Deconversion Program
Offline Something I've been thinking about lately is if we could develop some sort of program to make a systematic attempt to deconvert people, maybe something similar to a 12-step type thing. It seems often we're always aiming at the endzone (no god), where we might want to shoot for some first downs and knock away some layers first. (tackle some of the more clearly ridiculous beliefs and dogma, bring them to some understanding of more basic things.) I would think the "easier" layers would be things like an understanding of burden of proof, working them through their own story on how they were introduced to morality (hoping we can talk about their school, friends, parents, cops if they don't say it's 100% scripture), possibly some clear case-study examples of how scientific method has found answers that scripture has not, logic in plain words, etc. (I'm sure we can find better examples, I'm spitballin here!)
Often it seems like when we get a new theist, we're all very eager to pile on (I admit this is kinda fun, if a little counterproductive) and ask tons of questions, which overwhelm them. For them, the exercise is easy. They just answer with all their scripted answers, but haven't thought a lot further on the issues. It's easy for us to be frustrated rather quickly since we get so many carbon copy arguments, however since they ARE so similar it would see like we could develop a basic approach.
WOTM has their "Are you a GOOD person?" dialogue, which to us seems like an obvious trap to lead people toward their rhetoric, but for them it serves as a uniform approach to lead people toward conversion. We're pretty smart and certainly more sane than Comfort's gang, so it would seem like we could create an effective counter to this approach.
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Sounds like a great idea to me.
I'm not sure how I'd set it up but it seems like a very worthwhile idea.
R/
Lenny
www.kaosium.org
Respectfully,
Lenny
"The righteous rise, With burning eyes, Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies, To beat and burn and kill"
Witch Hunt from the album Moving Pictures. Neal Pert, Rush
Lenny, I'll second your "very worthwhile idea" comment.
Maybe the place to start is by retracing our individual steps toward deconversion, seeing where we started thinking about religion, instead of emoting about it, and seeing if there are some common threads to work with. It maybe worthwhile to ask what kept us in religion as long as we were, and what convinced us to take a different path.
Also, maybe someone can put together a kind of "atheist apologetics" book, for lack of a better description, which would help with answering basic questions, e.g., questions about morals, political goals, the Second Law of Thermodynamics vis-a-vis evolution, etc.
Conor
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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII
"But it should!"--Me
Part 1, that's what I'm getting at. Ignite the thinking that helped us, not throwing the whole kaboodle at them at once.
On the "atheist apologetics" book, I think Atheist Universe (*waves at David Mills*) does this rather well as a resource to pick apart the most common arguments for theism.
What's I'd like to move toward is an approach. Something like you'd see in an addiction support group (without the prayer, obviously... or maybe with prayer, if it works on the person?), which I've never been to.. but I suspect we might be able to get some hints through their methodology.
Yes Yes Yes Yes ....
"Ignite the thinking that helped us, not throwing the whole kaboodle at them at once. "
Sorry for being a lucky drunk , but ya know I do care ....
I will try to improve ..... and be of more help
L O Love, really ....
Atheism Books.
Okay...for me, anyway...I started some halfway serious Bible study while in bootcamp. I did this merely to gain a few "talking points," if ever I got into a disagreement. I ended up feeling somewhat "cheated," for lack of a better phrase, by folks who felt that their beliefs were "more Biblical" than mine. (I am here thinking primarily of Evangelicals; at the time, I was a fairly devout Catholic.) I think it was here that my application of rational thought to religion had its distant beginnings.
Lessons I would draw from this are:
1. Something is not going to happen unless and until the person is ready for it. This does not mean that we stop doing what we're doing; it just means that we haven't necessarily "failed" if we don't end up with a deconvert.
2. It is a great deal easier for someone to think rationally about *somebody* *else's* religion that it is their own. (Perhaps we could start with a nonthreatening discussion of a religion *different* from that of whoever we are dialoguing with, and use that to establish some common ground. Then we show the applicability of these principles to whatever religion the other person actually does believe in.)
3. Logic, in my experience, is inherently ruthless. Once the "logic genie," if you will, is out of the bottle, it may well be only a matter of time. So, part of what we may need to do is more teaching people how to think rationally in general (such as teaching about the "fallacies of relevance," and *why* they invalidate an argument) perhaps ask some searching questions, and then let the chips fall where they may.
