Testimonies of Ex-Christians

The Objectively Absent God

2009-11-01T15:48:00.002-05:00

Sent in by Interested

We start with a story of a child: Myself as an early teen.

The setting: a Christian youth conference with the goal of re-igniting the fire of faith in America's youth. I am standing up front with hundreds of other believers accepting Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The worship music began to mellow and the lights stayed dim as dozens of conference staff poured across the crowd, laying hands on as many bowed heads as possible.

Some spoke loudly while others whispered. Some spoke in other languages while others spoke in movements.

My eyes were shut but I could feel a hand eventually make its way to the back of my head. This was it. I had heard about Christ and I knew that God was real, but this was the final moment.

The prayer started. "Lord please fill this boy with the holy spirit, let him know you are there, let him feel your presence. Let him know the joy of knowing you, and bring him into salvation through the death of your son, Jesus Christ..."

Inside my head the excitement grew. The dim light and powerful melodies echoing through the room ensured that this would be a very spiritual night. The creator of the universe was about to enter in to me, and I would be a new person tonight.

But instead of knowing that Christ was with me, I was left with a rather confused feeling. Did it work? Was I saved? Do I know Christ now? Did I do something wrong?

Around me tears flowed and sobs were heard. Everybody else seemed to be having a very emotional moment. Something must've gone wrong with me. Why didn't anything seem different?

Maybe I was over-thinking it, but this entire thing was ambiguous. Surely if I had just been filled with the Holy Spirit, I'd know by now, yes?

Questions and doubt suddenly filled my mind. Was everybody else just faking it? Or did I seriously just not want it enough? Was I not sincere enough to accept Jesus into my heart?

I left that conference that night with my group more confused than when I started. Surely that was not the goal of the conference.

What was missing? That's a good question. Impossible to know for sure. But why was it impossible?

There can be many explanations for my experience. Maybe I just wasn't truly ready. Maybe I didn't believe enough. Maybe I wasn't sorry enough for my sins.

Conveniently, the problem presented by Christianity is an unsolvable problem. It is a problem of vague degrees. What is it to be sorry enough? This question would torture me for a good portion of my childhood.

When everybody else can do something that you can't, you start looking within. What am I doing wrong? What's wrong with me?

The problem is that there is no objectivity within Christianity. Because there is no proof, there is no room for critical thinking.

Why would God give us the ability to utilize critical thinking, I often wondered, if we aren't to use it for the most important part of our lives?

It just never added up for me. It was a big chunk of change that never came out to the right number. Yet for a good portion of my life, I did spend a lot of time living a life that didn't make sense inside. We call this cognitive dissonance.

With the threat of hell hung above me and a set of instructions to "accept Christ" that never seemed to work for me, I was stressed, confused, and depressed. And what's worse, it just never made sense!

But maybe, in all my confusion, I ignored a certain logic. It's possible that the answer had been staring me in the face that night.

Did I want to accept Christ? Absolutely. I really believed he was real, why else would I have stepped forward that night? I was convinced that this was what I wanted for my life. I had faith that despite common sense, Christ was real, and I was ready to accept him into my heart.

So why would God decide not to enter my heart at that time? If he did, why would he choose to avoid letting me know? Why would the creator of the universe stay silent when I had done everything that was asked of me? When I had finally dedicated my life to Christ and wanted to make a commitment, why was the almighty silent?

To what advantage does God have for being silent in this predicament? Maybe because the objective proof I was seeking was that he didn't exist.

My path to spiritualism vs. religion

2009-10-28T15:16:00.002-05:00

sent in by Belladonna

I am the illegitimate child of a drug addict/prostitute. When people found out who and what my mother was, they were not very accepting, especially in a small, conservative community. When I lived with my mother, I was brutalized; I have had every rib broken, my skull fractured, my jaw broken at least 3 times, my eye sockets broken and my nose broken. I still have scars, nearly 30 years later, where she broke bottles over me, and if it wasn't her beating me, it was the men she brought home. And I also know what it's like to have to beg for money and rummage through dumpsters just to eat; at 9 years old, I weighed 36 pounds.

I was taken from her and brought to live with my grandparents. When I started school here in 4th grade, my grandmother met with the principal of the school and told him my history and asked that it remain confidential; although she was assured it would, a school secretary made sure the elders of her LDS Church knew, so that the children of the church would be protected from me and any influence I may have. I was ostracized, attacked and beaten up.

I began to attend a Baptist Church in a different town; I thought I was at home, but found out they were also merely tolerating me. I had attended this church for nearly 3 years when I decided to question the statement of a Sunday school teacher regarding his assertion that Mother Teresa was going to hell. He said she was, I said, "No way"; that night, I was informed I was not a member of the church when I was told I could not go to a revival meeting with the rest of the kids, and the next week, I was asked to leave and not return, because I was a blemish on their church. They wished me well and told me they hoped God had pity on me, but they were sure to point out Deuteronomy 23:2 to me, and behind my back, they stated they knew I would never be anything more than what my mother was.

For years, I could not step inside a church - any church - without becoming physically ill. I have tried, but I don't last very long, and I don't tolerate any church that tries to convice me about the evils of homosexuality, because when I was 15, I was adopted by a gay man, and he saved my life. He gave me love and a solid home, made sure I was educated, and cheered louder than anyone when I graduated from high school, something no one thought I would do. He made me realize I really was worth something.

I have never been able to let go of my faith, but letting go of religion is no longer posing a challenge. Christians so often pose as all accepting; yet, as I am finding out once again, are some of the harshest, most judgmental of individuals. And when you try to have a conversation with them regarding their "faith", then they resort to attacks, reminding you that you are not one of the chosen few.

I feel I have nothing in common with any Christian any longer, because I simply refuse to look at myself as being above anyone else, even in the name of Jesus.

The begining of the end for my belief

2009-10-25T17:20:00.005-05:00

By a Loving Friend

Image via Wikipedia

I didn't grow up with God in my family. It wasn't until I was about eight or nine years old that I started to believe. I thought that it was cool and something fun for me to do. So I started to read the Bible a little and memorize prayers, and I prayed at night when I remembered. I became a Christian on my own, because I wanted to. I did not grow up with God hanging over my head and my parents dragging me to church every Sunday.

I met my best friend in the whole world when I was 10. Her name was Yvonne and she was the littlest in her family of a single mom and two older brothers. Her oldest brother was an older teenager and her other brother was a mentally retarded 10 or 11 year old (my age). Though she was younger than me, we became friends very fast. We played outside together everyday we could, and really loved each other. I felt like she was my little sister at times, if I said my favorite sport was soccer so would she, if my favorite color was baby blue, so was hers.

One day we were playing outside and she was complaining about how her leg/hip hurt. She said she told her mom about it but her mom said it would go away and gave her some pain pills. It didn't go away. She complained for maybe two more weeks, and then her mom finally went to the doctor to get some x-rays. A few days later I learned that my best friend had cancer. I was 10 and couldn't completely understand the severity, but I did soon.

About a month or so after we found out she had cancer, they started her on chemo-therapy. And one day she came home with a hat on and everyone was fussing at her to take it off. I didn't really understand until she took off the hat. All her lovely, long, wavy hair was gone. I can remember the look on her face; she looked so sad, and all I wanted to do was make her feel better. After that we stopped going outside a lot because the treatments had made her sick.

A few months passed and now she is in a wheelchair. I take walks with her and push her around outside, but it wasn't the same. She just seemed to get sicker and smaller every week. Then when her and her mom got back from the doctors one day late at night, her mom called my mom outside to talk and I had to stay outside. But I wanted to know what was going on because her mom was crying. So I peeked out the window to watch them talk and the next thing I see is them just holding each other and balling. I got that horrible feeling in my stomach and I knew at that point what was wrong. There would only be one reason for so much crying. Yvonne wasn't responding well to the treatment, she was going to die.

After that, everyone got really depressed and I didn't know what to do. I just kept doing what I always did with her. I stayed over at her house more often, tried to stay happy. It was coming up to my 13th birthday, and when it arrived she came with me to my grandparents house. I felt bad because she slept a lot, but I was glad she was there.

So now I had had Yvonne for 3 years in my life. Starting out, she was an energetic little girl who loved to play; now she was a sickly, sad little girl that knew she was going to die. But we prayed. We prayed all day and night for her, begging for her to get better. Her mom even had the church come to her once, and they had a whole big thing just for her. We had almost the whole city praying for her. Her mother was a good Christian lady who took good care of her children. Yvonne was an innocent little girl who gave her heart to god. And I was a devoted friend who prayed very hard for her.

I can remember the day she died quite well. I woke up in my room and was getting ready to go and see her. My mom told me that I had to take a shower before going over there, so I pouted as I took my shower. When I came out of the shower and was all dressed and ready to go, I heard someone crying. My father was in the bedroom crying, my dad didn't cry. I asked him what was wrong but he wouldn't tell me. So I went to search for my mom. I was walking down the steps as she walked into the door just below me. She was also crying and I was starting to panic. I asked her what was wrong, and it took her a minute to tell me. She told me she was dead, and i collapsed on the stairs.

I don't remember what happened after that but I remember being told that we should go and see her before the people come and pick her up. I was afraid. I didn't know what a dead person looked like, and she was my best friend. But I went with my mom anyway and just remember that there was a lot of people and I was sitting on the living room floor staring at my dead best friend being held by her mother. Everything after that just blurred together.

Yvonne died of cancer when she was just nine years old. Why? Is it because she wasn't worth saving? Was it because she didn't believe enough? Was it because we didn't pray hard enough? Or was it because there wasn't a god to save her in the first place? These questions haunted my for the next year or two. Eventually I came to my senses and realized I had prayed so hard to nothing. How could there be a god if a 9 year old can die? It doesn't make sense. The funny thing is that I was told that god wanted her to be with him in heaven. Then I concluded that god was greedy, horrible, and unfair.

If God existed, my best friend would still be alive, the world would be a peaceful place, and people would be happy. Because this is not so, I feel betrayed and now believe that the whole god thing is just another way to make people compliant and obedient.

Trying to Keep the Baby Without the Bathwater

2009-10-24T02:20:00.002-05:00

by Chris Cormier

I was raised Catholic and sent to Catholic school for most of my childhood. I had a wonderful experience within my Catholic faith but left the church at 17 because I felt that the central claims of the faith are absurd. I developed into and remained an intellectually clear-minded and outspoken atheist for 25 years. Despite this, I spent years painfully grieving the loss of faith. I was quite literally tormented on a daily basis by the question of God for years at a time. It almost drove me mad. It was if I sensed God but nonetheless felt intellectually compelled to reject the whole idea.

About a year ago, after receiving the 6th vicious and unnecessary lawsuit from my ex-wife (we've just wrapped up number 8, by the way) I found myself at the "end of my rope," i.e., that I seemed to have no more personal strength or courage left. I had been painfully emptied over a decade and had nothing left. Amazingly, one night I found myself driving to the local Catholic church feeling like I was being compelled by a force that originated outside of myself. It was as if I had been grabbed by the scruff of my neck and thrown into the church. I dropped to my knees, begged for forgiveness and mercy (even though I had no idea what that meant), and somehow...it came. My chest convulsed repeatedly as some kind of spiritual power coursed through me and restored me...It was unbelievable...Every time I prayed for the next several months I felt this power and my body would begin to shake involuntarily. I started going to Mass and receiving Communion on a daily basis. Even though the homilies were frequently very uncomfortable for me and I still struggled with dogma, I loved going to Mass ands had a faith that lifted me above all my concerns in some mysterious way. My reading of Thomas Merton was incredibly helpful in this regard as well.

Now, a little over a year later, I find myself still being very drawn to the church and my faith but astounded and deeply disturbed by the bizarre and archaic tenets of dogma, including the belief in a "Living God" that not only tolerates suffering but will ultimately levy infinite punishment on many. As one of Woody Allen's characters once said, "If there is one thing we can say about God, he sure is an underachiever!"

My question is this, I suppose: What is someone in my position to do? I can't help but acknowledge that I am experiencing something "very real" (i.e., something of the "divine" and "transcendant," for lack of better words) within the context of my faith/doubt but reject basic Christian (and all other) theology and dogma, as well as claims for the authenticity of the Bible (and similar documents). Much of both are simply atrocious and stupid by today's standards, even allowing for differnces in culture, history and ethical standards, and allowing for creative interpretations of the former. Thomas Merton acknowledges these problems but promotes working through them over time by praying for grace and faith... Paul Tillich promotes a symbolic interpretation of the Bible and basis for faith...But it seems that much of Christian dogma and the Bible remain unredeemably horrible despite these efforts.

