sent in by Hutch

I've been visiting this website since September of 2004 and have been enjoying it ever since. It was in that September that I decided to read the KJV Bible all the way through, front to back, every word. Not long after I started reading the Bible I discovered this website. I was already not a xtian when I started reading the Bible. A lot of my friends were asking me why I visited this website since they thought I was never a xtian. They didn't know me when I lived in California. I'm now 42 and have lived in Seattle for 10 years. I was born to a "non-practicing" Catholic family. I attended church ocasionally for about 16 years.

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sent in by Hades

Greetings all,

I don't know if I posted my "testimony" here but here goes.

I was born agnostic Hindu in Bombay and we migrated to Singapore in 1995. Here in 2001 I joined the Hope of God church as a charismatic christian. However very quickly points of friction arose. Being a science student and having always been brought up under the impression that all religions are equal, I found it very hard to digest the "I am right and you are wrong!" attitude the church had.

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Hello Ex-Christians

I thought this research would be useful especially when dealing with fundies--those who go from drugs to Jesus really go from drugs to another drug---God.

Sarah

When God Becomes A Drug
By Leo Booth

SYMPTOMS OF RELIGIOUS ADDICTION

Inability to think, doubt, or question information or authority

Black-and-white, simplistic thinking

Shame-based belief that you aren't good enough, or you aren't "doing it right"

Magical thinking that God will fix you

Scrupulosity; rigid, obsessive adherence to rules, codes of ethics, or guidelines

Uncompromising, judgmental attitudes

Compulsive praying, going to church or crusades, quoting scripture

Unrealistic financial contributions


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sent in by CurtDude

[This was posted on the old forum as a response to someone else's post. I thought it was time to add my two cents to this forum, so here it is slightly expanded.]

It was May 1984, and the Sunday morning service was just about ready to begin at the Baptist church in the Pacific NW where I had attended all of my life. I had been a John Denver-clone 70s Jesus Freak...I believed in the Gentle Shepherd and loving the world. Totally involved in being fired up for God. As the 80s and The Reagan Years rolled on, I was finding myself more at odds with my youthful idealism.

I was also a young homosexual man who was realizing that there was only one choice for me as a follower of Jesus: a lifetime of celibacy while all of my friends got married. At the same time, my studies at university were giving me exposure to other people, other beliefs: I had begun to exercise my mind, my rational capacity. "Geez, there were other religions out there, along with non-religious people, who were just as convinced as I was in their beliefs." (Duh, maybe there's a next logical step.) I had also participated in a mission trip to India (a construction project - I was always uncomfortable with direct evangelism), where the Hindus seemed perfectly content to remain Hindu. The thought of all those wonderful people who I had met burning in hell forever really brought home what I had rather glossed over for years as “well, the Lord knows best and I really don’t know uh it’s like up to God duh I guess uh blahblahblah”.

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sent in by Tim : elpoeta at dmailman dot com

Calling all Ex-christians! I thought this might be a fun thing to share with all of you. I would like your input. I was going to do this myself, but I thought it would be rather fun to include all of you, too. You all are also very good at expressing yourselves (I'm ok at it), and have made many convincing arguments that cannot be refuted using the bible. Here we go!

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Kathryn A.Lindskoog
1344 East Mayfair Avenue
Orange, California 92667

From: JASA 29 (March 1977): 44-45.

I believe in the biological truth of the virgin birth. That is easy. But it isn't enough.

I can't think much about the biological truth of the virgin birth, because I can't find any comment anywhere on the obvious alternatives we have to sort out in order to think clearly about the subject. (How much do we really value a creed if we don't care to think about it?)

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sent in by Dave

My problem is that my entire family and my wife's family are steeped in christianity and my wife is becoming more and more immersed every day. She and my three children are really involved with the church which is very active. I've been going to church fairly frequently to appease her, but I resent it more each time.

