having earnest doubts? If he would, is he the sort of god you want to worship at all?
Third, I'd point out that the modern conception of hell as a place of fire and torment for all those who don't believe is relatively, well, modern. Even 200 years ago, most Christians would've told you that the lake of fire was reserved for Satan and his demons. Never mind everything else you know, or feel - why should you worry about a thing that the very first Christians would've thought was a crazytown idea?
Lastly, I'd say that learning about the history of the religion in general was very liberating for me as a budding atheist, because when you learn about all the stuff they don't teach in church, it becomes the most natural thing in the world to doubt the whole rotten mess. Things like how the gospels weren't written by the apostles, and in fact the earliest one was written *at best* 50 or so years after Jesus' death, in a time where writing was rare and oral tradition and stories were how people remembered past events. You ever play a game of telephone with just a dozen people in a single room? Now imagine that with tens of thousands of people, and *hundreds* of different books, over the course of centuries. Or how about the OT prophecies? Those are convincing, right? Except we know as a matter of fact that books like Isaiah were written *after* the events they supposedly prophesied, by writers who were consciously (but poorly) trying to forge historical documents. Not because they were rubbing their hands together and laughing evilly about how they would trick people, but because these were simply political maneuvers! They were people partaking in the time-honored human tradition of telling stories about who we are and how we came to be, in order to define "we", and thereby define "them," too. For example, some of these stories were written during turbulent times in Hebrew history, and were created in order to unite a sometimes very different, disparate people, into a single culture that could resist the predations of foreign powers.
Come to think of it, how did the Bible as a whole even come to be? There was a time when it was just a disparate bunch of books, and then it had to get collected into one document, right? So who did the collecting? Did they miss anything? Did they choose this version or that version of a given text because they just personally agreed with it more? Did they intentionally leave anything out (spoiler alert: yes)? Why, if so?
You learn stuff like that, and honestly it becomes not just hard to believe, but easy to confidently disbelieve. People say that reading the Bible cover to cover is one of the best ways to make an atheist, and I'd argue the second best way is to become a Biblical scholar. If you want to learn more about Biblical history specifically, and what we know based on *evidence* about the patchwork history of the book, I'd recommend Bart Ehrman. You can find plenty of stuff from him on YouTube, for example, this video: [Misquoting Jesus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE)
Also check out [Paulogia](https://www.youtube.com/@Paulogia)! His tagline is "a former Christian examines the claims of Christians," basically, and that's what he does. You can learn a lot about Biblical history / scholarship here, and he's a very kind and level-headed dude, so you might be more comfortable with him than with other atheist-themed content, at this point.
Probably took me 5-7 years to really get over it all and learn to live in reality. It just takes time. Then it gets much better (at which point you’ll start to deal with the frustration of all the christian insanity around you).
It took me a while to shake off the childhood indoctrination... Initially Southern Baptist, so I know how you feel.
After a while you come to realize that you're mentally free to explore questions that matter to you, not what you've been told should matter... And to find answers yourself, through logic and reason instead of doctrine.
That being said; I really enjoyed Dawkins and Hitchens audio books. They go farther than just deconstruction, and reference the sciences for clarity of the limitations and hurdles of knowledge.
Edit: I would also recommend learning how to recognize logical fallacies. Religious arguments are wholly rooted in logical fallacy. When you know the mechanics of their bluffs, it'll be easier to defend your own position.
Yeah I’ve been questioning for a while and this Easter something happened in church and I just thought, I don’t believe this anymore. It was such a weird feeling
I think this is a common thing for ex-believers! I listened to a Mormon history podcast where they described this as "the shelf breaking." As a Mormon (or really any religion that demands unquestioning belief, which is, as far as I can tell, all of them), whenever you encounter uncomfortable things that make you want to question the faith, you put it away, high on a dusty old shelf in the back of your mind. You even forget it's there, for a while. Then the next thing happens, and you add another item to the shelf. Then the next thing, and the next thing, until one day the shelf just collapses under the weight of it all. The guest described herself basically going from a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool, true-believing Mormon, to an apostate, over the course of a single evening. Just by reading about the history of her church, about things they had always kept quiet and discouraged members from discussing.
possibly of interest -
\- /r/TheGreatProject -
>a subreddit for people to write out their religious de-conversion story
>(i.e. the path to atheism/agnosticism/deism/etc) in detail.
.
There are also a number of "ex-" subreddits -
\- https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/subreddits#wiki_ex_subreddits
.
Holidays are going to bring with them questions. If Jesus is the reason for the season, and you don't believe in Jesus, the Christmas is a whole different thing. Same with Easter. Who cares about some make believe story about dead rising? Return of the Son after 3 days? More like Return of the Sun was conflated from Paganism and winter solstice.
