Im trying to define my relationship to my former religion; which sounds better: Heretic of Apostate?
That depends on your relationship to your former religion as they are completely different words. A heretic is someone who holds opinions in conflict with the religion. An apostate is someone who simply abandons the religion. There are many reasons to be an apostate you may not necessarily have opinions that conflict with the religion’s teachings but you just don’t practice the religion anymore. In that case you would be an apostate but not a heretic. You could be both a heretic and an apostate if your reason for leaving the religion is your conflicting opinions. You could also be a heretic and not be apostate if you had conflicting opinions but chose to continue practicing the religion anyway.