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sent in by Sarah

I have been on a journey leaving Christianity for the last two years. It started when we joined a controlling charasmatic church four years ago. Before that we attended a Lutheran church that was pretty normal for the most part. I think if I would have stayed in the Lutheran church, I would still be a Christian today because for the most part Lutherans are pretty liberal and laid-back.

But despite being in the Lutheran Church, things were not normal and peaceful in our lives:(my husband and I) we alway felt like we had to do MORE, get closer to God MORE, pray MORE, read our bibles MORE...

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sent in by Todd

I have been in church most of my life. Been a believer most my life. I was baptist early on, then changed to Presbyterian in the last 11 years. I have never been comfortable in church. I am still involved, mostly because of my wife and family who are in church. They do not know I am a doubter.

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sent in by Wade

My parents took me to church from a very young age. Too young for me to even remember when it started. My earliest memories include going to church, a southern Baptist church. Every adult in my life was telling me this was THE truth. I never even considered the fact it might not be…until over 30 years later.

The concept of hell was introduced from the very beginning. When I was 4 or 5 they took all the boys in a small room and told us about the hellfire, pain and torment.

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My father is a Methodist preacher (55 years old), and, as objectively as possible, I think I'd have to say that he's one of the most forward-thinking preachers I know as he enjoys History and Psychology. In other words, as preachers and Christians in general go, he's very much in the minority. He's a chaplain at a state mental hospital and additionally he's done work at the local VA hospital, so he does a lot of work with people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs. He also passed the state exam in 1989 for a funeral director's license, so he does bereavement counseling and also makes a few bucks on the side transporting bodies from hospitals to the funeral home. All in all, I think he's a good man, but more on that in a bit.

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sent in by Nick

I was baptised a catholic, I had no problem with that at the time, and don't really have one now. I was born the seventh of thirteen children, so I was a typical catholic.

I went to a catholic school, went to church every Sunday, sat in the front row with all my siblings and eventually became an altar boy, a musician and very involved in extra curricular activities.

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- Wherever religions get into society’s driving seat, tyranny results
by Salman Rushdie ::link::

I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me. Religion was a part of my subject, of course — for a novelist from the Indian subcontinent, how could it not have been? But in my opinion I also had many other, larger, tastier fish to fry. Nevertheless, when the attack came, I had to confront what was confronting me, and to decide what I wanted to stand up for in the face of what so vociferously, repressively and violently stood against me.

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Dear Sir,

I came across your website just by chance and was suprised to say the least. To say that God does not is exist is to make a ill thought out assumption so let me give you a few things to maybe consider, if there is no God then how did we get here?

The big bang?

That is ridiculous why?

well glad you asked first and foremost go get you some dynamite and light it see if any order results from that, I propose that explosions only create chaos not order,

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This page is devoted to all those annoying Christians who just won't stop pestering us with their prayers and the promise of forgiveness from their imaginary maniacal god. Never mind that Hebrews 6: 4-6 says that once you leave the cult it's impossible to be forgiven. Never mind that according to Isaiah 45: 7 everything good and evil would be done by their god's hands and so my Atheism would be part of his divine plan. Never mind that beliefs aren't choices. None of it matters to them. They still want you back! Something has to be done!

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sent in by Barry

Hi ~ I did the christian religious thing on and off for about 4 decades of my life in my search for the truth of reality. I went through all of the usual christian symptomotology....guilt, fear, worry, anxiety, all of which was directly attributable to christian indoctrination. But I "believed" in Jesus all along, even if the teachings of church, ministers, pastors et al were bereft of any apparent understanding of Love or the true meanings of His words. So I stuck with it as best I could, but the best I could was never good enough, which circled right back to guilt, fear, worry, anxiety which are self-perpetuating indoctinal aspects of christianity.

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Christians, Jews and Muslims often allege a moral monopoly; but the facts betray another truth. Consider, for example, the history of Jerusalem—a plot of land each tradition claims as holy.