Also, and perhaps more fundamentally, it seems that humans by their very nature may be evolutionarily designed (perhaps as a byproduct, exaptation or even psychological adaptation) to experience something of what we call "the divine." Perhaps "God" is really a name we apply to a deeply human and infinitely valuable experience that is legitimate and perhaps even necessary for some, but that nonetheless lacks any external basis. In this case we would say that God is purely subjective, not objective. If this were so, we should not be looking for the "right" religion, or even to rejecting the impulse to religion and faith, but the best means of cultivating one's deepest spiritual potential without reference to archaic, dangerous and empirically incorrect philosophical/theological systems.

I think that "technically" I may still be an atheist, but now sense that we should not throw out our deepest humanity and spiritual potential ("the baby") with "the bathwater" of religion. But how one is to do this in the modern age and without the conventional tools of "religion" remains a mystery to me.

ANY IDEAS? Seriously...Where do we go from here?

Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister

2009-10-23T02:48:00.004-05:00

by Jeff

I just found this site and figured I'd check in, as I too am an "ex-christian." I became a Christian at 18 after a rather dramatic conversion experience...lots of emotion and a total change of direction in my life.

I was a senior in high school at the time and making decisions about career and college. I was "led" into the full-time Christian ministry shortly after my conversion, so I chose to attend a rather well-known Bible college in South Carolina.

After four years there, I sensed that I'd most likely eventually become an overseas missionary, the which I did. But before accepting a missionary assignment in Italy, I graduated, got married, was a youth pastor, a Bible teacher in a Christian school, put in a year towards my Master of Divinity degree, and finally pastored a church in Philadelphia for three years. Six years after graduation from college, my wife, two children, and I moved to Europe to evangelize and start evangelical churches.

This was my life and ministry for over 28 years, but all during this time I was struggling to maintain my faith. I had so many questions about the Bible and its teachings. I kept suspecting that Christianity really didn't "work." I mean, prayer didn't really work. Faith didn't make me a new person. My old "sins" were still plaguing me. I rarely sensed any "presence of God" in my life. I looked for God's guidance, but rarely was sure I got it. And even then it often turned out to be patently erroneous. I experienced church and missions from the inside and became very disillusioned with it. For an enterprise headed by the God of the universe, it sure was awfully human, and terribly fallible. I really saw precious little that could be called "evidence of God" in it all.

My questions about the Bible and its teachings just multiplied over the years, until I had to intentionally close my eyes to them in order to maintain anything like enough faith to continue my ministry without feeling like a total hypocrite. But the struggle only got worse...along with depression and very real self-loathing (for my feelings of hypocrisy.)

Finally, after 28 years overseas, I came to that place where I just could no longer consider myself a believer. I could no longer represent Jesus and the Bible, as my missions agency called on me to do. Honesty demanded that I quit the ministry and return Stateside.

It is now almost five years that I've been back in the "secular" world. I no longer attend church. I have come to peace with my unbelief. In fact, I am happier and enjoy greater contentment now than at any other time in my adult life. The dust has slowly settled in my mind and I have come to realize that I actually do not believe in God at all anymore. I haven't looked to become an atheist, but I guess that's what I am... and I'm very happy in my unbelief, thank you very much!

That's my story in a nutshell. If anyone wants to comment on it or jot me line, feel free (rjtrueman AT gmail DOT com). I'm not crusading for atheism, but neither am I ashamed of it. Quite the contrary.

Be well!

The Story of a Recent Doubter

2009-10-21T14:08:00.005-05:00

by Sarah

My parents were never the crazy fundamentalist type that other people have talked about. I love them both dearly and have never doubted their love for me. Yet they were deeply religious. My Dad came from a Southern Baptist background and my mother had been Catholic but converted to Protestantism in college. I remember religion being an integral part of my childhood. We attended a relatively small church and so everyone was like family. Almost all my friends were from my Sunday school and I remember us playing games after church like Noah’s Ark We would pretend to be different animals and scurry under tables that were supposed to be the ark. We were completely oblivious to the fact that the rest of the animals and humans were drowning outside the ark. I sang in the kid’s choir and acted in the Christmas pageant.

When I reached school age my parents decided to homeschool me. I actually don’t hold this against my parents as much as you might think. I received an excellent personalized education that has served me well in my later studies. But all the books that we studied had a Christian slant to them. In history class we read books on missionaries, the spelling exercises often involved biblical stories and I would do math problem involving how many bibles could be distributed to x number of people. For me it was perfectly normal. After all if everyone in my world said that Jesus was true, then why would I doubt? I knew that a few people didn’t believe, but they were either bad people or just confused. And it was my job to set them straight. I can still remember distinctly “leading my first soul to Jesus”. I was probably all of six and playing with one of the three “unbelieving boys” in my neighborhood. I asked him if he wanted to go to heaven. He said sure and I told him he had to ask Jesus to save him. He said ok and I ran home absolutely thrilled at his conversion. I was convinced I had brought my cousin to the Lord as well after a long deeply theological conversation (at age ten). My agnostic aunt was quite upset when I proudly told her that I had turned her daughter into a Christian. I don’t think that any of these “conversions” lasted more than a day or two.

I can still remember one Christmas when my Dad decided to purge the house of all Santa paraphernalia because it distracted from the real meaning of Christmas. You’d think I would have been upset, but I eagerly joined in, almost throwing away my Mom’s heirloom 1950s Santa statue (she wasn’t as thrilled about the purge as my Dad, but who was she to question him).

Life continued on in this way up until high school and college. I kind of lost my fervor during high school when I stopped homeschooling. Partly because I was exposed to non-Christians who were actually good and cool people and partly because when we moved we didn’t really find a solid church to plug into. But I didn’t ever doubt that Christianity was true. I may have drifted away early during college if it wasn’t for the fact that I ended up rooming with a fellow Christian and living next door to two other Christians. And this was not the most religious of schools. I was convinced that this must have been God’s way of keeping me in the fold. We had bible studies together and prayed when life got stressful. We even got involved in the local Assemblies of God church. It was different than I was used to. People would sometimes prophecy or speak in tongues. I was a little wary of that as it wasn’t part of my background, but it was the only upbeat church that I could find and the people were extremely friendly. My roommates got really into it. One had been raised Catholic and she found the personalized religion of A of G much more appealing. The other roommate was from Africa and she firmly believed in the existence of devils and miracles and speaking in tongues. With her, life was always a struggle between the demons and Jesus.

They were extremely nice though and so much more genuine than many of the other people at my school and we quickly all became inseparable. We became well known at church as the foursome and often were invited to their houses. It felt like a community and I enjoyed it. I definitely had doubts but always managed to quickly shove them out of my head when they became uncomfortable.

My deconversion actually starts with a relationship that I had begun to develop with one of the young men at the church. He had come from a rough past. He used to be involved in drugs and crime, but he had gone through one of those religious programs and had found Jesus. He was now living on the straight and narrow. His conversion story was exciting and inspiring. And who doesn’t like a reformed bad boy? It adds a touch of danger and mystery. We began to sort of date. He talked enthusiastically about God and what he was doing in his life. I responded in kind, maybe a little more so than I would usually have done. I wanted to appear like a fervent Christian as well. I saw us together, on fire for Christ and making a difference in this world. It gave my life a feeling of satisfaction and purpose. But, as most of you probably can already guess, this guy was less than perfect. At one point he got massively drunk (apparently hadn’t quite gotten over those addiction problems) and tried to sleep with me. I went along with it further than I should have although we never actually had sex. A few weeks later he told me that he couldn’t continue to be in a relationship with me because of what we had done. He said he was disappointed in both of us. I apparently hadn’t done enough to stop him and save him from himself. All of our other experiences and conversations apparently meant nothing compared to that mistake. But his “guilt” didn’t stop him from starting to date a more “holy” girl from our church two weeks later. I have my suspicions as to whether or not things between them had already been going on even before he broke up with me. They got married less than a year later and are considered to be a model couple at our church. I still get sick every time I see them.

But I don’t want you to think that I turned away from the church because of a personal vendetta or anything. Although that did keep me from going to that same church for a while. I felt so worthless after that experience. Not only did I feel rejected by him, I felt rejected by God. I was convinced that I was evil and that I was a hypocrite. I did everything I could to make up for it. I listened to sermons online, I prayed my heart out, and I read my Bible. But nothing helped. I didn’t feel closer to God. I felt angry that I had to go through all this to appease him. I also felt angry at thinking that this guy that I now despised was going to heaven just because he had said a little prayer while my good friends who were not Christian (but were just as moral and often nicer and more fun) would be going to hell. And for some reason, right then, the concept of hell became real in my mind. I had always believed in it in a theological sense but had never really thought about it. Now I pictured all my non-Christian friends literally burning forever in that place. That is an extremely frightening thought. And I couldn’t get over the fact that we as Christians were having potlucks and camping trips and reveling in our salvation if we really thought even one person was going to hell. Shouldn’t we all be in mourning all the time over this tragedy? I couldn’t see the purpose in life or the world if the vast majority of humans end up in such a terrible place. It would be better to die as a child before you reached the age of accountability than risk not believing and go to hell. And I wondered about my brother who has Autism and Down Syndrome. Did he get a free pass into heaven because he couldn’t understand about religion? I hoped so but at the same time it didn’t seem fair. I’d rather be born with mental problems as long as I was guaranteed an eternity in heaven afterwards. Things were starting to not make sense the more I looked at them. I spent hours on the internet looking for answers. I heard all the pat answers repeated a million times but none of them satisfied me. I developed severe depression. Every time I walked on the streets I pictured the people that I saw in hell. Not a fun way to spend your time but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I became mad at God for putting me through it and for not giving me comfort or explanation when I needed it.

I stumbled across this site and it opened possibilities I didn’t even know existed. I never considered not believing but the arguments on this site made sense and every story I read sounded like my own. I never thought I would find people who had gone through the exact same feelings as me but there they were. The atheism thing frightened me at first. I couldn’t be an atheist. It just wasn’t part of the package. And losing the illusion of heaven was a frightening concept as well. I still wanted to believe in Jesus and God but without the hell part. But I knew I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. I lived in limbo for a long time. I tried to tell my parents about my doubts. My mom would cry and my dad thought it was Satan’s influence. It was hard not being able to share my pain with them. My friends were the same way. They tried to give me answers but they didn’t really have any. After a while they just kind of ignored it. For a while I went along with still going to church but I felt awkward standing there and singing songs to a god that I was no longer sure existed and whenever the pastor spoke I just thought of ways to refute his argument. But I felt lonely. My friends did not ostracize me but I no longer felt part of the close little group because I couldn’t fully participate in the religious aspects that were such a part of our relationship. I began to get annoyed at them constantly singing gospel around the house and attributing everything to an act of God. I still can’t understand how people ask God to help them on a test when there are people in the world starving. If God cares more about my Econ midterm than a baby with cancer then I think there is a problem.

The last part of my story involved a mission trip to Africa that we took that summer. I was still very much in doubt, but this trip had been in the works for a year and they convinced me that I could do other things besides religious stuff. It was one of the most awkward things ever. I enjoyed the experience of traveling and I was able to teach English and do some other work but I was constantly surrounded by the most intense Christians that I had ever seen. Christianity in many places of Africa is extremely Pentecostal. They fully believed in tongues and miracles and shouting and being slain in the spirit. I had to sit through more than one all night prayer service. I went to a spirit soaking in which people waited to be filled with the spirit and then began to yell, cry, laugh, fall over, or whatever else struck their fancy when they believed the spirit had come. I just kept seeing it as more and more ridiculous but my roommates really got into it. They all came out of the summer so much more “on fire for God”. Since I was traveling with them everyone expected me to be a Christian too and I went along with it because it was easier than trying to explain the truth and listen to them try to bring me back into the fold. I hated being the wet blanket. For a while I tried to point out the flaws in logic to my roommates but after a while I just felt like I was alienating them and being the killjoy. I think the most poignant part of all the deconversion stories is the loss that you feel when you can’t connect with your old friends and family in the same way. Now I’m back and I have stopped going to church. Ironically the summer of missions, which was supposed to strengthen my faith has only left me more doubtful and confused. Now we are supposed to attend a session with the bible study at the church that helped partially support our trip and talk about what we learned. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to say the truth and alienate all my friends and church family, but I am tired of being hypocritical. I know that once I officially say something, it will drastically change the dynamics of my relationships with many people.

