Does anyone know of a support group based in the UK, either real or virtual?
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Try a local Meet Up.... UK is a big place. Are you rich enough to fly from country to country?? The number of atheists in the UK have reached their highest level ever and a simple search for Humanist UK or Atheist UK will get you lists of groups. This question really does not make much sense.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article.../Number-atheists-UK-reaches-h......
Sep 4, 2017 - The study on religious affiliation found that the proportion of people in Britain who now describe themselves as having no religion has reached ...
@ksgm34 Re: Support Group
By golly, you are in one right now. Come on in and make yourself at home. Sit back and relax, or ask questions, or rant and rave, or tell Cog to kiss your ass. (He loves it when people tell him that.... *snicker*...) If you need some advice or just a place to unload your mind a bit, you have come to the right spot. Welcome aboard.
Tin-Man: kiss my shiny, metal ass!
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@Chicken Re: "kiss my shiny, metal ass!"
Aww, man. I appreciate the offer, but I just had it freshly buffed and I don't want any smudges on it..... (just yet).... *waggling eyebrows*....
ksgm34: "Does anyone know of a support group based in the UK, either real or virtual?"
Don't know about the UK, but as Tin-Man said (and I am stealing his words ;-P): "By golly, you are in one right now."
Come on in join us. The insanity is a breath of fresh air. Rant, dump bullshit from the world, put a smackdown on a theist.
If troubled, tell us about it. We're here to help anyone and everyone. Feel free.
rmfr
Thanks all. I’m looking for support specifically from ex Christians who have the insider perspective, and bearing in mind Christianity in the UK is different to a lot of the forms it seems to take in the States.
Cognostic, yes, the UK is very secular which I think is why I’m struggling to find this kind of support here.
@ksgm34 Re: "I’m looking for support specifically from ex Christians who have the insider perspective..."
Yep, still in the right place. Many of us here escaped from the confines of religion that had us trapped within a suffocating and convoluted mental state of anxiety and indecision. I happen to be one of those escapees. And even though my indoctrination was not nearly as severe as it was for others on here, it still took me a vast majority of my life to finally shake loose those last few clinging tendrils of that insidious threat of hell. So, please be assured there are many here from all parts of the world who can certainly share an "insider perspective" with you. And we are all happy to help in any way we can.
Thank you Tin-Man. I don’t know how to quote you but real anxiety and indecision is definitely where I’m at. I’d pretty much let go of the beliefs I was raised with over the last few years, which always held fear rather than comfort for me, but having my second baby last month triggered all the old fear plus some because I’m afraid for my children of the consequences of being wrong about it. At the same time I absolutely don’t want them to have the fear I have had if there’s no truth in it.
You keep saying UK, How is anyone to help you. That like asking for a support group in Africa. It makes no sense. What do you think the UK is?
Sorry I’m not sure I understand your comment. I’d like to be able to speak with/ possibly meet up with people in the country I live in who understand what I’m going through. One of the hardest things for me is not being able to have real time face to face conversations about my worries.
@ksgm34 Re: "One of the hardest things for me is not being able to have real time face to face conversations about my worries."
Hey there, ks. Glad to see you are still with us. Believe me, I can relate to that. For starters, I live in the middle of the Bible Belt here in the good ol' U. S. of A. Suffice it to say, any atheist meeting venues around here are likely to get torched if discovered by any ONE of the hundreds of local churches. lol Next, my wife and I live in a somewhat isolated rural area. Nice and quiet the way I like it. However, very few folks around for socializing, as you might guess. Not that I am very social in the first place. Sure, on here (the AR) I love to interact and cut up and act all goofy, but in real life I am far more reserved and generally prefer to keep to myself.
Anyway, point is, when I finally started making my decision to completely break away from religion, I had nobody to discuss things with other than my wife. (Well, I do have one atheist buddy who lives a couple of miles down the road from me, but we didn't know each other very well at that point.) And I had soooo many questions and thoughts flooding my mind it was about to drive me crazy. So my wife suggested I join some type of atheist debate site. A quick Google search and - Ta-daaa! - here I am. This December 1st will be my one year anniversary here on the AR.
If you have questions. If you have thoughts/ideas on which you need feedback. If you simply need a place to rant and rave and get shit out of your system.... This is a great place to do it. Yes, face to face discussions with real people is always nice and does have its advantages. Speaking from personal experience, though, this little oasis of (in)sanity has done wonders in helping me free my mind and lighten my heart. Hopefully it can do the same for you if you give it a chance. And please feel free to PM me if you have questions you prefer not to ask in open court. *chuckle* Take care.
@ksgm34 ….
