Hello everyone.

This is going to be a long post.

I have been and “on-again/off-again” Christian for most of my life, mostly due to pressure from Christians in my life who keep pressuring me to believe. Starting at a very early age I have had a combination of personality traits which aren’t conducive to being a Christian; I am curious and pragmatic. When I was a child I loved hearing ghost stories, trying out ESP, playing with a Ouija board, and watching scary movies, and watching TV shows about UFOs, big foot, and other “unexplained” things (“In Search Of”, X Files, etc.). I also love shows about science (like Nova). I was the kid who doubted Santa pretty early. I was the kid who liked to be scared of monsters and ghosts but figured out early that none of that stuff really exists. When I was a teenager my friends and I would go into graveyards to take pictures to see if we could get one of a ghost…and guess what, we never did because they don’t exist. As I got older I did more and more research and found that all of this stuff is not real. My parents became born again Christians back when I was about 10 years old. There was plenty of pressure for me to believe, but it all felt like another Santa Clause story to me. Yet, I played along and tried very hard to believe. When I was 15 my parents opened a Christian bookstore, where I worked part time into my early 20’s. This created even more pressure, and I played along and tried to believe…..yet, working in that bookstore did more harm than good. It exposed me to many “Crazy Christians” and brought to my attention how differently people perceived god. By my mid 20’s I no longer believed, but kept it under wraps from my family. I got married (to a non-Christian who later became a Wiccan) and later got divorced (not related to religious choice, but due to her choice to have multiple affairs). Then I got back in touch with my ex-girl fiend from high school. We dated and got married. Her parents are die-hard born again Christians. She was a Christian, but not nearly as much as her parents. We got married and were happy. We didn’t attend church for the years we dated and the first couple of years of marriage. She knew I was a doubter, but again I tried to believe (at least some of what she believed) and avoided arguing. She has a daughter from a previous marriage and decided that she wanted her to attend church to learn about God. I figured, “what’s the harm” and started to attend to support her. Things were fine. I was buying into some of it. We attended a Baptist church. The music was good. The pastor is a very genuine guy and his sermons were good as far as I could apply the message to living a better life. Over the next few years my wife has become more and more involved with the church (volunteering, multiple bible studies, watching lots of YouTube videos, Christian TV and movies, etc.) I was hesitant to get involved. I was ok with attending church and saying grace at dinner time, but just didn’t want to be immersed in too much of it. Then one day the worst thing happened; about a year ago the pastor stood on the stage, held a bible over his head, and said “If you don’t believe that this book contains the irrefutable, 100% historically accurate, “God inspired” word of God…then you are not a Christian.” WOW! That hit me right between the eyes! I had never read the Bible. I was just going on what I heard about it. Then the story of Noah came into my mind and I thought, “I absolutely don’t believe that story is historical truth.” Then a few other storied came to mind which I didn’t believe either: Creation, Garden of Eden, Parting of the Red Sea, etc. Being incredibly curious and pragmatic I realized that I needed to read the Bible, and I was hoping beyond hope to find something which would make me believe. I even prayed each night before I started reading that God would show me something, anything that would lead me to believe. I started that night. Needless to say I was horrified at what I read (and as of now I am only a bit more than halfway through). It became glaringly obvious to me that very little (if any) of what I was reading was “historically accurate.” Not to mention that large amounts of it made me realize how evil the God of the old testament is depicted. This is a being I would NEVER worship. Then there is all the absolutely ridiculous stuff (a talking donkey!!!) and enormous list of stupid laws. This triggered me to start researching and taking notes. As of right now I have over 50 pages of notes on thing in the bible which make no sense or are just evil. Plus I have a long list of questions to which the only real answer is “there is no God.” Whatever little belief I had was quickly eroding away. I mentioned my doubts to my wife and she pulled in her parents. I asked them some of my questions and they gave me the same old justifications about the “old covenant” vs the “new covenant”, you “just need to accept and believe”, and “you need to really research and study the bible with people who understand it better”, etc. I tried to throw logic at the, but it didn’t help (and I really didn’t expect it would as you can’t use logic to argue with emotion). My wife began to get more and more worried about me. She also became extremely frustrated and angry with me any time I questioned anything in the bible. Finally I gave up and just started playing along again.

But, I have reached a point where I am undoubtedly an atheist. I love my wife and I am extremely worried that our marriage will be destroyed if I come clean and just admit that I don’t believe. There is no use in trying to bring her over to my side, as any time I question anything she just gets angry and frustrated.

Any feedback is welcome.