Any advice?

Love comes from Jesus

2009-10-20T03:34:00.005-05:00

by Sara

Image by jcolman via Flickr

I was raised Catholic and became Presbyterian in high school. I was so serious about my faith, excited about finding a church that acted as if God was real instead of trapped in a Latin Mass. And in all honesty, it was mostly wonderful. I was pretty awkward at that time and it was a place to belong. I didn't experience any of the horror stories many people relate. The people at my church were for the most part caring and conscientious. I left my hometown and went to college still a fluffy doe-eyed Christian. At that time it was the most important aspect of my life and there wasn't a close second.

There are a lot of things that people point to that led them to change their mind about God but there was no revelation for me. It left me slowly. I both became more liberal politically as I tried to nestle myself deeper into conservative Christianity. I began hanging out with the orthodox christians. But bits and pieces of what I held dear began falling away anyway. I ignored and ignored and ignored the problem until I got turned inside out and upside down.

My husband (then fiancé) and I had been at a picnic with some church friends and some fairly annoying church-planter had dropped by. While he preached away at his patient audience it occurred to me that I hadn't believed what he was talking about for along time. I wasn't a Christian anymore. I was terrified and horrified at this realization. I was devastated, I thought that life had pretty much ended for me. I even offered to break off my engagement with my husband because I was not the person he proposed to anymore.

I had a lot of trouble following my de-conversion. I became depressed and had a lot of difficulty finishing my senior year of college. It was a terrible time. I wept and pleaded with god to kindle that faith in me I used to have. I grieved as if someone had died. I was unspeakably angry with god and the people in my church. I forgot who I was. I couldn't figure out where i was going.

At the bottom of this funk I was getting married (my patient and caring fiancé not only did not break off the engagement but sat with me through all the various crying/screaming fits). My husband and I decided to have a conventional but god-neutralized wedding. Because I was honest with our two officiants about my own doubts and our choice of wedding service both backed out of marrying us. I was understanding with my husband's friend backed out. I wasn't very close with her. But about a week before the wedding my high school youth minister informed me that not only did he feel he couldn't do the sermon, he couldn't come at all. The stunned silence on the other end of this phone call was enough to encourage him to amend at least the second of the two decisions. When I asked him why he couldn't be a part of my wedding he said, "Well, I believe love comes from Jesus". It was the cruelest thing that I have ever experienced.

A year after getting married I have mostly picked together the pieces of my inner life. It's tough to have lost what I had in common with many of my friends, to lose my bearings in the world, to keep up a lie with my parents (they are wonderful and not scary conservative at all, I'm just a scared-y cat). But that refusal to marry my husband and I by someone who I respected and cared a great deal for still smarts.

Maybe I'll never change back to being a Christian, maybe I'll decide to be Buddhist, maybe I'll decide it doesn't matter and I don't care. But I'll never refuse to be part of someone's life because of what they believe.

Former Fundamentalist with Ph.D. from BJU is now an Agnostic

2009-10-15T05:07:00.005-05:00

by Ken Pulliam, Ph.D.

I was saved (trusted Christ and Christ alone) and baptized in an independent, Fundamental Baptist church (Galilean Baptist Church). Later I became a member of Forrest Hills Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, which was started by Curtis Huston, a former editor of the Sword of the Lord publication, the periodical originally begun by John R. Rice (Mr. Fundamentalist) in 1934.

I graduated from Baptist University of America (BUA) in Decatur, GA in 1981. BUA was associated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship, which was started by followers of J. Frank Norris, a major fundamentalist leader in the early part of the 20th century. Then I went to Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, perhaps, the most well known fundamentalist Christian college in the world.

After earning an M.A. (1982) and a Ph.D. (1986) in Theology at BJU, I went to teach at International Baptist College (IBC) in Tempe, AZ which was founded by James Singleton (also the Pastor of Tri-City Baptist Church). Singleton was a board member and active speaker in the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, a group that originally came out of the Northern Baptist Convention in the early 20th century. The term "Fundamentalist," while a pejorative term for many people, was held as a badge of honor by the people with which I associated.

After teaching for about 6 years at IBC, many doubts began to accumulate. I taught Apologetics, Theology, English Bible, Introduction to Philosophy, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced Greek courses. On the graduate level, I taught N.T. Introduction, N.T. Biblical Theology, Historical Theology, and advanced Greek courses.

I remember fielding many difficult questions from students in these classes and I always responded with the "pat" answers that I had been taught at BJU or had read in evangelical theology books. These usually satisfied the students but in my heart they did not satisfy me. I continued to study and research, thinking that somewhere, someone must have an adequate answer to these questions. For example, one which I could never resolve was the "justice of an innocent person (Christ) being punished in the place of the guilty parties (sinners)". This is counter-intuitive to what every man knows is right. Punishment, in order to be just, must be directed towards the guilty party. To substitute an innocent party, even if that party is willing, does not constitute justice.

In Dec. of 1996, I left the ministry. I "layed-low" for many years because I did not want to debate and I did not want to disappoint my dear Parents (who had paid for my education and who were devout Christians). Beginning in 2003, I started posting on TheologyWeb anonymously under the name FormerFundy. I enjoyed debating the so-called apologists who frequent that site. This year, I started my own blog, formerfundy.blogspot.com in which I am systematically discussing the reasons I left the faith.

I am also working on a book which may be entitled: "The Death of Christ for Sinners was both Illegal and Immoral."

Thanks,

Ken Pulliam, Ph.D.

Teenage Life in a Christian Home

2009-10-09T20:12:00.007-05:00

by AST

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When I was a teenager the family went to a week long course called "Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts." It was Christian driven, encouraged by our Baptist church, and kind of fun. I look back and I am sure I believed we all did the right thing.

One thing we had to do was purge Satan from the house. The would of course involve "sending him back to hell" which can only be done via fire. We could not sell or give away any Satanic items, they had to be burned.

That meant, being a teenager, just about all of my record collection. BeeGees, Beatles, Steve Miller Band, Ramones, anyone NOT specifically singing the praises of God was either Satanic or Satan trying to get in. We could not give him one inch. I even had to burn a little Tiki doll that I was i the house when we moved in. My stepmom was uncomfortable over it but I saw it as simply wood, not the idol claimed.

So one day we all took our Satanic materials and burned them on the back porch in a small fire. We were cleansing the house by sending these materials back to Satan.

Of course we spent a summer week at a Christian Camp with singing and praising and all sorts of fun activities. Church included Bible Study for an hour before church, the church time, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening for kids in similar age groups. I suppose it gives an idle mind something to do, but I could have done without the guilt.

I was taught that AIDS was God's punishment on the homosexuals. Okay, I can understand that, it is simply action/reaction. But when my step-brother died of AIDS I had to ask myself something. You see, I never liked him, but I'd not wish him dead. Does that mean I have a more forgiving nature than God? I am not a liberal by any means. And now that I ask questions my entire background is questioned.

One of my high school teachers pointed out conflicts of information in the Bible. When I confronted my parents, they tell me that any conflict is simply Satan twisting my mind to see what is not there. This was not an answer at all. And for one point of record, a bat is a mammal and not a bird. But the Bible says it is a bird.

Needless to say, the only options I had were being a Christian or being a devil worshiping, masturbating, drug dealing meth addict strung out on porn, weed, loud music, and late night TV. Not very nice options.

I turned 18 on the 22nd, I moved out on the 11th of the next month. No surprise.

Since then I have traveled around the entire world. I have seen the love brought by a religious belief as well as the hate. I have experienced those who wish to share with me every bit of their beliefs, and those who feel that I am invading their privacy by asking. For the most part the main attraction to other people does not involve religion, only personality.

I still have questions. I believe in God, or at least a Creator (the latter does not require worship). I reserve judgment on specific written materials until all the facts are in. I am scared I may be wrong. I am even more scared I may be right. I cannot pray without ceasing. I cannot avoid thinking impure thoughts at least 30 seconds a day. I cannot understand why those who say they are the most forgiving are the least forgiving. I cannot understand why asking questions is wrong.

Tori Amos once said, "I love Jesus. It's Christian's I can't stand." And Napoleon said, "Religion is what keeps the poor from killing the rich."

My life is about half over, and if I die in a natural way I have trouble understanding why my life will be judged by everything from a divorce to a dirty magazine under my mattress that my parents never found. It seems the good means nothing in the long run and only the bad marks are recorded for eternity. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I wonder how screwed up I really am.

Religion is Bullshit

2009-10-08T13:20:00.003-05:00

Sent in by Billo

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I have always asked myself about the existence of God.

I was raised up in a Christian family and sent to a Christian school. For many years I was afraid of Hell even though I got "saved" many times, but I was never peaceful, because I was always depressed by guilt.

I was taught that it was a "sin" to sexually desire a woman. Human nature is based on sexuality. We live to reproduce! Why should it be wrong for me to follow my nature?

Honestly, if it is a sin for a man to desire a woman then it is a sin for birds to fly and fish to swim.

More than that I hated the false hopes that Christians give to people. For example, they tell a blind boy that if he prays and prays he will be see again. The poor boy has the hope that he will recover and so prays and prays. Giving false hopes is like making fun of person. Yes they should comfort a person in trouble, but more than that they should tell them to accept reality and live life as it is.

I learned while I attended a Christian school that Christianity is all about hating everyone who thinks differently from you. Take for example the poor Israelites who were constantly invaded by other nations. They deserved what they got, the Israelites came into the Promised Land and killed everyone including women and children who didn't think like them -- by the order of God, who supposedly loves everyone. Not only that but they wiped out the whole race of the Canaanites and destroyed entire cities and then waged war on neighbor countries and tribes for no good reason.

I am trying to set myself free form religion. I have learned it is ignorant and intolerant. Of course I am still scared of hell and demons, because of all of the religious bullshit that was hammered into my head since I was a kid.

I thank you all for you testimonies that have helped me give this step and thank you for this great web site who inspires me to continue

Sorting it all out

2009-10-08T13:12:00.003-05:00

Sent in by Allan

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I recently became agnostic. I stopped believing in Christianity awhile ago when I realized that nothing in Christianity makes sense.

The Trinity is found nowhere in the Bible, yet somehow I'm required to believe it in order to be Christian.

When I did a little research, I found out the the matter of Jesus' divinity wasn't settled until 300 years later in a council. That's right people actually voted to decide whether or not Jesus was God.

I was also disturbed by the fact that two of the founders of Christianity couldn't agree on whether circumcision was required. If both these men were led by the Holy Spirit, how were they disagreeing on a matter as important as this? Shouldn't the Holy Spirit make them agree on everything since they are inspired by God?

After this I thought, "Well, Israel fulfilled many prophecies when it came into existence in 1948. Also, I always admired the Jews for producing so many intelligent people throughout history. They also receive Nobel prizes way out of proportion to their numbers. I began thinking maybe Judaism had the truth. I listened to lectures by a rabbi named Tovia Singer who goes around debunking Christianity to prevent Jews from converting. He made me positive that Christianity was wrong because it takes Old Testament verses out of context to make Jesus look like the messiah. So, for a brief period I was a gentile who believed the Jews had the truth. However recently I became honest with myself. Israel depends heavily on the United States. If God is behind Israel why does it need us so badly? What if Israel is a self-fulfilling prophecy? The Jews knew of the prophecy of a restored Israel and worked their butts off to accomplish this. It doesn't seem to impressive when you think about it in those terms. Also, most of those Nobel prize winning Jews are agnostic. Seems a little strange that God would bless people who don't believe in Him.

Now that I'm agnostic I can completely accept evolution without feeling guilty about it. I can dismiss the Noah's Ark story as complete idiocy.

I sometimes feel frightened that when I die my consciousness will cease to exist, but it only makes me appreciate what time I have here more.

Leaving the compelling love of Christ

2009-10-07T03:02:00.010-05:00

by Maestra

My husband and I got a mass email from our former pastor (we were still on the mailing list until a few weeks ago) with an attachment about how Muslims were going to storm the White House to pray and noted that a Muslim leader wanted to turn the White House into a Muslim White House. The tone of the message was fear for our nation; that Christians needed band together and pray before the Muslims took over. Even though the email didn’t suggest we wage war, it was enough for my husband and I to be disgusted. That night, as I considered the possibility of a Muslim/Christian war brewing in our country, I felt an outrage toward religion-a feeling I’ve very much been trying to temper since that feeling conflicts with my ultimate goal, which is to live peacefully and lovingly with those around me. I am surrounded by Christians and the last thing I want to do is be labeled as angry and intolerant. My Christian family and friends are very dear to me.

