amire

Hey, everyone. I can't tell you what a wonderful joy it has been to come to the TFP over the last few years and participate in some really interesting, intelligent, and -- most importantly -- civil conversation. I'm in a bit of a quandary, and I'm wondering what experiences or advice you guys have had in the past with this type of thing. I HATE reading really long posts, so I'll try to be as concise as I can be.

In a nutshell, I am losing faith in my religion -- Christianity -- and I am very concerned about how this will affect my life in terms of my relationships with my family and friends. I am not too worried about how it will affect my morals or actions...I'm rather excited about the implications, as a matter of fact. But I'm very worried about the social and familial aspect.

I'll deal with the easier case, first: my friends. Over the past years in my life, my closest friends have come from the church. My first crush was on a girl in Sunday School class. My first date was with a girl I met in church. Every summer was spent at a Christian retreat and on a missions trip. Every Friday night was spent with Christian friends I had met in the church. In effect, Christianity was my social outlet. The church was like a home. Now that I'm pushing away from it, I'm worried that relationships with my friends will fracture.

Many of my church friends did have non-Christian friends, but this is slightly different, as we related on a spiritual level. How do I tell my friends about the change in my life? Do I tell them at all? Some of them will HONESTLY, GENUINELY believe that I am going to Hell, and they will LITERALLY WEEP for me if I tell them...what should I do?

The answer seems relatively obvious...get new friends. I am in college, seven hours away from home. So I can easily find new social outlets and meet new people. I have already started. But still...I don't know what I should do about my friends at home.

My main concern is my family. They raised me in the church from infancy. My parents are the kindest, sweetest people I know, and I do not want to hurt them. I can't imagine how much it will pain them to hear that I no longer am a Christian. Again...they will never stop worrying about me and feeling awful about my decision. They are very loving people and would NOT ostracize me...but I worry that I would hurt them incredibly.

So what should I do? Should I simply not tell them and put on an act forever? Should I just tell them outright? I feel that it would be a huge blow to them...I don't feel right dealing the blow.

There are obviously a lot of other issues involved in losing a religion. Where do my morals come from, now? How do I stop feeling GUILTY about a lot of things I do? Will Sunday EVER be a normal day for me? How do I deal with death? It's interesting, because I feel that those are probably more important questions in the long run, but right now they take a back seat to the immediate consequences. I'll learn to answer those questions with time. But these immediate questions are hard to deal with because I have no other EXPERIENCE interacting with my family and friends outside of Christianity.

Thank you SO much for listening to this long-winded post. I greatly look forward to hearing your advice and anecdotes.

If my search missed a thread similar to this one, please close it and direct me to the right one! I did a search, but the index is down, as many know, so I didn't get any relevant hits.

Thanks again!