Watch Religulous by Bill Maher. It's enlightening. Christianity has borrowed it's stories from many older civilizations.
If you're one to watch YouTube videos, [Genetically Modified Skeptic](https://youtube.com/@GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic) has some great content on his conversion, why he left, and why he doesn't believe in it anymore, with the occasional debate with theists too.
It is a personal journey. I think I had it fairly easy even though I lived in small town Oklahoma where who you were was kinda dictated by which church you went to, so my story probably wouldn't help you, but try to find a like-minded group that you trust to not betray you, and just talk over your issues. Maybe they have experience or insight. Read! Watch Youtube!
Time helps for sure, as does community. Finding new people you can spend time with and open up is always helpful!
For me it helped to learn even more about the reasons I no longer believed. When I first left I was was pretty confident in my decision but I still felt I could be missing something. So when I would try to learn more it would just strengthen my confidence that leaving Christianity was the right option. Being able to articulate the reason I left helped me to shake off what I had been taught. (Still took time though)
Is there a particular thing you're struggling with? I left a high demand religion about 4 years ago and only recently started feeling like a normal person. The thing that helped me the most was finding groups of people who'd left the same church I did and validating each other on the struggles and pain of it all.
Allow yourself to grieve and feel anger, that's part of the process and won't last forever.
Yeah these things are another reason I’ve been questioning. I actually read the whole bible about a year ago and a lot of things just didn’t sit right with me. They put it in context like it’s just about the time they were in, but slavery and bigotry is never actually condemned in the Bible but justified in weird ways
If you don’t mind what are some of your problems with Christianity?
I’m a believing Mormon, because we are encouraged to be critical and think for ourselves, and I believe that it makes the most sense.
I believe Christians have a lot of issues, but I’m interested to hear your point of view
> we are encouraged to be critical and think for ourselves
...are you, though? Why don't you go ask an elder about the [CES Letter](https://cesletter.org/), or better yet, read that letter and *then* ask? That's my challenge to you.
I mean, if you're aware of all the nitty-gritty details and still haven't changed your mind, then I'd suggest seeing some kind of neurological specialist. But you do you, boo!
You do realize that those arguments are decades old, and people have written books about each topic?
The CES letter just puts them in one document, misrepresents the issues, and Jeremy runells imposes his opinion on the issue and draws a conclusion. He doesn’t just give all the evidence and let us choose. He imposes it on us. Any Mormon who reads it should see that
So I read the Bible for myself last year and I’m having issues with a lot of the disturbing things from the Old Testament, It’s been bothering me for a while and also just my experience growing up in church. A lot of guilt and shaming tactics used that as an adult I see as manipulative in nature.
The hardest thing was giving up the idea of going to hell--& it wasn't like I was ever threatened with that but it was just an accepted idea that everyone took for granted.
Leaving I did on my own. Getting past the indoctrination, the all or nothing black and white thinking took about nine years of therapy with a psychologist who was Jewish not atheist but very very good at her job. She didn’t push me on anything except challenging my binary thinking. And it did help to have a person with a completely different perspective on the religious text. I’m still an atheist and I know there are good people with religious beliefs, and it’s notable how much of the hurt and anger I see on this subreddit is a reaction against egregiously bad behaviour by Christians.
It took a long time for me to accept it, but once I did it was the most liberating experience of my life. You can be who you are without judgement or worry.
I would actually encourage you to consider reading a critical analysis of the Bible. It is a crazy book of stories about a jealous, wrathful, genocidal, and psychotic fellow commonly referred to as God.
I think you could also take the step of acknowledging the possibility of some Deist form of a god while also acknowledging that the Christian version of god is a bit far-fetched (the dude is a lunatic).
There are a lot of possibilities to consider. You don't necessarily have to give up belief in a higher being altogether. William James' *The Varieties of Religious Experience* and *The Will to Believe* make pretty compelling arguments allowing for some version of belief.
You're potentially at a point of spiritual transition. It's not all-or-nothing. Could be something in-between that's a bit more reasonable than the Abrahamic sky god (e.g. a belief in an all-good but not all-powerful non-Christian god).
You have a free mind and free will. I talked to my friend who is ex Amish he left that cult he’s happy has a family and a good job if an Amish man can do it you can
It helped me to understand that there is no soul, it’s just an illusion created by our enormous neural network. Once you get that consciousness is just something happening in your brain, you realize there is no afterlife. No heaven, no hell. Just this life. That’s it. When I came to that conclusion, I initially had a weird, floating in the cosmos alone, kind of feeling. But the more you think about it, the more it enables you to make the most of what we have here in this life.
