ExChristianDotNet - encouraging ex-Christians (de-converting or former Christians)

My Story – Part 1. My Journey Begins

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Image by ~jjjohn~ via FlickrBy Neal Stone

My personal story is quite long so will be breaking it down into smaller posts.

It all began in German back in 1965. My mother went into labor and off to the hospital she went. The German nurse in charge of her hated Americans. She ignored my mom at every turn or treated bad when she did pay attention. My mother went into labor at 9pm March 16th. No one came to her aid because of this nurse ignoring her and I would be stuck in the birth canal for 12 hours.

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Tired of Pimpin the Program

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:31:00 +0000

Image via FlickrSent in by Jim Schoch

What would cause a pastor of over 20 yrs to leave the ministry? My reasons and story are uniquely mine. Maybe you have been in my shoes in one way or another. I started out in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions of showing up early and leaving late from every church meeting I ever attended. As a result, as soon as I was asked to do anything, I always said "yes." In our churches, the way into ministry was through apprenticeship, for higher learning was suspect as not being spiritual enough for true ministers.

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Christianity is a lie and there is no God

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Image by Sinsong via FlickrSent in by Celeste

I have been an ex-Christian for about six years now. Mine is a long strange story. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for nine years. I was born in Maine in a community of mostly French Canadian descent, uneducated, and 99% Catholic in my home town. I was taught mostly by nuns who really messed with my head and caused me so much torment. I believed I was a good student, but the nuns treated me like I was stupid and caused me to have low self-esteem.

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Living by the rule, rather than the exception

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:14:00 +0000

By Kevin Perry

It is often said that atheists have the same amount of faith as Christians. This is a common argument, and my response to this claim is the following question: which of the two belief systems has the most amount of assumptions?

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Officially a heretic

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Medieval illustration of Hell.
Artist: Herrad von Landsberg (about 1180),
via WikipediaSent in by Former Fundamentalist Pastor

Up to the time of my Dad’s funeral in May of 1998, I had discretely maintained silence about my true beliefs, in order to not upset our fragile family unity (or offend my Christian sons and families as well as my lovely wife); nevertheless, after Dad’s passing, I angrily penned the following thoughts which exposed my radically different views and took a stand as an official heretic. My family was understandably upset. While religion is a still subject studiously avoided among us, I have studiously avoided letting my family read the following thoughts, although they have been published on many anti-Christian web sites; moreover, I still get occasional emails from around the world.

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Ex-Christian and former missionary kid

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:35:00 +0000

The "Li Wu" River in Hualien County, Taiwan
via WikipediaSent in by Kirsten

I am a 29-year-old female, married, living very happily in St Paul, Minnesota. I work in a factory that makes windows, live in a one-bedroom condo downtown, and go to school part time. It has been quite the journey to arrive to this stage in my life. I was born and raised in Taiwan along with my two older brothers. My parents are missionaries with the Evangelical Covenant Church and have been for over thirty years. They help with church-planting projects and my dad served as a mentoring pastor to several different churches on the island. My mom led Bible studies and stayed at home with us. They now live in the US and coordinate short-term mission trips into Taiwan, China, and South Africa.

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Getting stoned in the name of GOD

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:28:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaBy Jax

I've been visiting this site for a while now and I like it. It is actually good therapy to know one is not alone. Thanks to all who started and contribute to this site. And thanks to the fundys and Xtians for their ludicrous comments and vain attempt to battle "Satan"... you blokes are good for a laugh and re-enforcing why I will never return to such stupidity.

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Escape from fundamentalism

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:49:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaSent in by Sarah

I was born into a fundamentalist family. My mother has a very strong faith. My father claimed to be a Christian, but his actions convinced me otherwise. I made a "decision for Christ" at age six. By age 10 I was convinced that God wanted me to be a missionary in Japan and the direction of my life headed towards that goal from that time.

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The Crucifixion Proves the Unjust Nature of the Christian God

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Image by ruSSeLL hiGGs via FlickrBy Astreja

Putting to one side for the moment the whole problem of "sin" -- That is, the ludicrous notion that an omnipotent deity can be offended or injured by the very thoughts of its supposed creation -- I think that I have identified a fatal flaw in Christianity.

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Finished with that. Now what?

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Image by PermanentlyScatterbrained via FlickrSent in by Portland Guy

After 45 years in the evangelical church and culture, here I am, out of it! I'm not an atheist, and at best I am agnostic-lite, at least at this point. Keep reading, because at the end I will ask for your help.

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My invisible friend

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:55:00 +0000

Image by Al Bar via FlickrBy Melvin

What if there was a group of people that believed that leprechauns were real. They believed in them so much that they believed that the Leprechaun was the key to eternal happiness. They not only believed in them, but they even built idols and places of worship to praise the magical creatures. The Leprechauns dictated how they should live their lives, and even had a set of moral codes to live by. If any one strays from the code or doesn’t believe in leprechauns all together, then they are source of evil, out to destroy the leprechauns and their faithful.

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I Feel I've Been "Churched" Enough!!

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:23:00 +0000

Image by jodigreen via FlickrSent in by DebTheQueenBee

I am so glad that I found your website. After being away from church and from God for eight months, I feel free. I mean, why should I spend the rest of my life serving a God that doesn't even exist? All this talk about "have faith", "God has a plan and a purpose", and "In my house, we will serve the Lord" is nothing but a CROCK OF SHIT! I can't believe I wasted 11 years of my life as well as wasting money buying Christian materials, thinking that this was going to help me become a better person. Boy was I wrong!