In January 2009 we notified family members and friends that we were “taking a break” from church. They knew we felt like we didn’t believe and were having faith issues, but we didn’t at that time dis-identify ourselves with Christianity. After that email from my pastor…we were ready.

Unfortunately for me, this admission has plunged me back into extreme sadness and frustration. Up until then, I was experiencing a nice stretch of joy and peace. When I started the school year, the joy hit me (I am a Spanish teacher). I looked at my students and it hit me hard that we’re ALL o.k. NOBODY is going to hell. I am part of them and they are part of me and we’re on this journey of life together. I don’t have to “be the light” for them, but maybe I can brighten their day and they can brighten mine (which they do)! I was enjoying a reprieve from the mentally and emotionally taxing issue of de-conversion.

But now it’s back. I called my brother-in-law who is on the board at our former church to tell him. I wanted him to hear it from us first. Matters are complicated because he and my sister live right next door. Needless to say, he was very disturbed. I am frustrated because when we first announced our doubts back in January he was sympathetic and even told us our doubting made him question his faith. I sent him a few things and his response was that the points addressed were “very disturbing.” But since those early days, I believe he has talked to his very devoted family members, my sister-who deeply believes, and he is reading many books encouraging him in faith and he is full on board with Christianity. I asked him a few months ago if he really believed women have pain in childbirth because Eve sinned (he is a doctor-and a very good one) and he said he does. Sigh.

After specifically denouncing my belief in Jesus as the risen savior (Is that blasphemy? I’ve always been confused about what that is…) my sister and b-i-l changed appointed guardianship of their kids to my b-i-l’s side of the family. I knew that was coming, but to hear my sister tell me this was painful. My sister and I went out to dinner to discuss this issue and I told her how hard this was for me because I know I lose when pitted against their faith. I knew if somebody said, “Deny Jesus now and for the rest of your life or your sister dies…” I would lose. She didn’t respond. I had told her back in January that when my husband and I told my pastor we were taking a break from church and having religious doubts that she (my pastor) basically compared us to the worst child criminal. She told us if we were abusing our kids or not sending them to school she could call social services on us but in this case her hands were tied. She also told us that we, nor anybody else has heard the worst of what she thought of situations like this. I imagine she thinks it is better for us to drown in a lake with a millstone hung around our neck as Matthew 18 suggests. She did not say this though. My whole family knows my pastor said this to us. I told my sister that if she and I worked or volunteered for some organization together and she told me that our boss told her these same things our pastor told us, I couldn’t continue to work or volunteer for that person who had such a negative view of my sister when I know what a wonderful mother she is. I just wouldn’t tolerate being around somebody who thought that way about my sister. But in this situation, not only does the whole family continue to embrace the pastor and the organization-they must also on some level adhere to those views about us. Nobody will consider what we have to say, nor read anything that doesn’t promise to support faith. They prefer to love, support, and commune with the very person (and probably people) who have such a lowly opinion of who my husband and I are.

It is hard. I remember being a devout believer and what I thought of people who left the faith. I never would have considered marrying a non-Christian. I wouldn’t spend much time with a non-Christian. I also would never appoint guardianship of my children to a non-Christian and if my original selection deconverted…I would change guardianship too. But now that I see this all for what it is I want to share it with my family. I want us all to close this crazy chapter of our lives together, take each other by the hand and walk into the sunset together…with full support and allegiance towards each other.

But I lose. Their flesh and blood…visible and real…I lose to Jesus. They are very sure about Him. One thing that Jesus got right is that he didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword and to turn family members against each other (Matt 10:34). It just shouldn’t be like this.

So does anybody have advice? Am I over-reacting? I have such hurt feelings over this but I know they do too. My goal is to not become cynical and angry, although I feel both of those things. I want to be kind and loving and live in peace with them, but I don’t know how. I think communication is key to working problems out, but this seems to be a topic where discussing the issue makes things worse. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say regarding the Christian religion nor anything I’ve learned from reading about the history of the Bible. I’ve forced it a few times and it never goes well. Who has “been there done that” with family members and been able to maintain a healthy and loving relationship? How do people do this?

Searching for clues to God's existence

2009-10-05T09:12:00.002-05:00

by The Truth Seeker

You might say that I am a slow learner. It’s taken me 72 years to finally conquer my fears about going to Hell for being a constant sinner.

I started out going to a Baptist Church when I was 5 years old. I lived in Houston and rode a bus every Sunday to the Baptist church off of South Main St. I learned about all of the old Bible stories that are taught to most children, and I believed them all. Why shouldn’t I, the adults told me they were true, so they must have been true.

When I reached the 5th grade I was sent to a Baptist military school and every day, Monday through Friday we would go to chapel and hear more stories about the Bible and Christianity from a Baptist point of view. I went to church on Wednesday evenings and went on Sunday in the morning and in the evening. After 8 years of this kind of indoctrination I knew all about the superficialities and stories about Christianity. No one ever told me about the bad parts of the Bible and all of the atrocities that God commanded the Israelites to do to its enemies. I guess it was too embarrassing to let us children hear that sort of stuff.

When I graduated from high school, I went straight to college, and I didn’t spend any more time going to church because I was tired of it after 8 continuous years of the most concentrated indoctrination one could imagine.

I went through college and got married after about 3 years to, of all things, a Catholic woman. I figured we could work out any differences we had through a rational discussion between the two of us. Wrong. This woman was a religious fanatic, and I never knew that while we were dating. Back in those days, if you married a Catholic you were supposed to raise your children as Catholic, no discussion allowed.

Well after 8 years of going to college, I received a BS, MS, and PhD. During this time I converted to Catholicism because I knew if I didn’t, there would be no peace in the family because of my fanatical wife.

So after 23 years of marriage and seven children, you know Catholics were not supposed to use birth control, things had just about gotten out of control with my wife. She had become more irrational over the years. First it was her fear about the communists taking over the world. She constantly made predictions about when this was going to happen. I got so tired of hearing this I finally began to write down her predictions and would show them to her when they didn’t come true. Of course that didn’t make any difference because there was always a good reason why they didn’t come true. She then wanted to get out of the US and wanted me to take the whole family to Australia, where the communists couldn’t get to us. I wouldn’t do this, because there was really no good reason for doing it.

Then she became obsessed about the stock marked. She believed it was going to crash and the whole economy would crater. Of course this didn’t happen, but every time there was a wobble in the market downwards she was encouraged even further in her belief. If she could have held out for about 25 years, she would have finally been right.

Next she became obsessed with a group in New York State who claimed they had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary and this was happening on a continuing basis. Of course the Virgin was predicting the end of the world if the US didn’t stop sinning and she didn’t see any sign that we were stopping sinning. My wife then began to collecting humongous Mason jars and filled them with wine and grapes. She did this so that when the end came near and all the grocery stores were destroyed we would have something to live on. The grapes wouldn’t do much for us, but after drinking all the wine, we wouldn’t care anyway.

She had to make a trip to New York to see the Virgin Mary and she had to take several of our children with her. This incensed me that all of this craziness was continuing to go on, and now she was trying to drag our children into this craziness.

I had endured 23 years of this craziness and I held on because I didn’t want to leave my children with this crazy woman. It turns out she was a paranoid schizophrenic and this illness was getting progressively worse. I finally couldn’t take any more of this craziness and I had to leave. We divorced and, of course, she got all of the children so she could continue to indoctrinate them with this craziness.

She did a real job on several of our children, but after they began to leave home and live a life on their own and mixed with other normal people they began to see how sick their mother was.

I reminisce about all of these bad memories because they began to make me think more about religion and what it can do to sick people. It can also do the same thing to sane people who are weak and afraid of going to Hell because of the constant indoctrination that all religions do to their adherents.

The fear of going to Hell is a real fear in most Christians and it affects them through out their life. It’s amazing to me what power all the various Christian religions hold over their adherents with this fear.

After getting divorced, remarrying (a sane woman this time), and working through my career and retiring, I finally realized how little I knew about the Christian religion. I knew all of the good Bible stories and all the rules, doctrines, and regulations of both the Baptist and Catholic religions, but I realized how ignorant I was of how these things actually came about. Who was it that said and why did they say that Catholics couldn’t use contraceptives, that priests couldn’t get married, that women couldn’t become priests, that Baptists couldn’t dance or gamble, that we were all born sinners because of original sin, that Jesus was born from the Virgin Mary, that Mary was sinless and always a Virgin and ascended into heaven without dying, that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, that you would commit a mortal sin if you ate meat on Fridays, that masturbation was a mortal sin, that you could only perform certain specified sexual acts and not others, that wine and bread would be turned into Christ’s real blood and real body only if a priest said the correct words, that you could have your sins forgiven only if you told them to a priest, that abortion is a mortal sin, that you could only go to heaven if you believed in Christ and his resurrection and were given grace, and what is grace?, that God from all eternity knows who will be saved and there is nothing you can do about it, that there really is no free will since God knows what your fate is no matter what you do. Who made these rules and when did they all start?

Well I studied and read the Bible, read scholarly historical and archaeological findings, read Christian literature, read agnostic and atheist literature, read the history of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mormonism for five years, and I have finally decided that there is no God and that the Christian religion is based on a supposition that Christ was crucified for our sins and arose from the dead. This is the supposition that all of Christianity depends on and if this is not true then the whole religion falls apart like a house made of cards. It turns out that there were no eyewitnesses of the resurrection that wrote anything about it. All of the gospels were written by people (and they weren’t the actual people named for these gospels) that were not eyewitnesses of Christ and all the miracles that he was supposed to have performed and they were all written 30-60 years after his death. The apostle Paul wrote his epistles closest to the time of Christ’s death, but he never saw or knew Christ. So if no one actually saw Christ arisen from the dead, how can we really believe what the gospels say? Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mormonism are even more fantastically outlandish than Christianity could ever be.

If there was a God, don’t you think he would leave some clue that he existed? With all of our scientifically modern technology, don’t you think that we could get a small clue of God’s existence? Where is that clue? Scientists have searched this world and the universe over and there is still no clue. Why is it that miracles seemed to have come to an abrupt end after the gospels were written? If there was a God, don’t you think that miracles would still be taking place? Why did the twelve disciples get all the good luck and none was saved for the rest of us? What else can one conclude except that he’s not there? Have any of you ever actually spoken with God like they supposedly did in the Old Testament? Why did all the communications with God stop two thousand years ago? If anyone knows of a good scientifically valid clue that God exists, I would like to know about it because I’m tired of searching for it.

A Personal Funeral

2009-09-30T02:49:00.001-05:00

by MtlRedAtheist

Last week was the 9th anniversary of my grandmother's passing. She died on my mother's birthday.

I decided to visit her grave site for the first time since the funeral 9 years ago. I needed to have some alone time to remember her. The circumstances surrounding her death were rather terrible, but I needed to revisit them. I needed to say a final farewell and set her to rest in my own mind. Aware she could not hear me, I still shared a few personal words with her. I felt I owed myself the therapy.

I loved her very much. Sometimes I get emotional, when I see her strong features in my children's faces. I see her in my father and his sisters and when I look in the mirror and a sadness comes over me, because I miss her.

It took many years following her death before I felt I had the strength to visit the site and have that much needed moment alone with my thoughts and memories. The reason it took so long dates back to my childhood. When I was 6 years old, my parents converted to Evangelical Christianity. From that point on, I was raised on the Christian fundamentals of the Bible. I believed. I was a child.

I was taught that death is not the end, but that we have a spirit that lives on. I was taught that this spirit, by default, is condemned to suffer for eternity, burning in a lake of fire. This notion utterly terrified me as a child, but I was also taught that there is a way to avoid this fate. I was taught that if I believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and accepted his "gift" of salvation, my spirit would not be cast into the fiery pits of hell, but rather go on to live in a paradise of eternal bliss with God. This appealed to me much more than the alternative.

Shortly after my parents conversion, my father shared his beliefs with his parents and siblings, hoping they would believe and be saved like him. They were not convinced and did not convert. Considering what I was taught, I believed that my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were at risk of being thrown into the lake of fire to be tortured forever. This grieved me to no end. I spent the rest of my childhood in fear for them.

About 14 years later, these fears culminated when my cousin nearly died in a tragic car accident. I clung tightly to my faith and prayed fervently for my cousin's recovery and even more fervently for her spiritual salvation. The thought of my innocent cousin suffering for eternity in more excruciating pain than what she was already experiencing in her broken body weighed so heavily on my mind that I became sick whenever I thought of it.