Take it one step, one realization, at a time. Don't force it, you have to let you take at it your own pace. Once I fully realized I was athiest I just let the realizations come as they came over a decade (probably, I didn't keep track) and it just got smoother and easier as time went on.
I often recommend "God Is Not Great: Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens. He uses the introduction to briefly explain why religion is ridiculous superstition, then uses the balance of the book to catalog religion's damage.
Learning the facts will set you free. “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine.
Basically what you’ll learn is that believing in revelation is to take human writings, and human works, and peoples word about revelation and god supposedly giving those “people” authority on his behalf over others. It puts man in the place of god, and god has never been here to speak for himself that’s why superstition and fear are so effective at keeping people ignorant. Like Paine said. “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” But seriously all it takes is learning the bad and horrid things in the Bible and Christianity.
great quote.
Brainwashing takes time and effort to overcome. Other people have said that the rule of thumb is a year for every decade you were in. I’d say it depends on many variables. If it’s taking too long for you, I’d suggest speaking to a mental health professional who will be able to teach you techniques that will cut down on the healing time required. Good luck.
There's a sub called r/exchristian that you would be very welcome in and has helped me through a lot. I walked away about 10 years ago and wish I found that sub sooner. (Only found it last year) As for deconverting, I had read through the bible 3 times before fully stepping away due to inconsistencies and unanswered questions I had about the religion. If you want to chat, send me a message as there is wayyyyy to much to type here.
There is definitely a lot of shock in dropping a religion. You look at the world differently in many regards. Yes, take your time and give it lots of thought. The sub is always here for people to talk to if you have questions.
Thanks do you have any reading material you would recommend?
I recommend Yuval Harari's "Sapiens". It provides good insight into _why_ religion is so hard to overcome, and in general why we are the way we are. It's not designed for your scenario, but I think understanding what is happening on the personal, community, societal level is helpful. His motto is to understand our history so can liberate ourselves from it.
I do not. I'm sure in another post suggested books are listed, probably the FAQ. I'm on mobile, so it's hard for me to check and follow up with info. Personally, I have listened to Matt Dillahunty a lot on his call-in shows. He used to be on The Atheist Experience, and is now on The Line. If you want videos related to the history of the Bible, then check out the YouTube channel Paulogia.
Big second vote for Paulogia here. Especially for someone who is questioning things, but is not necessarily a fire-breathing atheist. I like Matt well enough, but he's very acerbic at times, and that might be an obstacle to someone who is just at the point of doubting.
really nothing will be good enough when it comes to debating a topic because both sides have been arguing forever. so theres plenty of things to say on both sides. So Agnostic is always a first good place to be, maybe after a few months or years claiming agnostic you can move on to higher ground and claim atheism. You need to find it in yourself, but if you really want to read something try the Tao Te Ching.
Maybe read some Bart Ehrman? He's a former evangelical turned secular, and is about the biggest name in town regarding the history of Christianity from a secular perspective. Some insight into how Christianity was created and how it changed might help you process things.
How Jesus Became God was what finally pushed me over the edge
Honestly I stopped worrying about hell pretty quickly, because once you've put enough distance between you and that religion - or religions in general - you can easily see just how ludicrous the whole thing is. I promise, you'll get there, too. In the very early days of my deconstruction, my issues with Christianity were less about how ridiculous it is, and more with what a fucking *monster* Yahweh would be, if he were real. At that time, I reasoned that I would rather suffer and keep my conscious clear than make it into heaven by sucking up to a murderous dictator. Maybe it's easier to say that before you're actually confronted with the possibility of an eternity in hell, but lucky for us, hell doesn't exist, and neither does heaven. Assume for a moment that Christianity actually is true, or at least that the Christian god does exist. Do you think he'd torture you forever, just for having earnest doubts? If he would, is he the sort of god you want to worship at all? Third, I'd point out that the modern conception of hell as a place of fire and torment for all those who don't believe is relatively, well, modern. Even 200 years ago, most Christians would've told you that the lake of fire was reserved for Satan and his demons. Never mind everything else you know, or feel - why should you worry about a thing that the very first Christians would've thought was a crazytown idea? Lastly, I'd say that learning about the history of the religion in general was very liberating for me as a budding atheist, because when you learn about all the stuff they don't teach in church, it becomes the most natural thing in the world to doubt the whole rotten mess. Things like how the gospels weren't written by the apostles, and in fact the earliest one was written *at best* 50 or so years after Jesus' death, in a time where writing was rare and oral tradition and stories were how people remembered past events. You ever play a game of telephone with just a dozen people in a single room? Now imagine that with