From Rural Slovakia to Oxford — How I Left Christianity (Pt. 1)

I recently wrote a post where I detail my journey from Christianity and a lot of people benefited from it. So, I thought I’d write a more detailed account in the form of a series.

It will detail my upbringing in rural Slovakia, our immigration to Canada, my journeys as a study abroad high school student, my dropping out of university in England, my move to Oxford, and my moves to Barcelona, Warsaw, and Montreal. It’s a messy journey but there’s a lot that might interest you!

I was obsessed as a young Christian. I would wake up at 4 am to read the Bible, meditate on its verses, and pray to God.

My beliefs would not last forever. Slowly, when I moved to Oxford at the age of 19, I realized that there were a number of tacit assumptions I had about the world that were quite wrong.

Let me explain.

My bedroom view. Photo by Kristián Brinda on Unsplash

I was born in a small, politically and historically insignificant, town in central Slovakia, Ruzomberok.

My parents were both from Slovakia, raised entirely under the guise of socialism into families that were strict in the common way most were used to in the region.

It was a mere seven years after the Velvet Revolution in Prague that I was born, an event, among others, that greatly contributed to…