What did you do?

A response to the question concerning the deconversion proccess, posted on WWGHA:

The details of my life are inconsequential....

Born Pentecostal. We were in church "everytime the doors opened", and due to it's size I mostly had private tutors in Sunday School. Attended Bible College right out of High School. All I knew was this world. The world without the church walls was a terrifying place. A place to be entered only in full battle gear. With that in mind I went straight into full-time ministry as a missionary in a "give it all trust God or die poverty mentality" organization. Twenty years later, I hit mid life with a wife, three kids, no marketable skills and nothing else.

We left the ministry and ventured out into the real world. It was an utter disaster. I stepped off the plane and into an abyss of depression and self medication. We separated after two years of that. I should note that during the ministry years I had begun to examine my beliefs within Christendom and had abandoned many I had been raised. By the time I left the ministry I was a non-pentecostal experience, no rapture, amillinialist and old earther among other things that would have scandalized my peers.

Anyway, I turned for help of course to the church, now from a "Seeker" church (think Rick Warren). Where secular understandings of the world and methodologies were embraced, and repackaged under the "God" brand. Guess what, I got great counsel and help and we put our marriage and family back together and had a better relationship than ever. They even encourage us to congratulate ourselves for the hard work WE did to put it back together. That was novel. I began to realize that our fixed marriage could be attributed entirely to hard work and good relational skills derived from standard psychology. Seeing God in it was just what we did.

Actually, part of my private therapy was to take out all of my anger and frustration on God. 20 years we had trusted Him for everything, and somehow there was always JUST ENOUGH. Looking back it is horrifying to see what we were. Is WIC God's provision? Yet that is where we lived and felt God was taking such good care of us. Now in the real world, it felt for all intents and purposes like God was torturing me. Withholding finances until we were at the point of ruin each month (dunking my head under water and holding it down) then BAM a release of finances that would pay the bills - almost - (letting me up for a quick breath, "Yay God!!!!!") then plunging back under. I'm like WTF!?! Either destroy us or bless us, but stop torturing us. I would launch into the most vile tirades against this sick twisted image (who became known as "the God I Know").

I became aware that whenever I thought about success, having money, or having anything above sheer survival, the voice of the God I Know would say, "That is ungodly to have wealth." "If you had the financial means you might do things that are bad." "It is not MY WILL for you to have anything, so if you pursue it you are fighting ME. That is a fight you cannot win." I began going into a violent rage whenever I would have those thoughts. I began shouting them down. Calling him every vile name and blasphemy I could think of. Frankly, if this was God I wanted no part of him. I had success in silencing him. And not wanting to be godless I asked that the real God show up. I waited. I asked again. Daily. He never did. I had a choice between going back to the tender mercies of the God I Knew or continuing on in my newly imposed godless condition. I found that I rather enjoyed it, so many hang ups and struggles melted away.

I ran across Steven Den Beste at USSClueless.com and here was a conservative kindred spirit who was also a reasoned atheist (who would have thought?). Was it possible there was no God? Nah. Yet that is what I was living. He no longer existed for me in anyway except as an item from my past. He seemed to be perfectly happy having it that way, and I sure felt a lot better. Then I began runnning into other atheist concepts like "I am responsible". That combined with a fresh look at the evidence from outside the "bubble", and I was hooked. My experience was confirmed. I wasn't crazy. I WAS alone. And I loved it. I felt like a 1000 pounds was lifted from my shoulders the moment I accepted atheism. I had a future. I could take all the resources inside of me and build anything I dreamed, without someone with his own agenda of "teaching me stuff" poopooing it and fighting against me. My chronic depression VANISHED. I no longer have to express my anger toward God, because he doesn't exist. How I enjoy typing those words. It is awesome.