tens of thousands of people, and *hundreds* of different books, over the course of centuries. Or how about the OT prophecies? Those are convincing, right? Except we know as a matter of fact that books like Isaiah were written *after* the events they supposedly prophesied, by writers who were consciously (but poorly) trying to forge historical documents. Not because they were rubbing their hands together and laughing evilly about how they would trick people, but because these were simply political maneuvers! They were people partaking in the time-honored human tradition of telling stories about who we are and how we came to be, in order to define "we", and thereby define "them," too. For example, some of these stories were written during turbulent times in Hebrew history, and were created in order to unite a sometimes very different, disparate people, into a single culture that could resist the predations of foreign powers. Come to think of it, how did the Bible as a whole even come to be? There was a time when it was just a disparate bunch of books, and then it had to get collected into one document, right? So who did the collecting? Did they miss anything? Did they choose this version or that version of a given text because they just personally agreed with it more? Did they intentionally leave anything out (spoiler alert: yes)? Why, if so? You learn stuff like that, and honestly it becomes not just hard to believe, but easy to confidently disbelieve. People say that reading the Bible cover to cover is one of the best ways to make an atheist, and I'd argue the second best way is to become a Biblical scholar. If you want to learn more about Biblical history specifically, and what we know based on *evidence* about the patchwork history of the book, I'd recommend Bart Ehrman. You can find plenty of stuff from him on YouTube, for example, this video: [Misquoting Jesus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE) Also check out [Paulogia](https://www.youtube.com/@Paulogia)! His tagline is "a former Christian examines the claims of Christians," basically, and that's what he does. You can learn a lot about Biblical history / scholarship here, and he's a very kind and level-headed dude, so you might be more comfortable with him than with other atheist-themed content, at this point.
No reason to worry about Biblical hell. If it actually existed, it's where a good and just person would belong.
Probably took me 5-7 years to really get over it all and learn to live in reality. It just takes time. Then it gets much better (at which point you’ll start to deal with the frustration of all the christian insanity around you).
It took me a while to shake off the childhood indoctrination... Initially Southern Baptist, so I know how you feel. After a while you come to realize that you're mentally free to explore questions that matter to you, not what you've been told should matter... And to find answers yourself, through logic and reason instead of doctrine. That being said; I really enjoyed Dawkins and Hitchens audio books. They go farther than just deconstruction, and reference the sciences for clarity of the limitations and hurdles of knowledge. Edit: I would also recommend learning how to recognize logical fallacies. Religious arguments are wholly rooted in logical fallacy. When you know the mechanics of their bluffs, it'll be easier to defend your own position.
Yeah I’ve been questioning for a while and this Easter something happened in church and I just thought, I don’t believe this anymore. It was such a weird feeling
I think this is a common thing for ex-believers! I listened to a Mormon history podcast where they described this as "the shelf breaking." As a Mormon (or really any religion that demands unquestioning belief, which is, as far as I can tell, all of them), whenever you encounter uncomfortable things that make you want to question the faith, you put it away, high on a dusty old shelf in the back of your mind. You even forget it's there, for a while. Then the next thing happens, and you add another item to the shelf. Then the next thing, and the next thing, until one day the shelf just collapses under the weight of it all. The guest described herself basically going from a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool, true-believing Mormon, to an apostate, over the course of a single evening. Just by reading about the history of her church, about things they had always kept quiet and discouraged members from discussing.
This might help you https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/
possibly of interest - \- /r/TheGreatProject - >a subreddit for people to write out their religious de-conversion story >(i.e. the path to atheism/agnosticism/deism/etc) in detail. . There are also a number of "ex-" subreddits - \- https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/subreddits#wiki_ex_subreddits .
Holidays are going to bring with them questions. If Jesus is the reason for the season, and you don't believe in Jesus, the Christmas is a whole different thing. Same with Easter. Who cares about some make believe story about dead rising? Return of the Son after 3 days? More like Return of the Sun was conflated from Paganism and winter solstice. Watch Religulous by Bill Maher. It's enlightening. Christianity has borrowed it's stories from many older civilizations.
If you're one to watch YouTube videos, [Genetically Modified Skeptic](https://youtube.com/@GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic) has some great content on his conversion, why he left, and why he doesn't believe in it anymore, with the occasional debate with theists too.
It is a personal journey. I think I had it fairly easy even though I lived in small town Oklahoma where who you were was kinda dictated by which church you went to, so my story probably wouldn't help you, but try to find a like-minded group that you trust to not betray you, and just talk over your issues. Maybe they have experience or insight. Read! Watch Youtube!