That's all I can think of, for now.
Conor
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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII
"But it should!"--Me
[ edit: next morning; Sorry I put this in the wrong thread, I had a couple open browsers going last night, don't remember yet what I was replying too ....
it's all fun Motley Crue songs, the guitarist Mick Mars grew up a few blocks from me. His real name is Bob Deal and his real hair color is naturally red ! Cool dude .... fun guitarist .... great concerts
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Q9dNOKimc&feature=related
YEAH
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBxlAATrd-E
Atheism Books.
Huh. That's odd. This is very similar to how I started. I was raised Southern Baptist and was taught that once you were saved you couldn't fall from salvation. I got into an argument with another christian that believed you could fall from salvation. So I read the bible and found verses that seemed to support both views.
After that I put the bible down and just started to think logically about it all. After a few years I couldn't believe in any of it.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Of course, in my case, Catholic Christianity had the starring role. So, for me, I was in effect "warned" by Catholic apologists whose writings I studied, that there were problems with the Bible. This, of course, is why we need to trust Tradition, because it is infallible--one sign of which is that it *never* changes!
At this point, you can pretty much imagine what I was in for. I was raised in the post-Vatican II Church. Hell, I was conceived in the post-Vatican II Church. Anyway, I was taught from childhood that Catholics believed that non-Catholics could, at least in theory, get to Heaven, even if they died as non-Catholics. So, when my apologetic research lessened its focus on the Bible, and started focusing on statements of Popes and Councils throughout history, I ran across an interesting little nugget from the Council of Florence:
"[The Catholic Church] believes, professes, and teaches that all who are outside of the Catholic Church, not only Pagans, but Jews and heretics as well, will not inherit eternal life, but will depart into that everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels...." (Bear in mind, I'm quoting this from memory. The statement goes on to create one exception: you guessed it, it's becoming a Catholic before you die.)
Not even someone as determinedly Catholic as I could twist that into agreeing with what I was taught in youth. But here's the rub: all Ecumenical Councils...*all* of them...are considered by Catholics to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, so that the Councils in question will not teach error. But what I was taught in youth came straight out of the Second Vatican Council. So either the Holy Spirit lied, the Holy Spirit got sloppy, or something was dead wrong about the entire notion of "the Holy Spirit protecting the Church from error." Further reading showed even more problems: usury, slavery, official attitudes towards the idea of laypeople reading the Bible, statements about Jews (some of which are absolutely appalling by today's standards,) notions of a "heirarchy" among peoples which was part of the justification of slavery, Augustine's distinction between "unjust persecution," (i.e., persecution against the Church, done out of hatred) and "just persecution," (which is what the Church inflicts on others, "out of love." Yes, you read that right. I pretty much said "WTF?" myself, when I saw that.)
These sorts of things are where I brushed up against the Church not only changing her mind (...and what does *that* do to the infallibility that was allegedy proven by the doctrinal *constancy* of the Church, hmmm?); but also evidence that religion, even the religion that raised me, could be...well...evil.
All this leads me to one concern: given that my start on the path of rationality was virtually tailored to the Catholic Church's history, I wonder if it is even possible to develop a single apologetic for the wide diversity of people that have to be dealt with. Someone who was raised as you were, Watcher, in the Southern Baptist understanding of Christianity is most likely not going to be impressed by errors in Roman Catholic teaching. Which means we need one set of knowledge to deal with Roman Catholics, and another to deal with Southern Baptists. And there are many more kinds of theist in the world than just Catholics and Baptists.
I don't mean to be a downer. But I do think that this problem must be faced, sooner or later. A lot can be done with just the Bible. But as my own case proves, arguing against the Bible, while valuable, is not a panacea. Perhaps a partial and temporary solution is to focus rational efforts on Christianity for no better reason than that it is the majority in the U.S., and otherwise keep abreast of how demographics in society change so that if, say, Wicca ever becomes a "majority theist" position, then we focus our efforts on that.
Conor
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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII
"But it should!"--Me
Well I'm not naive enough to think this will be 100% effective (WOTM's shit certainly isn't!) for everyone, however I suppose a goal could be to make it as effective as we can. See if we can consult some psychology pros on how to work with and word this sort of thing.
I guess to lay some foundation, the first things we will need to fill in are the basics.
