My wife and i were both strong christians but I'm drifting in a new direction with my beliefs. What do I do.

Question

My wife of five years and I have two children and have always been involved with our large evangilical church. I, always being the thinker, am starting to have reservation about some aspects of christian belief and ideas. My wife is not very open to discussions that challenge any church beliefs or doctrine and I feel very alone and unsure about everything.
Sometimes I feel I don't have a right to believe what I want, like, this is what I am and now I don't have a right not to believe that perhaps there really is no such thing as a heaven or hell, holy trinity, be born again or burn forever. The older I get, the more I think about it, the more contrived it all appears.

My wife on the other hand, would fall apart at the mention of any of these things and it becomes somewhat suffocating for me.

please help

Answer 1

I'm just guessing but you are not currently in a small group or close association with other brothers of like mind, are you?

You probably go to church one hour each Sunday, and maybe a couple of fellowship things a year, and call yourself and evangelical Christian, right?

Therein lies the trouble. When you separate yourself from the fellowship, and don't read your Bible daily and devotionally, or pray regularly, you are going to drift. What's also happening, if you're honest, is that some fleshly desire is pressing on you....lust maybe? That babe at the office looks good, huh? Maybe the babysitter winked at you? The devil is using all this to set you adrift. If you think its bad now, wait until the divorce. You'll lose both your kids, pay child support you can't afford, and Buffy suddenly won't want anything to do with you.

Get saturated in Christ, brother. Immerse yourself in the Bible, inspirational and educational books, pray with your wife and kids, and realize its the enemy working on you because you are losing your connection. This is life and death stuff man. Do the right thing, or get counseling. When you lose your kids, it won't be so profound to you anymore that you think you know a better way. I pray for you, because I've been through that cycle, divorce and total disaster. I'm just now recovering, but I can't regain the loss of seeing my son grow up without me. Get professional, Christian counseling NOW.

Answer 2

A movie that had a significant impact on me was "What the bleep do we know" www.whatthebleep.com

It's an amazing film that you should show your wife it helps path the way for enlightenment it does not discount GOD in fact you walk away with a new appreciation of God.

I wish you much on this journey of discovery and enlightenment - it's amazing - I have never felt more alive, free, happy and renewed.

Considered this?

Turn off your "bullshit" filters before you read on, just open yourself up to another possibility.

The story goes that 14 billion years ago there was a big bang and an amazing amount of **** happened. When I say 14 billion it’s just a number and it’s hard for our little brains to fully appreciate. So consider that if we were to take a walk and every step we took represented 1000 years we would have to walk 140 thousand kilometers to represent the time line of things past. The last six steps of the journey is recorded history, the last foot print is the age of technology and the last and the last toe imprint we leave on this 140 thousand kilometer journey is our time here on this planet.

Now consider that the area of the screen you are looking at represents everything that is known to be FACT proven beyond reasonable doubt that is known to man everything in every library, every university, and every web site everything that man knows to be FACT.

Ask yourself how much of this do you know yourself. What area of this screen would you know yourself – think about it. It would probably be represented by one pixel.

So if all you know to be true is one pixel and in the 140 000 kilometer journey your time here is represented by a toe imprint we really know very little about this great cosmos we live within – yet we all believe we have all the answers.

Is it not possible that there is so much more to know but we turn on our inhibiting bullshit filters to disregard stuff that could be a possibility?

We don’t have all the answers and it is possible we have got it all incredibly wrong, given that only a couple of hundred years ago we discovered that the earth wasn’t flat, wasn’t the centre of the universe and our planet revolved around the sun and then we discovered our sun wasn’t the centre of the universe.

We are incredible creature here to create and discover, let’s put aside all our differences and join together to celebrate this amazing gift we have been given, the gift of life. We are all searching for the truth perhaps what we have been lead to believe isn’t what is perhaps if we all stopped and had a good educated think we might just see that life is really simple and life is meant to be a journey of fun and discovery. We should all be looking for enlightenment. And to find enlightenment we must open our mind to the potential of new discoveries.

Take time to consider think this through and like me you will find an inner peace that will take you places you never thought possible.

If you would like some more stuff email me - I'd be happy to help you discover what works for you.