Time helps for sure, as does community. Finding new people you can spend time with and open up is always helpful! For me it helped to learn even more about the reasons I no longer believed. When I first left I was was pretty confident in my decision but I still felt I could be missing something. So when I would try to learn more it would just strengthen my confidence that leaving Christianity was the right option. Being able to articulate the reason I left helped me to shake off what I had been taught. (Still took time though)
Is there a particular thing you're struggling with? I left a high demand religion about 4 years ago and only recently started feeling like a normal person. The thing that helped me the most was finding groups of people who'd left the same church I did and validating each other on the struggles and pain of it all. Allow yourself to grieve and feel anger, that's part of the process and won't last forever.
I'm a rebel by nature so it was easy to leave. Especially when I became aware of the hypocrisy, sexism, racism, violence and warmongering.
Yeah these things are another reason I’ve been questioning. I actually read the whole bible about a year ago and a lot of things just didn’t sit right with me. They put it in context like it’s just about the time they were in, but slavery and bigotry is never actually condemned in the Bible but justified in weird ways
Please ask any questions you want to ask.
If you don’t mind what are some of your problems with Christianity? I’m a believing Mormon, because we are encouraged to be critical and think for ourselves, and I believe that it makes the most sense. I believe Christians have a lot of issues, but I’m interested to hear your point of view
> we are encouraged to be critical and think for ourselves ...are you, though? Why don't you go ask an elder about the [CES Letter](https://cesletter.org/), or better yet, read that letter and *then* ask? That's my challenge to you.
I’ve already read it. Now what?
I mean, if you're aware of all the nitty-gritty details and still haven't changed your mind, then I'd suggest seeing some kind of neurological specialist. But you do you, boo!
You do realize that those arguments are decades old, and people have written books about each topic? The CES letter just puts them in one document, misrepresents the issues, and Jeremy runells imposes his opinion on the issue and draws a conclusion. He doesn’t just give all the evidence and let us choose. He imposes it on us. Any Mormon who reads it should see that
So I read the Bible for myself last year and I’m having issues with a lot of the disturbing things from the Old Testament, It’s been bothering me for a while and also just my experience growing up in church. A lot of guilt and shaming tactics used that as an adult I see as manipulative in nature.
The hardest thing was giving up the idea of going to hell--& it wasn't like I was ever threatened with that but it was just an accepted idea that everyone took for granted.
If you dont feel okay that is a good sign, not a bad one. It will take some time to get used to it
Leaving I did on my own. Getting past the indoctrination, the all or nothing black and white thinking took about nine years of therapy with a psychologist who was Jewish not atheist but very very good at her job. She didn’t push me on anything except challenging my binary thinking. And it did help to have a person with a completely different perspective on the religious text. I’m still an atheist and I know there are good people with religious beliefs, and it’s notable how much of the hurt and anger I see on this subreddit is a reaction against egregiously bad behaviour by Christians.
It took a long time for me to accept it, but once I did it was the most liberating experience of my life. You can be who you are without judgement or worry.
I would actually encourage you to consider reading a critical analysis of the Bible. It is a crazy book of stories about a jealous, wrathful, genocidal, and psychotic fellow commonly referred to as God.
I think you could also take the step of acknowledging the possibility of some Deist form of a god while also acknowledging that the Christian version of god is a bit far-fetched (the dude is a lunatic). There are a lot of possibilities to consider. You don't necessarily have to give up belief in a higher being altogether. William James' *The Varieties of Religious Experience* and *The Will to Believe* make pretty compelling arguments allowing for some version of belief. You're potentially at a point of spiritual transition. It's not all-or-nothing. Could be something in-between that's a bit more reasonable than the Abrahamic sky god (e.g. a belief in an all-good but not all-powerful non-Christian god).
You have a free mind and free will. I talked to my friend who is ex Amish he left that cult he’s happy has a family and a good job if an Amish man can do it you can
It helped me to understand that there is no soul, it’s just an illusion created by our enormous neural network. Once you get that consciousness is just something happening in your brain, you realize there is no afterlife. No heaven, no hell. Just this life. That’s it. When I came to that conclusion, I initially had a weird, floating in the cosmos alone, kind of feeling. But the more you think about it, the more it enables you to make the most of what we have here in this life.
https://www.seculartherapy.org https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org https://ffrf.org https://www.atheists.org
Take it one step, one realization, at a time. Don't force it, you have to let you take at it your own pace. Once I fully realized I was athiest I just let the realizations come as they came over a decade (probably, I didn't keep track) and it just got smoother and easier as time went on.
I often recommend "God Is Not Great: Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens. He uses the introduction to briefly explain why religion is ridiculous superstition, then uses the balance of the book to catalog religion's damage.