One thing I thought was funny was that you said, “…at the beginning of 1976, I was a smart-ass, rebellious teenager and at the end I was a goody two-shoes Christian.”… whereas I sort of did the opposite… and was the goody-two-shoes Christian growing up… and, THEN turned into the smart-ass rebellious teenager. =)

FFFearless–

Yes—-this is actually what I was asking. It would be something you realize in “retrospect” as you said in your post. It is trials and deadness, dryness and apparent lack of answers to prayer, etc. that test this. If it is just “infatuation” you will eventually drift away—-if it is real one will endure and continue through this “period”—even if it is a period of years. Love will not allow them to leave.

Just as love will cause a wife who is really in love with her husband to wait years for his return from the military, so real love will cause the Christian to wait and endure even when there is no apparent sign of God or his presence sometimes for years also.

That’s why I was “speculating” that it may be possible a deconvert may have had a VERY STRONG “infatuation”—but it was still just an infatuation. Time allowed that infatuation to show it’s true colors, and the person eventually drifted away.

The parable of the “Sower and the Seed” seems to confirm this–it mentions the seed that fell on stony ground, immediately sprung to life in great joy—”but lasted only a time for afterwards, when faced with persecution or trial it withered away”.

It is an interesting thought—-and was just curious whether the deconverted had actually ever considered it. Thank you for your post.

I think infatuation is a retrospect kind of thing. You don’t know you were infatuated until you don’t feel the same anymore. I suppose the same could be said about any relationship that ends after a certain point. But while you’re in the relationship, you’d swear it was “love.”

Perhaps a de-converted Christian only was infatuated with God. The same way a girl gets gaga over the captain of the football team who will never give her the time of day. She tries to get his attention, flirts with him, writes him notes, cheers as loud as she can during every game, but in the end, he never gives her so much as a glance or any other indication that he’s the least bit interested in her. Eventually, after getting rejected so many times, you have to put your love into places where it might actually get returned.

What’s the difference?

I’ve also been coming to a place where I’ve found a balance of being free from the influences of Christianity but not being overly mad at all things related to Christianity. I think it was necessary for me to be angry about experiences I missed out on because I was a Christian, or some of the (minor) psychological stress I experienced due to my faith, but I’m pretty much past that now. I don’t resent most of the Christians that I know (well, some of them are jerks, but that has just as much to do with their personalities as it does their faith) and I’ve come to a place where I’ll tell my Christian friends, “You can do whatever makes you happy, and I won’t stand in your way. I expect you to do the same for me. I may disagree with you and “fight” you when it comes to politics if I think you’re trying to force your way of life on everyone else, but other than that, I don’t care one way or another.”

This is a good point, SB. God, for me, was just as real as any family member, and likewise someone I was raised with. I never doubted that Granpa exists, and I never doubted God either. I just grew up with them. They both were a fact of life. They were a fact of family life.

Anyway, to answer the question at hand, I certainly would say I loved God in the same way I love my parents and siblings. Infatuation really doesn’t apply to that kind of love.

Later, I realized that, whatever my emotions might be telling me, whatever I might “feel” about God, the whole deal just didn’t make any damn sense.

To clarify—-Only YOU know your past experience—and what went on in your heart. But as an example of what I am saying, my grandmother had two husbands. The second one passed away suddenly. But when you would ask her if she loved her husband she would say “I had the deepest respect for him and I gave him a very expensive and proper burial”.

But if she mentioned her first husband (who had passed way leading to her marriage to the second husband) she didn’t need to say much—the tears in her eyes said it all—you KNEW she loved him very much.

So, a person can “say” they are a Christian, and say they respect and honor God, but they may not really have any love for Him at all. I hope this kind of explains where I am coming from. I don’t want to question your once being a Christian, but at the same time some of your statements make one wonder if you met the Lord, or met your “idea” of the Lord.