1. You’re right, my knee jerk reaction was indeed to be “more” Christian, the six months after they died was when I accumulated most of the Christian CDs that are lying around gathering dust in my flat now. I even thought in a few scary moments that I should have a baby with my abusive ex-husband. Thank goodness that was never to be! But about six months after they died it’s like I snapped out of it and that was truly the beginning of my deconversion; within another few months I had escaped from the abusive ex and started a new life free of the shackles of Evangelical Christianity. When I got divorced, my family essentially excommunicated me and it was really liberating to see Christians behaving so horribly. I walked away and never looked back.

2. Within my nuclear family, when things settled out a year or two after the accident, we had the full range. My mother (whose parents it was who died) did become more engulfed in the religious thing, I can’t ride in a car with her these days because she listens to the most horrid Christian radio after being the one who introduced me to Blood, Sweat and Tears and plenty of other really good music. I’d say my sister is neutral, no more or less Christian than before the crash and definitely still Christian, and I’m the shocking de-convert.

Fortunately time really does heal wounds, this summer it will be 8 years since they died and 7 since my divorce so it’s not too hard to talk about, but many thanks for your cautiousness and concern.

Thank you for sharing this—and I am so sorry to hear what happened to your grandparents. The only thing I do sincerely want to ask you though is what you think your grandparents would want you to do after they departed this world? Their sadness would be truly great to learn that you walked away from the very faith that endeared you to them. What happened to them is very hard to understand, and I won’t even try to say I know how you feel, because I don’t. But often when people suffer a loss such as that, they try to live the way the people they have lost would have wanted them to. So I am surprised that you actually left the faith, rather than trying to garner what they had in their lives—and which caused them to be such sweet people. Again, I am very sorry to hear of that loss, and thank you for posting such a sad story. But I do have that question, and cannot ignore it. I hope you understand where I am coming from, because I do not mean the least disrespect, or have any disregard for the pain you have suffered, and do suffer.

All the best, Joe

Please, beware of “happiness”.

Oh my! Is there a more typical – or a more depressing – reaction to someone who proclaims their joy and liberation in throwing off the shackles of religion than this?

Yes, by all means, beware “happiness”: If you experience excessive amounts of it, you might poke through the blinders of strict fundamentalism, you might start trusting yourself, you might decide you’re not a filthy failure, and – worse yet! – you might quit going in for your weekly indoctrination sessions. And we all know what happens when you do that! (gasp)

In response to the rest of your post, see Leopardus’ Convenient Categories” and the follow up, Inconvenient Categories

Feel free to engage in the actual reasons nonbelief is substantiated and take it from people who go through the experience, not youth pastors.

If you are truly influenced by your grandparents even now, let me just ask you to consider what they would say to you now, could they speak. Remember the great commandment: you are to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. They would refer you to Mt 10:37-39.

It sounds like you never really thought about your faith, or came to it because of a true realization of the need for repentance. You went along with it because people you loved were Christian, but fell away when tribulation came, as the seed did that fell on the rocky soil. I would ask you to reconsider Christianity, perhaps for the first time.

Western society was initially very happy to throw off the yoke of religion, but within a few centuries it led to Nietzsche’s despairing parable about the death of God and to the empty nihilism of Camus and Sartre.

Why are you happy? What motivates it?

As to the ‘resources’ and ‘answers’ you may receive here, please just heed this warning to consider the ramifications of everything you’re given. Just pick at them a little bit and see if they don’t unravel before your eyes:
a) Belief in God is irrational, yet on the materialist hypothesis, your brain evolved for survival, not rational thought, which means we cannot trust our minds to produce rational thoughts if materialism is true.

b) The Bible is ‘immoral’, yet by jettisoning morality you forfeit the right to make moral pronouncements, as morality is an illusion.

c) The Bible is ‘unhistorical’, yet if you apply the same historical criteria to other ancient documents that skeptics apply to the Bible, then Caesar, Nero, Plato, etc. are all fictional as well.

I’m just advising caution, that’s all.

Please don’t hesitate to ask questions and join in here when you can!

OT: Can someone re-post the information on how to personalize the little symbol/avatar that pops up on the right side of the comments?