1. Rules of Engagement - Clear guidelines for the entire conversation. I'll take some stabs:
a. No ad hominem attacks. A good way to raise someone's defenses and shut their ears is by calling them an idiot.
b. One thing at a time. People can easily tune you out if you're confusing or overwhelming them. We have a tendency to throw the book at folks, and they just throw their book back.
c. more ideas?
2. First Contact - What's our opening volley? Should we have a few opening questions that help determine how "deep" they are? We'd probably want to know where on the spectrum they are between brainwashed fundie and only-goes-on-Christmas to setup following questions.
I love the ideas in this thread! Though this is a valid concern:
We probably don't need a different plan for every variety of religion though... I'm sure we can at least tackle quite a few splinters of Christianity with any given argument. Maybe we could assemble a small booklet with the table of contents and/or index arranged by which religions each chapter applies to... or build a web booklet which custom-tailors itself to whichever religion the reader selects by including only those points applicable to that religion. I'm sure we can come up with something.
Anyway, here's my story:
My atheism started not because I thought that it was physically impossible for God to exist, but because I realized that if God did exist, he was an ass bastard. Protestant Christianity, at least many versions of it, teach that people who don't love Jesus are comdemned by God to burn in hell for eternity as punishment for their lack of belief in God. But, Christianity was introduced in the middle east... what about all of the people who lived and died on other continents without ever having been told that God exists? What about the Native American tribes? The Aztecs? The Incas? The Eskimos? The Native Australians and Hawaiins? Am I to believe that an all-powerful, loving God with scores of angels that he could send to earth to teach these ancient cultures about God and save them from being punished by God for not believing in God chose not to do so? It just doesn't make sense. From there, I started to notice other things about God that seemed rather assinine as well, and eventually I decided that even if God did exist, I didn't want to spend eternity as his servant in heaven... even if not doing so meant burning in hell for eternity. Then, it was suddenly very easy for me to drop all of the fear I had about being condemned to hell for not believing in God... and therefore it was very easy to not believe in God or hell anymore (and what a relief it was! goodbye cognitive dissonance).
I'm not sure if my story will be much help, because for most of my younger years I'd classify as an "unbelieving Christian." I'd check the box on the survey, but was only there because it was something my parents put me in. Here's your pre-school, here's your school, here's your church, etc. Before I had a grip it just seemed like a place to sit and wait for the cookies afterward.
I'd wonder what a "calling" was like because I never heard voices. Nothing but people spoke to me, and I never detected voices other than my own in my brain. I didn't "get it," I was just bored. Probably the basic question that started to lure me away from it was "If there are so many religions, how can I be sure this one is the right one? Is there a right one?"
I also noticed that for a bunch of people that paid lipservice to wanting to help out people, sure did waste a lot of time each week just sitting around and singing (poorly) instead of using that time to actually help people.
It also seemed odd to me that the Bible mentioned all this magic stuff happening, which didn't match current day experiences. I wondered things like "why doesn't magic happen anymore?" and "why doesn't god speak directly from the sky anymore?"
So I'd say from childhood through part of my teens I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I know I didn't like the church or going to it, but I don't think I'd really started to peel back the layers. I'd probably still check the box, since that was the church I "belonged to" but was technically more agnostic.
I think my clear separation happened in a philosophy class at the University of Michigan. Starting to really consider the problem of evil, different perspectives on free will, the brain in a jar concept, the "is death bad?", etc. We'd get a maximum of a B for knowing the material, but an A was only for original thought.
So for me, it was really being forced back into my own head with all these new bones to chew on and letting myself consider the option that "god is imaginary" as part of the possible answer set.
Wait... you mean there are children who are raised as Christians who don't start out like this?
I've heard of people CHOOSING to become one as an adult. Boggles my mind.
Ah...first contact...there's the rub, isn't it? At least Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, for all their nonsense, know what they are going to say to someone to start a conversation. We *do* know that our general goal is to get people thinking rationally about religion, in a way that includes religion's warts (...which are many.) I haven't thought of an idea, yet, but I'll keep checking in, here.
Conor
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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII
"But it should!"--Me
Deconversion - of that god of abe
I can promise you mythical superstitious Christians that looking into the ideas of progressive modern ever "New Buddhism in Real Tradition" will change your ideas about cool God Jesus the wonderful !
Please Xians, do fourty days with your devil, then get back to me .....