Answer 3

There is far too many things that argue against theism, let alone Christianity. The Bible itself is a great tool for atheism. We simply need to highlight some things here and there to prove that 1) it was not divinely inspired and 2) some of the claims are quite impossible and takes a fair bit of intellectual dishonesty to believe. The complete lack of evidence for any deity is the strongest argument. There is simply no reason to believe this nonsense. Could Christians be right? Sure - I think it's astronomically unlikely in my mind. But I admit it's POSSIBLE. Could there be a "creator" of some sort? Sure. There is just no evidence. I'm open to the possibility. It's just that, at this moment in time, there is simply no reason to believe them. There may be in the future (though it seems the more we go the more we rule it out) - but not now.

Answer 4

You have the right to question anything you don't understand as long as it's done with respect. At the end of the day you are the one that has to live with yourself and be happy with your own spiritual path and the most important thing is to be true to yourself. You have to follow your own heart. I'm in a similar situation (although my husband isn't really a practising christian). I too have been questioning my christian upbringing and I've now decided that I am currently without faith. There are other religions that do make more sense to me but I haven't learned enough about them to make a spiritual commitment to any of them. Sometimes, the journey of spiritual enlightenment is more important than the end result or where you end up. Just keep asking your questions and take your time to figure things out for yourself. Your wife should respect that you are currently having a crisis of faith and try and answer your questions with honestly and help you to discover your own path if necessary. You are not evil or anything so just keep searching. Every human being has the right to ask questions. Good luck :)

Answer 5

Why are you having reservations? Are these doubts, or are these reservations based upon studying you have done? If you haven't researched much but feel they are more your doubts then go and start researching.
As far as things go with your wife, perhaps you could sit down one night after the kids are asleep and honestly talk to her. As we both know, the key to a good marriage is communication. Ask her what she believes life is about and tell her you aren't trying to challenge her beliefs by any means. Let her know that you are doing some soul searching and you just need her support during this bumpy time for you. Her duty to you is to be by your side through thick and thin and she should know that already.
I know this is all easier said than done but I have been in a similar situation and I did finally get it out with my loved ones. It's hard but you grow through it.

Answer 6

Try to find a way to ease her into being a little more open minded.
Don't necessarily challenge her beliefs right away. Just see if you can get her to start thinking about some new things along the lines of where you are going.
Slowly bring up new ideas and let her get used to them before you introduce anything else new.
I can only try to imagine the difficulty you are having. It is hard when couples drift apart for whatever the reason, but because of one who is growing spiritually, while the other stagnates, that is even harder.

Answer 7

Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, besides Him there is no other way, anyone saying there is is deceived. There are several things that can cause you to start doubting:
(Mark 4:19 KJV) And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
A regular diet of the word of God is what keeps you spiritually healthy, if you allow bunches of trash into your mind then, God's word will be of no effect. The book of Revelation warns of many that will become lukewarm just before the return of Jesus, but you can choose not to be lukewarm by setting your heart back on Jesus and not things.

Answer 8

My opinion...you are under a spiritual attack..it is quite possible that God has big plans for you and you are being tested and tempted...it is not wrong for you to have questions because God wants us to be able to give a reason why we have the faith that we do. You need to pray and you also need to talk to your wife so that she will know what you are going through, whatever you do do not stop fighting the good fight of faith. I too would start fighting the doubts that are coming after you with the word of God. That is the way that we win this battle by our testimony and the blood of Jesus. Peace

Answer 9

You need to talk to a preacher and get real advise. If you listen to alot of people on here you will be atheist before you have a chance to vote best answer. And you knows what will happen if you turn atheist now after knowing Jesus. Seriously take to a preacher and pray that is the safest way for you right now. You are much too vulnerable right now. Good luck and God Bless

Answer 10

I understand you completely. After 7 years of marriage, I finally admitted to my husband that I was done with Christianity. It was a similar thought pattern to yours: doubt of heaven and hell, disagreement with the Church's treatment of gays, disbelief in the Holy Trinity, etc.

But when I finally said it to him, he just shrugged and admitted he had only been pretending to be into church all these years because he thought it make me happy.

So here we are, with him being the Agnostic/Atheist fence sitter and me being 3/4 Atheist and 1/4 Wiccan. The kids are happy and normal, and not in therapy or anything.

Feel free to email me if you want!