Jerusalem has been fought over 118 times, completely obliterated at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked an additional 52 times and captured or recaptured 44 times. It has seen 20 revolts, innumerable riots and five distinct periods of violent terrorist attacks during the past century. Jerusalem has changed hands peacefully only twice in 4000 years. Those who killed for Jerusalem believed they alone possessed a God-given right to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sherif.

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sent in by CJ-R

I never thought I'd be writing my story of how I became an Ex-Christian (protestant), but here I am.

As far back as I can remember, my Mom attended the Baptist church (don't remember if it was a First or Southern Baptist) in the small Kansas town where we lived. I really didn't enjoy Vacation Bible School, I would have rather been home sleeping or watching TV. When I was 9 my Dad died suddenly. I was a Daddy's girl so I was crushed. I was very angry with God (think Bible-God) for at least 2 years. In that time my Mom started attending a small Non-Denominational Church in town, which was more like a social gathering than Church, but I enjoyed it. I don't remember learning anything about the Bible or God, but I had lots of fun. Then one day when I was about 13, an Assembly of God preacher, from another small town nearby, came to our door while Mom was gone & left some information about his church.

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Thanks to one of our regular members (Thanks Bruce) I was made aware of a nice atheist site that contains some interesting articles, creative animations, and useful links.

Curious?

(Then Click Here)

Who Baba Kanda!

More sophomoric humor - enjoy!


(Click Here to watch the video)

Jesus' representatives have been coming here to defend their offended deity.

Why doesn't he talk for himself?

Well now he is.

P.S.: If sophomoric humor offends you, don't click click on this one.

(Click here to see what Jesus is saying to us today)

sent in by Travis

I was born into a upper middle class, white, southern baptist family. I was required to attend church since birth, raised by very conservative parents, and went to a christian school. Life was going fairly well for me, I had my first real girlfriend who was the text book definition of a christian fundementalist, all of my friends were just as religious as her, I at the time was perhapse even a big more religious then them. My life revolved around the church and my religion, when I was 7 I tried very hard to read through the bible, and even though I could hardly understand any of what it was actually saying or knew what any of it meant I actually made through it front to back in about a month or so. The use of what seemed to me to be mystical words, not to mention that all my life I had heard how divine it was, it impressed me so incredibly much. From about 7 on I was determined to be a preacher, a missionary, to use what I thought was the ultimate weapon against evil... the bible.

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Recently there has been a rash of pre-suppositional worldview adherents posting their particular brand or flavor of Christ cult mentality all over this site. Much like the bird fecal matter that covers park benches, these droppings dot the pages of this site and I decided to provide a short synopsis of the package these “presuppositional apologists” are trying to sell.

First of all, presuppositionalist thinkers make bold admissions. They admit that they simply choose to accept that the Bible is the Word of God without external proof or evidence. They also confess to adopting a circular reasoning pattern to support the position.

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(Author Unknown)

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of other gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from lower life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in three gods- the trinity.

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sent in by Greg

After more than 15 years struggling to be a fundamentalist Christian, I finally (and with much trepidation) made my break from Christianity about a month ago. After years of being in and out of church and struggling to believe the hopelessly illogical dogma of mainstream fundamentalism, the loss of my faith hit me suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue. I've been reading the response letters from Christians, and it seems they have many misconceptions about us "apostates".

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by Reverend AtheiStar

Terrorism is defined as "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." Have not believers used this against us for as long as they have been around? And why not? It's worked like a charm!

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sent in by Andy Kimber

Hello folks. My name’s Andy, and I’m from the UK.

My story’s slightly different from most of the ones I’ve read here, where the Christian behaviour was drummed in at an early age. Although I was christened in the Anglican church as an infant, my parents never went to church when I was growing up (except for the Midnight Mass carol service on Christmas Eve, which I thoroughly enjoyed – and I still love Christmas carols :o) ). My mother taught me to “say my prayers” at bedtime but that was it.

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