Atheism Books.
Well any program I can think of (like a 12 step, or AA) is done in person. I'm not sure a program like this necessarily lends itself to the internet unless you can actually have interaction with a person (ie. chat) So am I right in assuming that we are talking about some kind of center, or physical place that people can come to? That has a ton of bearing on how you would go about things.
I think in order not to turn the target people off just with the advertising you would need doubt to be the central theme. Most people have their doubts. What if there was a place they could go that offered a comparative religion class and groups or even ouncellors. There they could educate themselves, talk with others having a similar experience, or get councelled. They could either stringthen their faith through study (hey it's possible ;-P) or be councelled about their doubt. What I'm getting at is make the whole process a bit unassuming. Let them know that this is a place to learn about religion, while not hiding the fact that we are nuetral in that we back no specific religion, and are willing to help explore doubts. The name Secular Center for Religious Doubt came to mind. If you have deconversion in the name or the literature I doubt you'd get many takers. Also if the only aim of the place is to decovert I think it would have the same effect.
At "first contact" they would either need to fill out a questionaire or have a one on one councelling session where the councelor would assess the person's position and determine a course of action for them. If their doubts are far along they could join in a group environment.
Am I on the same page as what you guys were thinking or was everyone basically thinking internet based? I think having a physical place to come, where you could talk to real, caring people would be an immense help. I realize that requires much more organization, and logistics but the Christians organize non-profit stuff like this all the time. I know we could if that was our goal. I've been getting the itch to do some real actvism lately, can ya tell?
"They always say the same thing; 'But evolution is only a theory!!' Which is true, I guess, and it's good they say that I think, it gives you hope that they feel the same about the theory of Gravity and they might just float the f**k away."
I think that the key, whether or not it's real world or live on the net is that this type of thing is "discussion" based. So in the chat, live on skype, etc.. would be ok, and definitely in person would probably be better. But agree the idea isn't like a self-help book, where we'd expect people to read a bunch of stuff and then go "AH HA!" (we sorta have a lot of that already)
In trying to think more about this first contact line of questioning, some ideas.
1. Do you consider yourself a superstitious person? - Maybe we can ask if they believe anyone can predict lotto numbers, if they can wish hard to effect outcomes of sports events, etc. This could lead to some irrational meanings our brains might create for things and a positive outcome bias. Things like "When I wear a silly hat, my team wins! So I must always wear a silly hat."
2. Is Spider-Man a real person? How do you know? Something related to how we tell the difference between fantasy and reality in real life. Maybe ask how they know certain comic book heroes, videogame characters and so on are not real, but people in history books were. (Corroboration of evidence concepts, etc.)
Unfortunately, I have limited access to the internet right now, so I can only be brief. Essentially, the topic of this thread is something I've been thinking a lot about in the last couple of years.
If we could selectively harvest all the good things in religion and filter out all the bad things, what would that look like? Sure, there might be some 'spirituality', but does that require believing in anything supernatural? No. Look at AA and the other twelve steps. They call for a belief in a 'higher power' but that higher power can be anything you choose. It is the 'god of your understanding' as they say. They openly welcome agnostics and atheists.
What's really going on is that all the language of the supernatural is hiding the basic reality of 'spiritual' psychology, which I've narrowed down to the idea of intuition.
Understanding intuition allows you to understand the religious/spiritual mind. I define intuition as the natural ability of the human brain to make pretty good guesses based on limited information. We all have intuition, it's not limited to the spiritual/religious. Atheists tend to see the weaknesses in intuition and do not trust it very much. We tend to look for fallacies and irrationalities, and that's why most of the hardcore atheists value reason and logic so much. However, there is a value in intuition that I think most atheists don't openly acknowledge, and that value is in feeling at ease with yourself, with life, etc. Not to say that atheists can't feel at ease, just that we don't openly acknowledge that it is a certain intuitive state of mind that we are in when we feel this way.
If we can start building a vocabulary of naturalistic language that talks about intuition without any woo woo superstition baggage, then we can start decoding different religious beliefs and hence illustrate a path out of the maze of dogma for each individual believer.
Got to go, so I'll just end with a few hypothetical ideas. All words are metaphors for the concepts they are associated with in our minds. Metaphor is an intuitive way of understanding ideas. The word 'god' is a metaphor for 'The Unknown'. It is the most universal of metaphors, because there is some 'unknown' in all things.