Not sure this will help but..... if you go to the Home page here..... http://www.atheistrepublic.com/
Select "Resources"..... then select "Meet an Atheist in Your City" …… then select "England"...
It looks to connect you to a republic "Consulate" in a selection of English towns who may be able to better direct you..... but it does seem to use Facebook..... and as I'm not a Facebook user I can tell you no more.
but hope it helps.
Thank you watchman, will check this out
ksgm34,
Why do you need a support group? What kind of help do you expect to get from one? Are you fearful of dying and still want the comfort of a Christian funeral and burial? Do yo want people to reassure you about becoming an atheist?
Use Google = https://www.google.com/search?q=atheist+support+groupds+in+england&ie=ut...
Diotrephes, I’d like to be able to speak with people who are going through/ have recently been through a similar situation and who will understand the things that keep dragging me back into a state of fear that Christianity could be true
ksgm34,
I can understand that but there are a lot of atheist support groups in Britain. Not all of them have the same focus so you have to be clear with yourself about what you want from a support group. Some concentrate on finding atheist romantic partners. Others might focus on why they are atheists. And others might focus on how to cope with the uncertainty of death and what is after it, if anything.
You didn't say what your concern is so that I why I asked the blunt questions. You have to know what a person's problem is in order to offer relevant suggestions for how to deal with it. On this forum we seem to primarily shoot the breeze about general issues. There is no romance involved. And we generally don't discuss a lot about what is after death because the consensus seems to be that once we die we are done. There is no reunion with loved ones, eternal life in the golden cube, or eternal life in hell or the lake of fire. But atheists on other sites might focus on those things, that is why you need to be clear to yourself about what kind of support group you need.
Christianity and Islam are very similar in that they have the same basic beliefs. They believe in zombies, ghosts, demons, angels, spirits, a deity, resurrection, eternal life. Muslims believe in eternal punishment in hell but the Christian fairy tale doesn't actually share that belief. The biblical Christian belief is that when you die you might go to hell if you don't just stay dead or end up in the sea but all three places are temporary and you will make bail on Judgment Day. At that time you will be judged on your works and even if yo were in hell you cold still get into the golden cube. If you flunk out you will be tossed into the lake of along with hell and death. That is known as the second death. The sea will ceased to exist.
In Islam when you die you stay dead until Judgment Day and then you get resurrected and judged. If yo are a guy and pass you get your own private paradise with a couple of 90 foot tall translucent women creatures, some regular women who revert to virgins after sex, and a herd of cute boys and a permanent erection. Most of the people in hell will be women. Everyone in hell will be tortured for eternity.
So what do you fear about Christianity being true? The worse that can happen is that you will get tossed into the lake of fire but then you would cease to exist. You won't have to spend eternity singing Yahweh's praises 24/7/365 non stop.
@ksgm34
Welcome to AR!
There is no need to fear death or hell.
As an Atheist I live free of the guilt of sin and the fear of Hell.
Hell is a human construct, used to control people.
Death is part of the cycle of life.
@ Diotrephes
Damn, dude. That is about the most uncompunctious thing I have seen you post.
rmfr
arakish,
Well, people have been discussing death and dying and eternal life and all of that stuff. It's only natural to associate those things with the desire to join a support group. However, there are some atheist dating sites in the UK. It makes sense to determine what people are looking for when they ask for help.
Secular Therapy Project (Online therapy for people leaving religion.)
https://www.seculartherapy.org/
London Black Atheists (They will likely give you are referral if you don't want to talk to them.)
https://www.meetup.com/London-Black-Atheists/?_cookie-check=Hh0-iDQdvvMt...
Related topics:
Humanism · Skeptics · Agnostic · Freethinker · Secularism · Separation of Church and State · Freedom From Religion · Critical Thinking · Brights
Central London Humanists
London, United Kingdom3,157 members
Public group
Richard Dawkins's site is in England.
https://www.atheismuk.com/about/
https://www.atheismuk.com/about/
Conway Hall Ethical Society
https://conwayhall.org.uk/ethical-society/
LGBT Humanists UK
https://humanism.org.uk/community/lgbt-humanists/
Contacting any humanist, Atheist, secularist etc.... group can get you a dozen referrals to other groups. You Are Not Trying.
Actually I HAVE tried and have encountered all those organisations. What I can’t find is support specifically for ex Christians, like exist in the US. I asked the question because it was possible there might be someone else UK based who was aware of something I wasn’t. If my question is irritating you that much then please feel free to ignore it!
Hello, and welcome. I am from the UK, South Wales in fact. sadly I know of no support groups for ex theists. To be honest atheism is not that big a deal in the UK, so I suspect what you're looking for is some support to help you with the sense of loss at starting to doubt your beliefs? Since being an atheist doesn't have the same ramifications in the UK it does in some other countries I'm guessing this must have more to do with the sense of loss theists can feel when they first start to doubt their beliefs, than existing as an atheist. Sorry my apologies again as I know of no such groups. Have you tried searching online?
