Has anybody formally withdrawn from their childhood denomination? Any advice?

[LeftyMom]

I've read up about the process for other churches, but I wasn't even aware that there was a way to get out officially of the Catholic church shy of excommunication, and they're pretty stingy with those. Well, I found out that it's easier than that http://www.atheistactivist.org/Defect.html so I'm seriously considering it.

As I see it, the biggest upside would be that when people blather on about the eleventy skillion Catholics in the world, as if by dint of getting sprinkled and mumbled over as infants if they all supported whatever stupid policy the Vatican farted out this time, they definitely won't be including me. As if that weren't reason enough, I also get to tell an organization that thinks I'm inferior just for being female to kiss my uppity female ass (not that anybody in the church hierarchy would- I don't look the slightest thing like a small boy.)

The only downside I see is that if my very religious aunties caught wind of it, they'd worry about me and my imperiled immortal soul, and I would hate to distress them, even over something so completely nonsensical. On the other hand I can't see how any of them would hear about it unless I mentioned it, and I can't see it coming up in casual conversation. They all know I'm not a believer, though I think they hold out hope I'll grow more religious as I get older, as they did.

Has anybody else gone through the process of formal withdrawal, either from the RCC or some other church (I hear getting exmo'd is quite the hassle,) and have either advice about the process itself or about any social or familial repercussions I might be missing?

Thanks in advance.

[amyrose2712]

1. So is my name on some episcopalian list?

I never even thought of that. It shouldn't be I was a minor. Shouldn't that come off my record when I become thinking age? But seriously, I never knew.

[trotsky]

2. Huh, never thought about it.

But then I grew up Lutheran. I don't think they care. :)

[Warpy]

3. The church has historically preferred female ass

to those of little boys, so don't think yours is safe around a priest.

However, I think the only way to get out of the body of Christ is to be excommunicated from it and they only do that to the rich and powerful in order to make the people supporting the rich and powerful withdraw that support. The rest of us are merely condemned to hell for flouting all the silly rules like remarriage after divorce or using birth control to prevent having 15 kids and dying of old age in our 30s.

The lack of a formal withdrawal option has never much troubled me. I realized they were full of shit with that first "answer" in the Baltimore Catechism--I knew where babies came from and it wasn't god. I was five.

The only way it would bother me is if I really believed any of that stuff about heaven and hell and marks on souls and all the other garbage the nuns told us to tell us it was too late to be anything but good little Catholic robots.

[Iggo]

4. I'm done following catholic rules.

I'll be damned (heheh) if I'm jumping through their hoops just to be put on their list of who's not in their club anymore.

[realisticphish]

5. just do what you want

when/if they decide to kick you out, you can get your severance prayers, or whatever the hell they give you.

Make it a personal challenge to piss them off to "excommunication" levels.

[iris27]

6. Never done it.

Hell, my childhood Lutheran church still prints up a box of offering envelopes for me. All church members, either upon joining, or after confirmation for kids, get numbered envelopes so the church can track your tithes and give you a receipt for the IRS. It's been 10+ years and my mom still picks mine up, brings it home, and mentions it to me the next time I'm over.

They pretty much leave me alone; I'd be afraid of mobilizing a legion of proselytizers if I contacted them to ask that they remove me from their list of members.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. not me...

I was Methodist- they aren't very serious to begin with :)