I recall that night that following her first surgery, it looked like she was going to live. My fear for her spiritual salvation subsided gradually, but not completely. During my cousin's lengthy recovery, I began to examine the toll my beliefs in hell were taking on my mind. Then without warning, my grandmother became very ill and died within a few weeks.

Without any evidence of her having converted, I believed that my innocent grandmother, my love, was suffering in eternal torment. This tortured me. This is why I could never return to her grave site to personally pay my respects for so many years. I was sad, hurt, angry, worried and fearful. My faith was causing me such torment. How could the beautiful person that was my grandmother be punished so severely for merely not being convinced by the words of the Bible for which there is no supporting evidence?

Over the next few years, for reasons unrelated to this story, I lost my faith. I became an atheist. I became aware that death is final, but people live on in the memories of loved ones and those they touched in life. Thankfully there is no heaven or hell, only our short life here on Earth that we should make the most of in every possible way. Life is far more valuable with this outlook, because it's the only one we got.

After putting this religious days to rest, I realized that I never properly grieved my grandmother's death and never properly said my good-byes, as I was too concerned with my beliefs that she was being tortured indefinitely. I don't know why it took so many years, even after losing my faith, but I finally made it out to my grandmother's grave site and made my peace.

Now that I'm a father, I notice time go by very quickly and I realize that life is short. Life is too short to hold grudges against those we love and dwell on our own hurt feelings. Life is too short to cut loved ones out of our lives. Life is too short to marginalize our loved ones because of our faith. Life is too short to marginalized our loved ones because of their faith. Life is too short, so live it to its fullest.

Intolerable

2009-09-28T15:33:00.004-05:00

by Patricia

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Some of you might of seen me around posting from time to time on a few things, but not really know who I am or what I am about.

Well let me start by saying my mum is a Catholic, born in Egypt where most of the country is Muslim who hate Christians (she claims) and would say disgusting things to her. In the end she immigrated to the land down under where we enjoy the black salty yeasty brewers tar known as vegemite.

Well for as long as I can recall, my grandmother (her mother) had lived with us until her death a few years ago, my parents had long separated.

I was born with serious heart and birth defects and was baptised in the hospital because the doctors thought I would not make it, and then once I was well enough, I was baptised in a church.

I did my sacraments of confession and communion.

My Mum’s Brother is a priest, her sister is a nun and another brother was studying to become a deacon.

As you can see the religious side of my family runs very deep through them.
I am a secret disgrace and shame for my poor mother who wishes I could be more like my brother and embrace god and Jesus.

I recall when I was younger I would go to some spiritual “healing” sessions where some people would pray over me for my heart, and they would ask if I felt anything which I said yes, but really the answer was no.

We went to this big group church thing I cannot recall what it was, some large outdoor park venue, we were told if we prayed hard enough or if we had faith god would appear to us or perform some miracle. Well I guess we a) did not pray hard enough, or b) had enough faith.

I recall feeling disappointed thinking we were praying why hadn’t we seen anything spectacular?

When I was younger my auntie (who is married to the deacon), told us of a miracle she had seen the sun “spinning” and came and told my mum enthusiastically, I still do not understand what it could possibly be a sign of, but whatever.
So we were over at their place one day and my auntie was pointing at this miracle she had seen it showed itself again, my auntie was saying to my mum that she had prayed to god and the Virgin Mary to repeat that miracle so we wouldn’t think she was crazy. And it happened! (ta-da), I do not recall exactly what I saw but how could that be a miracle? What does it exactly signify?

My mum told me not to tell anyone at school the next day because they would not believe me, well she was right, I told my two best friends and they looked at me like I had sprouted a second head!

As I got older I started to think for myself a bit more, mum would love to have religious discussions with us and go on and on as if it was the only thing in the world, I became increasingly frustrated at what I saw as her narrow minded answers to my questions and her in ability to not be able to mesh them with reality and her constant want to debate and fight over everything. I recall when my grandmother was around she would say if you don’t do this (insert task) god won’t love you!

One of my mum’s sister’s is going through a hard time and asks why god is doing this to her and how it must be his will to cause her all this suffering in life (her husband is I believe emotionally and verbally abusive towards her). It causes me pain to hear her speak as if god would actively participate in handing out this punishment to this lovely woman who is so kind. I just cannot fathom the type of god who would do such a thing to someone who converted to Greek Orthodox for her husband for him to turn around and say in front of the church people her opinion doesn’t matter because she is not a real orthodox. (If I heard him I would have dropped the C bomb, but again I am just a disappointment).

When I was about 16 just before my 16th birthday I was in hospital for a week because I had tried to commit suicide, because of things happening to me in my life that time, Instead of having a loving mother who would comfort me and want to find out what happened to make me go down this path, I got the cold shoulder, I got my mum coming to the conclusion the only reason I did this was because I saw it in a horror movie that I wanted to emulate, then she said if I ever did it again she would leave me at a half way home, and then the final icing on the cake was, when I was upset about that, my grandmother told my mother to just ignore me because I was acting up for attention! (Imagine that)

So that is what they did, ignore me, ignore that I was going through depression, if is very hard for me to type this because It stirs up those emotions of rage and anger that were perpetrated by so called Christians.

But then the bible is full of hate so I can’t really be surprised or blame them for their attitudes, because it comes from this so called book of “love and peace” should be titled “war and hate.”

I haven’t been to church for many years and I do doubt the actual reality of there being god who gives us free will but puts us in families who as another poster pointed out indoctrinates us from birth into their chosen religion, so we don’t really have any of this free will. Well now that I think about it I have exercised my free will to refute the existence of god.

Now fast forward another 15 years give or take a year or two (a lady never reveals her true age).

My mum is now suffering from depression and actually came to the conclusion that since she was 19 she never felt happy in her life, no joy or anything. She believes her ex boyfriend from another country had this curse put on her by her sister’s ex boyfriend (who also claimed he did black magic), that still lingers to this day.
She told me I do not know what it is like to be depressed so I have no idea of what she is going through (see the ignoring of my attempted suicide).

She has told her poor sister (the one married to that nasty Greek Orthodox) that their ex’s got together to put this curse on them both.

So they both pray for this curse to be removed, she also enlists the help her priest brother who has done exorcisms of houses or “cleansing”.

I cannot fathom the level of this superstitious non-sense but she claims people all around Greece and Egypt and in Spain all believe in black magic (As if it is credible).

She refuses to get proper treatment and help claiming they are all quacks and they do more harm than good.

I say religion has had a terribly negative impact on my mother’s side of the family, I can only see it as compounding the problems that they face, and not helping in any way other than to teach them to honour your family even if it is wrong. I am not sure if it is a cultural thing as well but it seems religion plays a big part of their decisions as well.

Because I always hear “A good Christian doesn’t do x,y,z”
So I cannot pinpoint why or when I stopped believing I can only say my experiences of the people around me people who claim to be good Christians are actually liars and perpetrators’ of horrible abuse.

And that is why I cannot follow a religion like that, or any that claims god is loving yet allows starving people to live and die in poverty to which I asked my mum why god won’t help them, she claims he can’t do everything for people and people must help themselves, and I point out that the governments in those countries are corrupt and so this god should step in and help the people who are suffering unjustly because of corrupt governments she said they won’t get help because they don’t believe in god and Jesus.

So I just throw my hands up in the air at so called Christians and want nothing to do with any of them anymore, I find their human rights practices do not coincide with actual human rights.

How I escaped the monkey trap

2009-09-26T13:58:00.002-05:00

by Godless Vagabond

Image by TimOve via Flickr

My life has been the epitome of cognitive dissonance. When I was a little girl in church I remember wondering why there wasn't a goddess because it didn't seem fair that the boys had a divine role-model and I didn't. I also knew that women are moms and if we were all children of god and if he is father in heaven and if we were made in the image of god then there should be a goddess mother somewhere. I thought later that it was the Earth was our mother but still there was no mention of her in the bible. But still I liked that idea since I loved nature. I read a lot as a child. I loved fairy tales and mythology and fantasy and sci-fi. I saw the similarities in all the mythologies, including the one I was told was real. I fell in love with horses and Native Americans and read their legends and read about the different tribes and how they held respect for nature. How they saw themselves as a part of nature instead of apart from it. I read how white people treated the natives and the land and all living things upon it. I was ashamed of how Christian Europeans treated our native peoples. I still have shame that my ancestry is the same as those bigots.

I noticed that women were, at best, second-class citizens in the bible. My mother was a single parent who got help from her parents to raise me. I remember being miffed that the bible had such a low opinion of women while the only parent I had was my mom. If men were so superior then why wasn't my father man enough to help raise me?

I wondered why we had a tree in the house for Xmas when there wasn't a mention of one when Jesus was born. Nor was there any mention of Santa Clause or Easter bunnies or colorful eggs. What did they have to do with Christmas or Easter? I later found out that eggs and rabbits were symbols of fertility and that Santa first appeared in Western Europe as a form of the god Odin. Easter is a corruption of the name Ishtar, a fertility goddess and that rabbits and eggs are symbols of fertility.

I remember having communion one Sunday and literally almost throwing up at the thought that we were symbolically consuming a body. "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" on one hand and the sin of cannibalism on the other. I didn't take communion for a long time after that. Even now the thought makes me a little nauseous.

I was told that there would not be animals or plants in heaven because heaven was for humans to praise God forever. I thought that heaven sounded very boring and wondered why a God would need us to sing his praises. For a brief moment I wondered what hell would be like and if it would be an improvement. And if pets would be there, as well. But that thought was sacrilegious so I quashed it. More or less.

I wondered how God could send people to hell just because they never heard of him or Jesus. How was their ignorance their fault? And if you had to be baptized and believe in Jesus to be saved then what about all the people that lived and died before Jesus? Did that mean that EVERYONE, including Noah and Moses and David were going to hell? All of the Hebrews who were dead before Jesus came and now too, even though they are Gods own chosen? All of the people everywhere who had never ever heard of Jesus? That didn’t make any sense at all.

I read Drawing Down The Moon by Margot Adler and thought that a goddess focused religion was better than the patriarchal one I had been dealing with. I ended up meeting some witches and studying Wicca. I liked it. Wiccans view the Earth as sacred and the place of humanity was to protect the planet and work with it. Women were cherished as sources of life and as embodiment of the Mother who sustains us all and that male and female were mutually dependent. Wicca also teaches personal accountability, a most refreshing concept from the pass-the-buck mentality of Christianity. I never liked the idea of me being sinful just because two people somewhere in the nebulous past ate from some tree. What was I supposed to do about that? Hop in a time machine and go stop them? And why should someone suffer and die because of me? I couldn't blame anything I did on someone else. And if I were inclined to shift the blame to anyone I doubt they would smile and nod and let me do it. But, I never stopped thinking that God and Jesus were real in some way or another. I just started worshiping other gods.

Wicca was also accepting of everyone. Everyone was seen as a child of the goddess and worthy of respect, unless the individual acted otherwise. Wicca acknowledged all gods and goddesses. I met people who had affinity mostly for the deities of Scandinavia and Britain but met one Christian Wiccan. I ended up being a solitary practitioner but gave it up. I didn’t get any real answers to my questions and was always left feeling dissatisfied after a ceremony. I liked the rituals but had a hard time finding privacy and was having life full in my face and just didn’t have the time.

I eventually investigated the Mormon church. I thought I had found the True Path! They had some really good answers to my initial questions and taught that women were closer to God because we created new life. Much better option than being viewed as worthless except as a baby mill. I studied scriptures and loved Sunday school classes. I learned that when Jesus came back the Earth would be glorified and perfected. That was the best thing I have ever heard. Then I was told that only people who would be on Earth were the ones who had committed some sins that weren't totally forgettable. They were good enough for heaven but not good enough to be with God or Jesus. I began to wonder what sins I would have to commit so I could stay on the perfected planet. A perfected Earth sounded like heaven much more than some freaking house made of gold and jewels, up in the clouds and all lit up all the time. I hated that idea. I wanted to be able to walk in restored forests in all their majesty, visit the plains and tundras and mountains. I wanted to see clean rivers flowing freely to the sea. I wanted to learn about all of the plants and animals and smell the fresh air, feel the rain falling on me and watch the endless sunrises and sunsets. THAT was my idea of heaven. It still would be, if there were such a thing. (That and a library of every good book ever written). Then I started asking more questions. I got standard apologetic answers that sounded good on the surface but were no answers at all. The church had only recently gotten revelation from God that blacks were to be allowed to hold the Priesthood after all. I was amazed at that. I thought this was an advanced church with a living prophet with a hotline to God and yet only recently have our brothers of African descent been granted the priesthood? Only now is the church catching up with desegregation? What was up with that? I noticed subtle racism and sexism in the church too, which soured their preachings of how they were the true church.