Each person speaks his/her own language. Yes, we all speak English here, but we all have slightly different conceptions of each word in our vocabulary. That's why we argue over definitions. Our rational language is different than a theist's supernaturalist language. There are three ways to communicate with someone who speaks a different language: Learn their language and speak it, teach them our language, OR define a translation, through metaphor, from one language to the other. I propose that we pursue the third path. Find out what their metaphors are, see how they relate to our metaphors about science, reason, etc., and then explain their beliefs using this translation.
The starting point is the metaphor of God The Unknown. How can anyone claim they know something about the unknown? They can't. They are talking about something that they sense intuitively. They 'know' it but they don't know how they know it. That's intuition. Find out what it is they are talking about and we'll have the key to the translation.
For example, the metaphor of being born again is about achieving a certain altered state of mind. We can relate that metaphor to other religions, to meditation, and finally to a naturalistic explanation of 'being born again'.
Gotta go.
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Hi,
I appreciate this thread a lot. It seems that you all have a genuine interest in figuring out how to help people to deconvert without overwhelming them. I am probably about halfway through the process myself. I'm just about completely agnostic...if that's not an oxymoronical phrase. But I'm having the most difficult time with the emotional attachment to Religion. It's fear, mostly. Fear that I may be wrong...fear of hell, etc. I can see it as irrational, but I'm having difficulty finding websites, books, etc. which deal with this issue.
Is it something that's just going to take time; or is there something I can do to hasten the process?
Welcome laridd,
RRS will definately help ....
, a place where people care ... don't let some of the anger here freak ya ,
NO < , there is no way to " hasten the process? "
You are on your own, "condemmed to be free", .... god daddy in the sky is a fantacy ....
go slow, don't miss the details .... I screamed when I was born , how about you .....
god does that you know !
life ???
Hey try science
Atheism Books.
Thanks,
I do like science, and I have been reading a lot about it lately, actually. I just finished a book by Carl Sagan and I'm currently reading Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I've also read Hitchens and Dawkins. I think all of these people make really good arguements, and they confirm deep seated doubts I've had since I was little--mainly that if God exists as the Bible describes him, he's monstrous enough to outshine any boogeyman from any culture.
I keep reading about people who are from religious backgrounds who doubted and then one day it just "clicked" and they were able to let go of religion. I suppose I'll just have to be patient and keep reading. It seems kind of like having to rewrite a program...it'll take a while to find all the glitches.
In the mean time, I'd love to hear more about the process of deconversion...now that I am considering science and logic...and am trying to be patient...trying to find help from others who've gone through the same process...what should my next step be?
Keep reading Carl Sagan! Over and over. Read his books! He'll teach you how to think properly.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I am like you in the sense that my rational mind knows that the Abrahamic god ( I was raised as a protestant Christian ) is a total fabrication. I am well aware of the many good arguments against the existence of God, much less the existence of a supernatural realm.
I have been an apostate for 5 or 6 years now and yet I still struggle with the emotional baggage of my former faith. I am jealous of the atheists who abandoned their Christian faith and, metaphorically speaking, never looked back.
IMHO Christianity is very similar to a cult; for some of us letting go of our former belief system is not an easy or an instantaneous process. I have yet to reach that emotional " comfort zone" that many other ex-christians seem to take for granted.
Actually, you bring up an additional point that's very valid in my case. I used to be a member of the International Churches of Christ, which is very much considered a cult. It's taken some time to get past their teachings...not that I'm all the way there. But I do see your point that all religions may be cults. I'm beginning to think that I'm going to need to spend as much time, if not more time, studying people like Sagan, Dawkins, and Hitchins as I ever have studying the Bible...in order to get that old mindset out of my system.
I went from devout Lutheran to rock-solid atheist over the course of my Freshman year at college. Two things really did it for me. The first was that I began to struggle with the concept of free-will. The second is that I was actually exposed to people with different beliefs than myself. I'm not sure either of those approaches will help.
COME TO THE DARK SIDE -- WE HAVE COOKIES
Thank you. I think you've hit it. Getting other viewpoints is a very big thing. I think it goes back to the beginning question of the thread, too. People had been speaking first contact, and how to open up, but I think that something which has been very important to me are those people with other views who were patient with me while I came around out of my skewed viewpoints and who stood firm in their sanity while I was still religious.
