Leaving Religion: Like Crumbling Jenga Blocks

[trotsky]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rationaldoubt/2015/09/leaving-religion-in-stages-like-crumbling-jenga-blocks/

First block pulled from the stack: Biblical mythology
(snip)
Second block pulled from the stack: shift from creationism to evolution
(snip)
Third block pulled from the stack: shift to a liberal theology
(snip)
Matt Dilahunty was the first person I ever heard of who had experienced my same philosophical and scientific journey out of Christianity. And he was great at reasoning his way through anything callers or guests threw at him. Then I learned of others — Teresa McBain, Bart Ehrman, Seth Andrews, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, John Loftus and many more. They all made perfect sense! Those thoughts I’d pondered since 1995 were finally verified in these people. That's when all the blocks finally came crashing down. Until I realized there were others like me, I thought I was the problem or that something was wrong with me. After my long journey I was thankful to be associated with such great freethinkers.

I never had those first couple of blocks, growing up in a slightly more liberal Lutheran church, but thought it was a good analogy. I too remember when I had removed enough blocks that the whole thing came tumbling down.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. These stories are always fascinating to me.

I was always an atheist. I don't have a watershed moment where I suddenly realized some thing I believed was total crap.

[Nay]

2. That's interesting, because I was always an atheist, too. I remember the moment

I realized that those around me actually believed this God stuff, and that, to them, it wasn't just another story like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I was about 6 or 7 years old and it was like lightning hit me. My friend thinks this stuff is TRUE! The adults around me think this stuff is REAL!

The shock was very great. I still had to go to church for a year or two more, but I never could look at the place or the people in the same way. It still astounds me that people believe this stuff.