Then came the clinchers. I was married to someone who became abusive. Most of it was mental but there was some physical also. I tried to be a good wife and prayed to God and Jesus that my husband would become a better person. We attended a joint meeting between the womens and mens groups on marriage and relationships. They spoke well and honestly on how people in a relationship should act. I was thinking: "Awesome! The Holy Spirit was there, speaking through the teacher to men and women who need to change. Things should start to get better soon." On the way home my husband told me that he knew that we both needed to change to make the marriage work but he wasn’t going to. I remember thinking “What the fuck?” I was stunned. I didn’t say anything but I didn’t forget his words. A few years later (yes, I stayed too long but I kept hoping Jesus would work a miracle) he lost his cool and put his hands where they didn’t need to be. I left a few weeks later once I had made living arrangements. The church sent us to a councilor (three free sessions) and upon his insistence I went to a shrink because he was convinced I had some issues with abandonment by my father that were making me want to get out of our marriage. I went to appease him as I knew good and damn well what my problem was and that a divorce would fix it. The shrink asked me questions and didn’t find anything wrong with me and said I was right to leave. I was told I was strong and that he wasn’t gonna take my money because I didn’t need his help. I also talked with our bishop and a person in the church I had admired greatly. They both told me that I needed to forgive my husband, move back in and make my family whole again.

I became…. angry. Incensed. Furious. Seething. I was the one being abused and had been “forgiving” it for all those years yet this was somehow MY fault? I needed to “get over this”? What about him? What about how the Holy Spirit is supposed to guide the church leaders and let them know who needs help? Bah. They didn’t do or say anything to him and somehow I was the bad person for leaving. I supposed he said he was sorry (yeah, I had heard THAT one before) and downplayed how long this had been going on. I didn’t care. They all had shown me their true colors. I was done with them.

Long story short, we got divorced and I have never looked back. I left that church altogether and researched other faiths. Buddhism looks good on paper but they and the Muslims there are happily killing each other and who knows who else so forget that. Islam was out of the question, though I understand that they teach a better land ethic than Christianity does. That may not say much since I don’t think Christianity HAS a land ethic. I thought about Wicca again but decided to just quit searching. All of them just tried to baffle people with bullshit, some more than others. I figured maybe I was agnostic. Agnostics believed in a god of some sort, right? Kinda maybe? I couldn’t prove there was one but I couldn’t prove there wasn’t either. And did it really matter as long as I treated people with kindness?

I went back to school to get a degree and happened across a book in the library there by Richard Dawkins with a garish, shining silver cover blazing on a shelf. I read the spine of the book: “The God Delusion.” It sounded horribly sacrilegious so of course I took it off the shelf and started reading.

I was amazed. So many of my questions and doubts from when I was six or so till I opened the book were here. All of the inconsistencies and illogical things I had noticed were pointed out and so were more that I had not considered. All of the stupid arguments and 'proofs' used by church leaders were shredded and so much more. This was the first book on religion I had ever read that made complete sense (I suggest you read that book if you haven’t). I realized that I wasn’t the only one who had grown up with sticky questions and I had finally found a new answer: None Of The Above. I didn’t have to believe in any god at all. What an amazing, liberating thought. I have no idea why that had never occurred to me before. Maybe because I wanted there to be a god somewhere to fix all that humanity is ruining. Maybe because I was raised to believe in a god. I don’t know. I do know that I felt as if weights were lifted off of me. I was free. Suddenly that shrill, edgy, background whine of cognitive dissonance that had been pulsing in my head for all my life was gone. I was able to wonder anew at nature and the planet and the stars and... everything. I gained an even stronger respect for life. This life is all I have. This isn’t a dress rehearsal, there won’t be Jesus coming with armies to slaughter the enemy (can you just feel the love?) and take his people home with him.

I escaped my religious monkey trap with the same method used to escape all monkey traps: I let go.

Losing my religion after examining the source

2009-09-26T12:05:00.002-05:00

by TheWrathofDog

I grew up in a religious household. I don't mean that we were Fundies or any such nonsense, just that we were a typical middle-class family living in a "Leave It to Beaver" suburb and we attended church and Sunday School every week until I was 10 years old.

My mother taught Sunday School for years and wanted us to grow up as Protestants, as she said, "To give you a sense of reverence," although why this was automatically supposed to be a good thing, I don't know. My dad worked for the Government and his bosses felt that having the family in church was good PR. So we went. I and my siblings learned all the usual stuff about the Creation, the Fall of Man, God's picking the Hebrews as his favorite team, the coming of Jesus and the whole Passion Story.

And I believed. I remember lying in bed at night pleading with God to forgive my sins should I not wake. I held on to the belief that nothing i did in this world was important compared to the world to come! Yes, sir, let the school bullies pick on me, God's got their numbers!

My deconversion occurred as it often does. I had a Bible and had picked through it, but one day, on a camping trip, I started to really READ it.

I couldn't believe it. The lack of logic in God testing man when he KNEW what the outcome would be, the war crimes committed by the Hebrews in the name of their god, the stories that were obvious mythology, the "stories of Jesus" which I began to realize were preposterous.

But the thing that angered me was the obvious hatred of women and championing of slavery in this book. Women were nothing to the scribblers of the Bible— women were too inferior to teach men, were to keep their mouths shut and not ask questions in church, etc. I wondered what in hell was so attractive about this trash to my mother and women like her, who devoted their time to a religion that despised them and a God who cared nothing for them!

And I understood miracles thereafter: I had NEVER had a "prayer answered" in ANY way that couldn't be accounted for by normal, mundane agencies. If I got a job, it was because I DID IT, not because I prayed for God to give me one; I realized that if Justice was to prevail, we all have to abandon the view that vengeance is God's and he will repay. He won't, sorry.

By the time I was thirteen, I had lost my belief in the Abrahamic nonsense (and yes, that means that I concluded that Islam is a load of rubbish, as well.)

Today I look back on the childish, empty-headed belief system I swallowed as a kid, and I know that there is no God out there of the type spoken of in the Bible. I shake my head at my stupidity.

I still read the Bible, but for what I think it is: writings by a primitive people who were trying to make sense of the world around them and find a way to fit themselves into it. From that standpoint, the book is a good one.

So in closing, let me say that I am an example of the fact that nothing will turn you into an unbeliever as quickly as reading the source material.

They Overplayed Their Hand

2009-09-18T12:47:00.008-05:00

by Larry Spencer

Image by smlp.co.uk via Flickr

I would still be an Evangelical today were it not for Christians overplaying their hand.

About four years ago, a decision we had to make as a family forced me to get off the fence about young-earth creationism (YEC). Having been an evangelical/fundamental Christian for over 35 years, I had always rooted for the YECs. I had had my reservations (for example, the conjecture of better-developed animals seeking higher ground during the Flood [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/humans-and-dinosaurs] was preposterous enough, but how did the advanced plants climb the hills?), but I cheered any “evidence” that YEC was true.

But now it was time to get serious. I had always trusted creationists to present both sides of the debate. (They were Christians so I could trust them, right?) This time, I decided to let evolutionists speak for themselves. I bought the book Scientists Confront Creationism and was overwhelmed with the evidence for evolution as corroborated by completely independent disciplines. To my shock, I discovered that YECs had never mentioned much of the evidence for evolution, and what they had mentioned they had misrepresented. (No transitional fossils? Ha!) By the time I reached the final chapter, which devastatingly compared YECs to flat-earthers, I was a convinced evolutionist.

That did not damage my faith, but I felt extremely betrayed by the Christian leaders I had trusted. The YECs at the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis were PhD scientists, supposedly very spiritual, and at the top of their profession. Now I knew that their greatest competency was neither in science nor Christian character but in telling convincing lies. Perhaps they had taken Martin Luther’s famous words [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther] to heart:

“What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.”

Although I held onto my faith, I felt I could no longer trust Christian leaders. To be sure, the ones I knew personally were good people. None of them would endorse Martin Luther’s idea that a lie can be acceptable to God. However, I had just learned that even good, honest people can easily ignore evidence for their entire lives, and teach others from a position of ignorance. I certainly had. What’s more the fine leaders in my life had only taught me what they had received from other people -- people who might be as bound up in falsehood as those at the top of the YEC movement.

If I felt betrayed by the Christian elite, I felt even more acute disappointment in myself. The truth about evolution had been available to me for my 35 years as a Christian, yet I had chosen to remain ignorant. I had alienated many people dear to me for the sake of a Just-So Story and had wasted years invested in a lie.

I promised myself I would no longer believe things on the basis of trusted authority. If I was going to be convinced of anything, I would have to evaluate the evidence myself.

I also promised myself that I would never again let ignorance and go-along-to-get-along replace knowledge and reason. All my Christian life, I and those around me had denigrated the “wisdom of this world” (1 Corinthians 3:19). We were happy to “become fools so that we might become wise” (1 Corinthians 3:18). That attitude had led me straight down a dead-end of ignorance and embarrassment.

Still, I did hope for positive evidence for the Christian faith. Just because YEC was false didn’t mean the whole thing was a lie. I was determined to find some evidence for my faith. I looked into one issue after another, and was disappointed at every turn.

I hoped for empirical evidence that God answers prayer. I had heard rumors of formal studies that showed he did. Turns out that God does not grant our supplications more often than we’d expect by chance [http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PIIS0002870305006496/abstract], even prayers that are in his will [http://www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/prayer.html] according to the Bible. Entire classes of worthy prayers are never answered [http://whywontgodhealamputees.com]. Furthermore, I saw that Christians who had reported on prayer studies had done so dishonestly -- reporting only the favorable portion of the results and failing to mention the rest. From one or two incomplete reports, a rumor starts and pretty soon everyone is believing it.
According to Romans 8:9, the Holy Spirit should cause Christians to live better lives than other people. However, according to both my anecdotal observations and systematic studies [http://www.christianbookpreviews.com/christian-book-excerpt.php?isbn 01065410], born-again Christians behave no better than the rest of the population. They are just like everyone else in behaviors ranging from losing one’s temper to adultery. There are good Christians, but goodness is just as plentiful among atheists.
I had always thought that something as incredible as Christianity could never have gotten started if it weren’t true. But once I learned about memes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme] I had to admit that they adequately explain the rise of miracle-doctrines such as the virgin birth and the Resurrection. They also offer a natural and convincing explanation of virulent doctrines such as hell -- far more convincing than “progressive revelation.”
I observed that Christians fall into logical fallacy [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/] just as often as everyone else, if not more often. They do not seem to have any particular wisdom from God.
The Argument from Morality [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_morality] had always been important to me. Then one day it hit me that secular morals are just as real as prices in a free market. (See my post on Free-Market Moralty [http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2009/09/free-market-morality.html].)
The Christian faith is replete with doctrinal in-coherencies. In the past, I accepted these are “paradoxes” but in light of everything else I was learning I could no longer be so charitable. For example, I had always been taught that hell is necessary because God cannot dwell with evil (Psalm 5:4). So how did God-in-the-Flesh manage to get on so well with the dregs of society? I had been taught that evil is a necessary consequence of free will, without which we could not truly love God. So how will we love God in heaven, yet manage not to sin during an eternity of free will? (Demons are angels who sinned in heaven, according to Christians.)
The biblical accounts of the all-important Passion and Resurrection contradict [http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/Gospel_Contradictions_Gospels_are_Full_of_Contradictions_Errors.htm] each other. In any case, the decades between Jesus’ death and the writing of the gospels were more than enough time for wild legends to develop. Even in modern times, a faith as outlandish as Mormonism took root rapidly.
The formation of the biblical canon was a messy and very human process that took hundreds of years of tussling. Rarely does a biblical book give its own author, much less claim to be infallible. The Old Testament (OT) canon was not closed by the time of Jesus, yet he left us no list of what should be in it. Neither did the apostles give us a list of what should be in the New Testament. In light of all this, why does the Church claim that the Bible is infallible and includes all the right books?

To find that all the evidence pointed in the opposite direction than I had wished was bad enough, but the final straw was when I examined the Bible itself with new eyes and found that many of the atrocities I had glossed over as the acts of evil men were in fact the acts of God himself, or commanded by God.

