deconverter.com is a platform for people to share stories about leaving behind their previous belief systems. The focus is on ex-Christians who have adopted a relatively atheistic worldview like myself, since that is what I know best, but I accept stories from any religion of origin and any resulting belief system.
My goal with this is threefold:
1) To encourage people who have left their faith to go through the therapeutic process of writing the story down and sharing it publicly,
2) To help those who have deconverted to know that they are not alone and provide them with community resources and connections to other ex-believers,
3) To create a collection of stories for those who are interested in the experiences of former believers, the process of deconverting, or who may be questioning their own faith and want to know if other people have asked the same questions and where it led them.
I want people to know that change is possible, and though it might be scary and traumatic at first, it can be worked through and the results can be wonderful.
Those are the altruistic reasons I wanted to create this site. Selfishly, I figure that this is a topic that has quite a large base of people who are personally involved, and as society becomes less religious that group will only be growing, so there's potential for the project to receive sustained interest and growth and exposure. Since I don't have to write the content myself, but rather curate the space and collect stories, it's not as labor-intensive on my part, which should also contribute to the sustainability of the project.
Head on over to read some stories, or if this is a process that you have been through yourself, I would love it if you wrote an essay about your experience and submitted it for publication -- just check out the contact page for instructions. :) Thank you!