You could trying discussing what you're going through here. It's not nearly as hostile a place as some of the thhreads can suggest, I promise.
Thank you for this, Sheldon. Long story short, I struggled with my faith on and off for years, ultimately for intellectual and moral difficulties with certain key teachings, before coming to think 5 years or so ago that it probably wasn’t true. For the last six weeks I’ve had a lot of old fears re triggered. In my rational moments I lean towards thinking it can’t be real but I am very up and down and have moments of intense fear about hell etc. Are you a former believer?
Not really, I've been an atheists pretty much all my adult life. Though your fears are not unusual at all, we've encountered quite a few people who though they're ostensibly atheist still are prone to religious fears, mainly about hell as it goes. To be honest I find the concept so irrational and unlikely now, that even if I try my hardest to imagine a hypothetical hell it doesn't scare me at all.
Fears about death are natural to a certain extent, and mostly involve fear of losing loved ones. I don't fear dying but how I die is obviously a small concern. I'd rather not experience a long painful death, and I worry about how my wife will manage when I am gone, her family live longer than conquer trees to be honest, so chances are she will outlive me.
The thing is when you die you won't know about it, once my brain dies that's it, I will not survive that in any meaningful way, and so won't be able to experience anything at all. Just relax and enjoy your life and loved ones as much as you can. I'm 53 now so I try to enjoy even those parts of my life that are not what I would choose to be doing if I could choose. try to take pleasure in the most mundane tasks by doing them well for instance, and doing the best job you can in work, if you work. It'll put a smile on your boss's face if nothing else.
Just try not to stress, and remember it's irrational to fear what happens after you die.
I think the thing is that when you’ve been taught something at a very young age, way before your reasoning skills have developed, by someone you trust, those messages get embedded extremely deeply and can be incredibly difficult to question or break free from, particularly if your parent was especially opinionated and judgemental and forthright in their views and you were an anxious child. I think it can be very hard to fully understand from the outside what a challenge this can present. I don’t always really feel I know which thoughts are my own and which have been almost hardwired into me.
Sorry for the tardy response, but yes I can see why that makes it a far more difficult transition. I suppose you just have to give it time and be patient. Recognising the fears as irrational is a good things at least, even if this doesn't completely relieve you of them. We are none of us ever completely free of our childhood. As I say this can be a good venue to discuss such things, our bark is far worse than our bite. The only thing most atheists on here baulk at, is people preaching to them.
Hello ksgm34,
Welcome to AR!
I am by no means a medical professional but could at least part of what is bothering you be postpartum depression? You said these issues have resurfaced in the past few weeks. I don't doubt that a good support group will help, but you might want to consider talking to your doctor also. Just my thoughts.
Feel free to join in here at AR, we love new friends!
Hi Dan, thank you for the welcome! I can see why you might think I had post natal depression but I don’t think it is that. It’s fear that I have, triggered by the birth - I’m always worrying about my children anyway and hell is the worst thing that can happen to them so all my old fears about that have come back
I hear that. I'm married with three grown kids. It bothered me too. It bothers me that I've let them down ( they still believe), not because I'm wrong about unbelief but it is just as "real" to them as if it were true. None of us want to hurt our families, so it weighs heavy on my mind. However, it bothered me more that I was living a lie! "To thine own self be true" I guess. I will love and care for them till my last breath!
But when will reason and sensibility for the world change? What about my grandchildren? What do we tell them when, because of religion, we have ruined the world we live in! Do we continue to ignore and
ridicule science. There's a mountain of evidence that says the bible is incorrect historically, archaeologically, etc.
Do yourself a favor and just read the bible again. This time, open your eyes to what your reading. Just think, does this stuff even make sense? A nude couple talking to a snake? Eight people building a boat to house so many animals? The genocide of whole cities? The fact the bible teaches that most of the people that have ever lived on earth will burn in hell for an eternity? I could go on but I hope you get the picture.
It's not rocket science. The afterlife doesn't scare me in the least. Enjoy things for what they are. Each moment in this world should be cherished. Give your family hugs and kisses.
Anyway, hope this helps.
Hi Dan and thank you. I think because most Christians of my acquaintance are not fundamentalist and don’t take all of those OT stories literally that that side of things hasn’t been so problematic for me. Of course it does beg the question of how we are meant to know which parts of the bible to interpret literally and which metaphorically and I appreciate that there are various issues with parts of the NT too eg the contradictions in the gospel accounts etc.
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