I spoke with a friend who had been a missionary to a tribe in the Venezuelan jungle, and is now doing missionary work in New England. I asked him if he thought the Baal-worshippers of OT times were like the Venezuelan Indians of today in the sense of being more “lost” than “evil.” He thought they were and cited an example: Although members of his tribe loved their children, their superstitions were strong enough to compel them to kill their own offspring. If twins were born, the witch doctor would tell the parents which twin was evil and which was good, and the parents then had to leave the evil one to die of exposure in the jungle, his cries and death-whimpers audible to the entire tribe. (Thankfully, this practice changed when the tribe saw that both twins of a missionary couple were good!)

Realizing that the Canaanites who were wiped out at God’s command (Deuteronomy 7:1-2) were probably no worse than the Indians of Venezuela, but merely in miserable bondage to their superstitions, I looked at the biblical genocides in new light.

The final molecule of the final straw was Leviticus 21:16-23. There, God prohibits the deformed and the lame from presenting offerings to him or even approaching his altar. He says these human beings are “defective” and would “desecrate” his sanctuary. I read this passage at about the same time that someone very dear to me was diagnosed with scoliosis, her back already deformed from this congenital condition. If there is anyone whom God ought to welcome at his altar, it is this sweet, sensitive, spiritual girl. I also know a Marine who has stood firm in his faith and morals during 4 years of service to his country, in spite of temptations that have literally spanned the globe -- the finest young man anyone could hope to meet. I realized that if he were to be seriously wounded then the God of the OT would have regarded him, too, as “defective” and his presence as a “desecration.” At the thought of God turning these wonderful young people away from his altar, I was angry for days. Christians with whom I spoke offered various excuses, but they rang hollow. I was done making lame excuses for the God of the Bible. If there’s a good god out there somewhere, the God of the Bible ain’t it.

I am thankful for those young-earth creationists. If they had not overplayed their hand, I probably would have continued to trust the Christian elite. I never would have discovered how wrong I was. I would have continued in my faith-fog for the rest of my life.

Well, it’s time for a new hand. My 52nd birthday is approaching -- one year for each card in a deck. Let me now discard the old deck of misguided faith and prideful irrationality. I hope time remains to play at the table of science, logic and reason.

Ducklings, Death and Belief

2009-09-16T14:26:00.004-05:00

by William Howard Agnew, OD

Hello all. Praise the FSM and pass the parmesan.

My story is completely different than most I've read on this site so far.

I cannot believe the horrors described by most of the testimonials I've read here. How people who think themselves to be loving creatures of their god can be so hateful to anyone, let alone a family member, is beyond the comprehension of anyone without the psychic disease of religion.

As Blaise Pascal (of the infamous wager) himself said, "Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious conviction."

I was never really indoctrinated with christianity, but I believed as a child and young man.

My parents, a lapsed Catholic and an indifferent Methodist, got married and decided on the middle ground of Episcopalianism. We moved to Harrisonburg, VA and joined the emmanuel episcopal church, where I aattended sunday school. Chapel service was reserved for the adults except on major holidays, when we all attended the sermon of the celebration.

I attended my Cub and Boy Scout meetings at the church (a bizarre facet of Scouting which goes without the examination it deserves), made a lot of good friends in sunday school and generally enjoyed the experience, particularly the McDonald's orange drink and cookies. This went on in a benign fashion until I was 13 and we moved to suburban Philadelphia (although looking back on the school-sponsored bible lessons on the bus parked on the street right off my elementary school grounds makes me more than a bit queasy).

After we moved to Philly we never attended church services regularly again, only on Christmas and Easter.

I maintained my "faith" throughout high school and went off to college and began to study biology and genetic engineering.

As you may expect, this put a major dent in my "faith." I went home after my freshman year and explained to my parents that I was experiencing doubt. My dad, one of the most gentle people in the world, got all blustery and told me, "You've been raised to believe in god in this house!" I was quite taken aback, not realizing the importance he still attached to something we hadn't participated in regularly for over 5 years. My mom, having experienced the horrors of catholicism, might have already arrived at the same sense of doubt and said nothing.

That was that, and we've never spoken of it again.

Later, as I was completing optometry school, I took a new shortcut on the way to my friend's house just outside of Princeton on Cold Soil Road. On this road is a Ducks Crossing sign; a yellow diamond with a mamma duck being followed by three baby ducklings, one theatrically flying upside down.

When I saw it I felt an immediate sense of panic, felt I had to pull over and slammed on the brakes. I sat there, breathing heavily, reliving a past experience that would forever change my "faith."

The college I attended was on a hill, and there was a stream flowing along its base. Next to the stream was a little road you used to get to the far side of campus that I had traveled dozens of times in my years there. I remembered thinking back to something that had left me unfazed at the time but now filled me with a sense of dread.

There were dead baby ducklings on that road every so often, squashed flat by the tires of oncoming cars. No big deal, I thought at the time, sh*t happens. But when I saw that Ducks Crossing sign I flashed back and realized that those baby ducklings crossed the road at the same place every time, and that the place they crossed was visible for a good 200 yards in either direction, day or night.

It dawned on me that the people who ran those baby ducklings over had to have done so on purpose, perhaps even speeding up to make sure they were killed. There was no other explanation.

I felt my chest caving in. How could this be? How could the benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe allow baby ducklings to be killed at the whim of some sadistic f*ck?

What the f*ck kind of plan is that?

This simply could not be. Either god was wrong or I was. So, after 25 years of studious avoidance, I pulled out my bible and began to read.

You all know where this is going. After reading about the genocides, hatreds, fantasies and lies (and that's just the new testament), I gave up the ghost for good.

It's been 11 years now. I'm wonderfully married to a woman of similar disposition and couldn't be happier with the direction my revelation has taken me.

The reason for all this rabbiting on is that I'm finally going to tell my family after we move back to the US later this year. I don't think they'll disown me or anything, and I hope that after I tell them my story they'll use their own faculties of reason and come to similar conclusions.

I just really needed a dress rehearsal, and this seemed like the best place to do so.

The light of the world, and the chief glory of man

2009-09-11T14:11:00.002-05:00

by Kristyn Rosato

Image via Wikipedia

I like to tell people that I was birthed in the church, and it’s pretty much the truth. My mother’s water broke when she stood for the final benediction. I’m sure if the Bible held a clause about the importance of birthing a child within the walls of a church, she would have made sure it happened. I say this to impress upon you the fact that I was indoctrinated with Christianity since I was a small child. I was raised in Church and in private Christian schools. The path I took from what I was taught growing up to where I am now has been the biggest struggle of my life.

When I tell people I don’t believe in God, they tend to believe it’s just a phase. That it’s a period of doubt that “everyone” goes through. To me, this was initially offensive. They were saying that I didn’t have the logic and integrity to reason through something and be true to myself. They thought it was just something that I wanted to do because I didn’t want to be a good person. “I wanted to be liberal.” I didn’t want to listen to the rules that the Bible demands we live by. This, in fact, was the exact opposite of the situation. I wanted there to be a God. I wanted it all to be true…badly. And, I didn’t have too many issues with the principles of Christianity. In fact, I think Christianity helps some people be a better person. But, the reality is it’s not necessary to embrace any religion to be a good person. This, though, is not the point I am trying to make.

As I searched through the Bible, through what the religion claimed to be the infallible word of God, I started to become confused, and later on, appalled. I’m embarrassed to admit, but this whole journey started with the book, “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. It is, of course, a work of fiction, but the boldness with which it questioned and contradicted the Bible was something that I’d ever been exposed to prior to reading this novel. I began to think about the pieces of the Bible that never really sat well with me, and the more reading I did (as an adult), the more I became shocked and disgusted.

The stories I was taught to admire began to swarm in my head. Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, God drowning almost everyone on the planet with a flood, God raining down sulfur on cities, God killing firstborn children. These were just a few of the terrifying, murderous stories housed within the book.

I was taught at church that Abraham was almost a saint. That he had so much faith in God, he was willing to kill his own child, because God had asked him to do so. I used to be in awe of that story. He had immeasurable faith. How awesome.

How awesome? I couldn't believe I had actually thought this! What type of God tests the loyalty of a follower by asking for the sacrifice of his own child? How sadistic! And, in my humble opinion, I don’t care who asks you to kill your child, the correct answer is no! Added to that is the fact that this is only one of the many child sacrifice stories found within this "holy" book, and most all of these executions were carried out! God didn't put the brakes on the rest of them like he did with Abraham.

The flood is a whole other story. Now, I’m not sure exactly how many people were on the earth at this time, but apparently that was immaterial to God, who effectively murdered all of them, sparing only a drunk and his immediate family. This is another story that was twisted all sideways in Sunday school. We colored fun pictures of an ark, and giggled about all the animals that Noah would house on his biblical Titanic. We marveled at the rainbow, a symbol of the promise God had made to Noah, which was to remind us that he would never again cause a worldwide flood.

Reading as an adult, I realized that God annihilated his entire creation! What happened to the loving, compassionate, kind, forgiving God that I had been taught existed? The people on earth were honestly so evil that God decided he made a mistake creating them, and the only way to fix the situation was to murder them all and start over? And wait, God could make mistakes? And on top of all that, there really was no alternative except mass murder? He was the Lord! Surely he could have conjured up slightly more compassionate idea than genocide!

How about these rainbows I was taught to admire? After reading this story through un-biased eyes, rainbows had become a reminder to me that the God I had believed existed had purportedly killed 99.9% of his creation! I’m not even going to go into the fact that that would mean we are all inbred, since the only people that were left to procreate after this were Noah and his immediate family! Although, I supposed they were inbred too, I mean who did Adam and Eve’s children have to marry but each other??

By the time I got to the story of the firstborn children being killed, I wanted to vomit. How many excuses could I make for God before I just couldn’t take it anymore? The Bible had become the most offensive book that I’d ever read, and I was more than ashamed that there was a point in my life that I had loved it. But, sadly, I had.

There is something wonderful about Christianity in the sense that it gives you a purpose. The church is a tight knit community. For the most part, it was a good experience for me. There is a feeling of love and security around other believers. You feel like you belong, like you have a reason for being on this earth. No matter what you do, there is someone that always loves you unconditionally, that will never leave you. Someone who will forgive you time and time again, every time you mess up. When you falter and fail, he will always help you back to your feet. Unconditional love is a powerful idea, one that is extremely hard to let go.

When I finally realized I didn’t believe in God, that I couldn't believe in God, it was a heartbreaking experience. The sense of love and comfort that I had harbored was gone. But I simply couldn’t continue to believe in God, because I realized that the God of the Bible and the God I had been taught about in Church were polar opposites. As Julia Sweeney says in her monologue Letting Go of God, "It’s only because I took God so seriously that I couldn’t believe in him anymore."

I walked outside one night, and I looked up at the sky. I stared for a minute, and finally said, “You’re not the person I thought you were, and I don’t think I am either. I just can’t do this anymore. I just don’t believe you’re real.” I’ll never forget that defining moment in my life. To my complete surprise, I felt a huge burden being lifted from my shoulders. All the guilt and fear that I had been unwittingly harboring had been lifted. I felt free. I felt empowered. I felt...happy.

As time went on, I started to look at the world in a different light. I realized how lucky I was to be here. How lucky we all are to be here. And as this happened, I started to gain a new perspective on life. If we are all we have, I realized it was infinitely important that we take care of each other. I understood that there was no God keeping track of everything I did wrong, there was no threat of hell. I felt unburdened, but more than that, I realized the true importance of being a good person.

There is an innate danger in religion, which I hadn’t realized until this revelation. It teaches us that we aren’t enough. It teaches that there has to be a higher power for there to be a good enough reason to exist. It teaches us that we cannot trust in ourselves, that we are sinful and terrible people and it is only through the grace of God that we can try to better ourselves and be the people we should be. This simply is not true. In fact, only since my new found atheism have I realized the strength that I truly possess. It was only then that I could truly trust and love myself. I was capable of being all that I needed. I didn’t need some ethereal being to give me reason and purpose. It was one of those crystallizing moments, and I realized that I’d never been happier, and never been more motivated to contribute to society.

My family is deeply religious, and they struggle with my decision. My mother still cries because she believes if I were to die, I would go to hell. I’ve never wanted to make my mother upset, or anyone else in my family, for that matter. But, I couldn’t respect myself if I didn’t start standing up for what I believed in. They did it every day, and I should be afforded that same right.