Woah! It's already working and we're not even done with it!
Kidding aside, I think that's an important point in general. Simply being exposed to more belief systems was a core part of what turned me. (deturned?) It was a transition between thinking things like "Why does their god care when they eat fish?" or "Why does their god make them dress like a genie?" to "Why do these rule sets make sense at all? Who made them?" and "If there are thousands of these belief systems, what are the odds any of them have it right?"
Which leads to "Uh oh... out of thousands of these things, why would I expect the local one my parents just happen to put me in be more "true" than anything else?"
Evidence of gods: Little to none
Evidence man just made gods up: Tons!
*Giggles*
But yeah, they can't all be right. It reminds me of the scene in "Childhood's End" where the historians all wanted the tapes the Overlords had made of history...and come to find out that ALL religions were wrong. It was devistating and sobering all at the same time and people changed because of it.
Can't we just strap them to a chair, duck tape their eyes open and make them watch flashy cartoons with subliminal messages for hours and hours on end? ~_^ jk I really like these ideas. You know who also does this stuff really well, but for the wrong side? "Liberty" "university" students. They do this stuff all the time. It would be nice to see what kinda of system they have set up, and then re-write it ofcourse. They always start off with some variation of "So where do you think you will go when you die?" But I think the idea of starting small with easy to identify things is an absolute must! I think it would be a good idea to throw in the socratic method somewhere in there. Ask stuff like "why are ancient greek myths "myths" but not christian "mythology". One thing I can't help from thinking about is that we might need to take into account that it will be hard for many to contemplate a world without religion. I remember when I deconverted I spent many hours just thinking about the implications of history with no god. (I'm a history major) All those wars of religion were for nothing, all those kings claiming "divine right" were just playing on superstitions, etc etc. We might also like to point out that everything ever said about god has been said by man. When you go to church on sunday you hear a human talk about god, the bible was written by humans claiming to be divinely "inspired" and all we have in the way of proof of their experiences is their word, when someone tells you "the will of god is x" you have to just look at them and see them for what they are, human.
Hi, I have a different view on how deconversion tactics should be done. Something I've learned from experience. I was a conservative Christian up until 3 months ago. My deconversion began while I was going to a Southern Baptist Bible College in Dallas.
To get to the point, you all are aware that most Christians aren't very educated about science. What they do know, they don't care to trace out the implications it has on their beliefs. Now for those who consider themselves Christians and love science, you might can show them how their mythology is debunked by what we now know. But that is if they love science.
The key to deconversion tactics is to understand a persons psychology. In the book, In Gods We Trust, Atran points out that people want religion for multiple psychological reasons. People don't just believe in Jebus because they think he created everything, they feel important and loved and like they know the "Truth". I'm just saying its better to appeal to a persons psychology than their need for scientific explanation, which in religious folks is nada mucho.
My reasons for deconverting were largely ethical. I saw the evils of religion and the Bible. I thought of Gandhi in hell and said, nuh uh, i don't care if you're god you're not putting Gandhi in hell. Appealing to someones sense of respect for humanity is important, but respect for humanity is diminished in Christians because of the doctrine of Original Sin.
My girlfriend deconverted after I did. She was never sure of Christianity in the first place so it was easy for her. She had family members that were "going to hell" because they weren't "true followers". I think everyone has a place where they feel emotionally disconnected from their beliefs, and you have to find that place.
And like how Dan Barker talked his Mom out of Christianity, you can show a person the cruelties in the Bible and tell them they are nicer than the god of the Bible.
I really have more hope in ethical, philosophical, emotional, and psychological appeals than scientific ones when it comes to getting someone to shake off their blindness.
There is more than one way to skin a religion.
Although I wasn't a lifelong believer I know its hard to get that stuff out of your life. I really wanted to hang on to Jesus for the longest time, even though I didn't believe the Bible or god anymore. For me it helped to be able to listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I worked so I could be learning about atheism and other viewpoints a lot. Another big help in my deconversion over the last few months has been Joseph Campbell, the religious historian mythology guy. His videos and books will help you see the value of myths without confusing them with facts. Although he doesn't have anything good to say about Christianity, being a useless, anti-nature, anti-human mythology, he has some interesting things to say about other myths and their importance to the human psyche.
Welcome to the forums, Refused.