I still sometimes cringe at the word “atheist,” although it is how I now identify myself. I sometimes find myself falling back into the ass-backward thinking of Christianity because it was habit for so long. But, I am slowly learning. I’m educating myself about science, which was never taught to me in the school system growing up. I'm finally employing logic and reason in my daily life without feeling ashamed, or like I’m committing some type of unforgivable sin.

I’ve continued my research on the Bible, and have found so many historical flaws, inconsistencies, contradictions, and just plain offensive language, that I’m really embarrassed to say that I ever believed it in the first place. I have nothing against Christians, but am thankful every day that I no longer call myself a sheep. Only sheep need a shepherd.

I will leave you with a quote from Bertrand Russell, who wrote,

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”

I decided that I truly didn't believe

2009-09-11T02:38:00.005-05:00

Sent in by Amy

Hi! I just came across this site and I wanted to share MY story. I was raised by two Catholic parents in Maryland. where I live, religion plays a major role in the daily lives of people. More than 90% of my friends are Christian, and the other 10% is predominantly Jewish.

Growing up I was taught that it was bad to question my belief in God; that He would become angry with me if I ever thought too skeptically. I went to Sunday school during my entire childhood and church on Sundays as well. I also attended a Christian summer camp and was read the bible every night by my mother. Despite my indoctrination, I began to question God when I was 12. You see, by reading the bible and thinking critically, I was able to ascertain that much of "God's word" was impossible or illogical, misogynistic, cruel, and racist. I was shocked to find that God, my beloved father, sent people to Hell for small mistakes or flaws in belief. At the time I remember I simply thought "But I thought God loved us all the same?" At that point I entered a state of weak agnosticism... I couldn't find any proof of God but I was too afraid to admit I didn't believe-- I would rather delude myself.

I was lucky enough to go to a private school which had the liberty to teach evolution. As I learned more scientific theories and at the same time more Christian beliefs, I decided that I truly didn't believe this lie I was being fed about God. After all, how could there be so many religions and only one answer? So at age 14, I put down my cross and bible and accepted a different text, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

I'm happy to say that I'm an atheist, and never been happier. I am so much more satisfied following a secular humanist philosophy than a Christian one. All i can say is, thank God I'm an atheist!

Still confused...

2009-09-10T03:08:00.002-05:00

Sent in by Yoonhee

Hello!

I'm a Korean woman who's in my late 30's.

I worked as an English teacher for a while, and now I work as a freelance translator. I visit the Korean anti-christianity site quite often, and I read about this site in there. Altough I'm a Korean, I wanted to share my horrible story with you. (Sorry for my poor English...)

I attended to the Presbyterian church since I was 19. When I was a university student, I was a church-maniac. I went to church from Sunday to Monday. And, I used to pray until midnight. Maybe that's why I've got married a preacher. I've met this minister from a church seminar, and he proposed to me. And, I thought that must be GOD's order, so I've got married him in 2 months.

But, after marriage, he turned into another person. Before marriage, he seemed like an angel, but after getting married, he became a devil. With no reason, he threw stuffs, lied, stole things, watched the pornographic videos all the time, etc. And, finally he hit my face, so my nose and jaw bone has been broken.

Although I truly believed in GOD, I couldn't live with such a devil. So, after I've got hospitalized, I decided to divorce. Now, 14 years has been passed, and for the past 14 years, my life was a total nightmare. I prayed to GOD so sincerly, but I'm still suffering from a serious depression and some phobias.

I just wanted to believe in GOD, and be a good person. That's all I wanted. But, that "GOD" tested me or punished me so cruely. I still can't believe the situation that I'm in now. Before that marriage, I had everything. I was beautiful, had rich parents, graduated from one of the best universities in Korea, etc.

But, since I've got divorced, I've lost everything. Even my own family turned their back to me. If GOD is alive, and if he loves me so much, why should I live like this? Is this "LOVE"? If so, I don't want to be loved by him anymore. I just wanna go back to those days that I didn't know about GOD or the church.

Now, I curse the church people who lies to the innocent people like me, as "Up there, there's a GOD who loves you so much, and he will protect you and love you no matter what happens..." those kind of bullshits. Those who never even went to heaven or hell, and lies about the life after death should be arrested so that they can't seduce the innocent people anymore.

Thanks to "GOD" and the "Church", I've lost my 15 years from my life. And, I don't know if I can be happy as before. My life has been devastated. I know that marriage was my fault and my responsibility partly. But, is GOD really not guilty for my miserable life? Whenever I cried out for help, he never helped me. He's just all talk!!!!!

I think this Christianity is like a virus on human mind, and all the so-called "sincere Christians" are insane! And, I'm gonna fight to clean up this virus in the world. GOD! I hate you! Do you hear me?????

My gift to the world: Fearless children

2009-09-03T15:49:00.006-05:00

Sent in by Elaine

Image by Caucas' via Flickr

The moment I stopped believing was like waking up from a dream. My heart beat fast, may head ached, I cried. It was like the my world was suddenly spinning out of control. I was sick to my stomach. I was angry. I had truly believed in God with all of my heart. He defined my life and my relationship with him was personal. And now....

In hindsight, I guess I should have known. After I became a mother, I began to wonder how any sane parent could hit their child for acting like, well, a child. My parents never spared the rod, but they were completely sane. They trusted that the God's word was just. No one questions the Will of God. When I became a mother five years ago, I began to doubt that God knew what was best for my child. The studies showed that hitting is not the best way to raise a child. Nevertheless, I was determined to raise good Christian children.

When the first Sunday of my unbelief came, I did not go to church. I wanted to hide under a rock. I was ashamed at my disbelief. I still am. I grieve the surety that I lost. I grieve the connections I had with friends, and family. It hurts so badly that at times I wish that this too is only a dream and that I'll wake up. I hope someone understands. Some times I crave the warm fuzzy feelings I got from being at church. Church was my life. But the love for my children is stronger.

We dedicated our youngest child to the Lord last year. I promised that I would be a good parent and raise him to fear God. Who will forgive me for breaking my promise? I am still afraid of hell. It has been there since I can remember. It is really hard to forget. I am a condemned hypocrite. I have committed treason. I am worse than a sinner. It has been about 8 weeks now. I no longer have many friends, unless I reconvert. But the evidence against Christianity is undeniable.

I am committed to raising children who are not afraid to ask the questions I feared to ask. To live boldly and think fearlessly, knowing nothing is too sacred or out of reach. My gift to world has cost me dearly. I want nothing in return.

But now I must start over. My heart, though heavy, is free. Reason has destroyed my life. I am broken, but I have hope. I am thankful for those who took the time to write the truth where I could find it. Each passing day it becomes easier. The truth has set me free!

Boogerman under the floorboards

2009-09-03T15:33:00.002-05:00

Sent in by anonymous

When I was a kid, I slept with all arms and legs tightly wrapped in a quilt and never hanging over the edge of the bed. My mother had always told us that if we didn't behave, the boogerman (devil) would pull us through a hole. When my sister and I got bunk beds, I claimed the top and wouldn't take turns. I figured the boogerman would have a hard time reaching me all the way up there.

When we began to question the existence of Santa Claus, my mother told us, "It's not the presents that count. It's the spirit of Christmas." So NOW I had to worry about a ghost flying around my house on Christmas Eve. I no longer wanted presents and just wanted it to stay away.

Boogerman under the floorboards, angels and ghosts in the air and god, well, everywhere watching me every moment--I was a very nervous kid.

But, as soon as I no longer believed in ghosts and the Boogerman and fairies and unicorns, I began to also doubt god. Everybody else I knew seemed to believe, so I felt like there was something wrong with me. So I pretended. For years. And years. And I joined the choir, thinking that would bring me closer since I loved to sing and the music is beautiful. And my Dad was in the choir, and I loved my Dad. He also spent the one day a week that he wasn't at work doing the accounting for the church. If we visited the grandparents on Sunday, he would be up far into the night counting the offering and balancing the books. He was devoted to the church.

But, as soon as I went to college, and didn't have my mother nagging at me, I never set foot in a church except when I was visiting at home and felt obligated. Nevertheless, when I was about to be married, I assumed I would marry at church like everybody else did.

But, our preacher wanted my fiance', who was Jewish, to convert before we married. He said our marriage could never last unless it was built on the same faith. We decided to marry in his town in another state, but his rabbi would not marry us. So we were married by a judge (a friend of my parents who also went to their church) in my parents' living room.

It's been 31 years and two children and one grandchild and our marriage is still strong. We raised our children to value education and to think for themselves. The both have higher degrees and both married scientists, and they are the most caring young people I know--one couple raising a foster child and adopting another, and the other couple volunteering to coach kids and do environmental work in their community.

Now, here is the kicker. My father became very ill and I went to take care of him in his final months. One evening, we were just sitting and reading, and he said, "You don't believe in god, do you?" I just shook my head. And he said, "I don't think I do either."

Unfortunately, I had tears in my eyes and was afraid I would cry if I said anything, so I didn't. I should have. I wanted to have a whole conversation with him. I wished he had had that revelation much much sooner and not just a few days before he died. Because he was still at the fear stage. . .the what-if stage. And I worry that he died afraid, either of the nothing he felt he was heading for, or of offending a god he wasn't sure was there. And, I think he may have been looking back at all the time he spent counting money for a myth instead of spending more time fishing or hiking with the kids. And I am sure he was lamenting the fact that he really never would be reunited with my mother in heaven.

And he may have regretted that, out of the three kids he raised, two are even more devoted to god than he was, and two of his five grand kids are out and out Jesus Freaks.

And, I sat there and didn't say a word because my eyes were brimming over and my throat was choking up and I wanted to be brave for him and not cry during his last days.

The Aftermath

2009-08-27T16:21:00.003-05:00

By Neal Stone

Image by Philerooski via Flickr

All of us at this site either are at that point or past that point where we finally stopped doing the Xian thing. We feel that sense of loss, frustration and anger for what we have been through and given up or lost as a result.

My time was 1998 when I had that breakdown and sense of frustration and anger over what I lost and gave up because of my life as an Xian. I went through a very dark period of my life as I gave into the anger and frustration of what I went through.

So what is one to do at this point? After looking at my life then and now I feel I can point out some help and hopefully help someone avoid the same journey and dark place I went through.

1. Don't give in to the anger.

The anger will eat you up inside. Xians love this as it makes them feel they were right all along about thinking you can only be happy with god. Do you really want to prove them right? Hell no! The anger will also take you down even farther and make your recovery harder than ever. Took me years.

Instead let the anger go and if you can't do that us it. Yes focus the anger into a tool and find ways to make your life better. I put a lot of energy into working on computers as learning is how I focused my anger. Take up a hobby or a class and focus on something that will make your life better.

2. Cherish the loss.

Huh? Cherish the loss? Think of it as a truck driving with a load of junk and as the driver turns the corner all the junk falls out of the truck. He can sit there and focus on all the junk he just lost or he can turn around and see that nice empty truck. A nice empty truck that is now free to be filled with better stuff. Leave the junk behind and go out and find something good to fill that empty void. Art, music, hell it's a big world with many possibilities and now that you are no longer limited by being an xian you are free to load up. Yes I'm telling you to litter. LOL

3. Don't look back.

Ever see a runner in a race? Ever see what happens when they peer over their should as they run? They start to lose their speed. This happened to me as a kid. I was in a 100 yard dash and was in the lead. I saw my mom on the side and turned to smile and wave. I lost the race because I slowed down from being distracted. Pick a direction in life you want to go and just take off running. Don't let anyone hold you back or slow you down. You may find yourself losing friends because of this, but this is a big world with lots of new friends who support you and the direction you chose in life.

4. No Fear

Don't be afraid. This is the hardest part and I still struggle here. But the fear slowly fades as I move forward. I may be afraid a bit to share with friends and family my new belief system (or is that lack of belief system? LOL). But I am not afraid to change my life or live as I see fit to live my life. The best part is I have made my life much better than many xians I know and they admire me for it. Just gives me more of a chance to prove life without god is possible and lessons the fear of telling them even more.

5. Build that new life

Now that you have all this time and freedom what are you doing sitting on your butt? Get up and look at all the doors that are now open to you. The possibilities are endless and you can really build yourself an awesome life without limits. It's now your life and all is up to you. No one else has the right to tell you different. Now get going and get building!

Here at this site we have all made new friends. Friends who support and understand what we have been through and lost. Feel free to seek us out for advice and support. That's what we are here for. I hope that this helps a few if not more people who have been through what I have been through.

Remember, healing and recovery take time. Be patient and work through it. If you work at it the outcome will be worth it.