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Teach Both Theories

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:51:00 +0000

Illustration by DocMike

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I'm still open to the idea of a God or gods existing

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Image by beggs via FlickrBy Andrew

I guess I'm an atheist in respect to religion, but not necessarily to God.

Sure, I'm still open to the idea of a God or gods existing, but I know that the concept of God could not be accurately presented from any of the religions we have at our disposal. A personal God as espoused by our holiest books is something I have come to reject. I've even witnessed spiritual phenomena during the course of my life, some might even say supernatural, but fortunately I abstained from attributing these incidents to a specific religion, which is a mistake many people have done.

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The Christian Ex-Atheist

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:03:00 +0000

The evolution of religions via descent with imagination.
Image by Colin PurringtonBy Uruk

Jesus was not the first character to be born of a virgin, to be adored by wise men, and to heal the sick, to suffer and die on a tree or a cross, to be buried in a tomb, and to rise again on the third day only to ascend into the sky. This had happened before. This is an old story. And Christianity's way of dealing with this problem is to ignore it.

-- The God Who Wasn't There -- movie trailer

Despite my beliefs concerning god's non-existence, I still think one may not be able to disprove (or prove) god's existence. Also, deconverting from Christianity does not mean one's only option is to become an atheist. One may certainly remain theist while still discarding religious practice -- or choosing some other set of religious beliefs to replace the former.

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Debunking Christian Apologetics: Theology

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:43:00 +0000

By John L. Armstrong

Would you respect someone's doctorate in astrology?

How about alchemy? Or geomancy? Or voodoo?

Why do we have any respect for the field of theology as an academic pursuit?

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Divorce in the name of Christ?

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Image by massdistraction via FlickrSent in by Marshall

My search for the truth about Christianity is causing my 23-year marriage to fail.

The end of November I submitted a testimony to this site. I explained all about my search for answers concerning Christianity and talked about my past life as a Christian. Over the last seven or so years my wife has known about my needing to find out certain things and also partly what my findings where. I have not been able to talk to her about it much because she just does not want to know about it. At first I thought maybe I could share some of this information with my wife and partner but quickly found I could not. I have rarely mentioned anything the last few years but maybe I should not have mentioned it at all.

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The Zombie Jesus Mind Virus.

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Image by Quiplash! via Flickrby Paul

Sorry for poor English writing skills. I am after all a product a private Christian school education.

I was born into a typical ultra-fundy Southern Baptist environment. Out of six siblings and two sets of parents/grand parents, I am the ONLY one to have left fundamentalism -- about 10 years ago.

Son of a preacher/teacher, overseas missionary, healing, Christian Zionist, YEC, End-Time/Prophecy junkie.

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Confessions of a former Christian

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:48:00 +0000

By FightingAtheist

I am an atheist and a former Christian. As a former Christian I look back to what I used to believe. I wonder how I could have been no naive.

As a Christians I had very little knowledge about evolutionary biology, physics, geology, and chemistry. Yet I argued about evolution, fossils, and radioactive dating. I claimed to know problems that scientists just happen to miss when developing these thoroughly tested methods. These supposed flaws were pointed out to me by other Christians. Now I have read several books on each of these subjects and understand more than I thought I ever would. I know now that scientist have accounted for these supposed flaws.

Note: This testimonial was originally posted in 2007, but it's well worth revisiting.

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Heaven for the Godless?

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:58:00 +0000

The Fountain of Eternal Life in downtown
Cleveland, Ohio, via WikipediaBy CHARLES M. BLOW

In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” But the survey suggested that Americans just weren’t buying that.

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Hello Believers

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Image by Mrs eNil via FlickrA letter from Transman

To all the believers and religious people who come here, I have some small advice for understanding. Quoting Bible verses to us, offering websites and books of apologetics, and trying to bring other arguments or pseudo (or fraud) claims of proof, will not change anything.

As many of us have said before, try comparing it with Santa Claus or other fantasy creatures of our childhood. Once you know that they are really just a fantasy, you cannot go back to believing, even if you tried or really, really wanted to. I can't imagine that anyone on this forum would ever go back.

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Once you know something, you can't un-know it

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:52:00 +0000

Sent in by SharonImage via Wikipedia

My journey out of fundamentalist Christianity began with an in depth study of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch). I asked myself a simple question "what if the Pentateuch was written by men for men? Could I give a thoughtful explanation for why Moses (or other writers of the Pentateuch) would create such stories. (Remember these stories were written during a time when the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness - permanent camping!)

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The Christian salvation message is the downright stupidest thing to listen to

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:39:00 +0000

Image of Jesus via FlickrSent in by fisheroffish

Oh Boy, where to start?

I was raised in a very hypocritical Christian family. My father had a particularly mean spirited approach to religion and Church, and I can remember hating Sunday mornings. My family attended church regularly up until 10 years and attended sporadically after that. I was "saved" at the age of 6. I remember witnessing to kids in school about Christ.

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The more I learned of other myths and the history of Christianity, the less I could convince myself that God existed

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:53:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaBy Andrea

People do strange things when they "Find Jesus." Suddenly, your best friend won't talk to you anymore, or your punk loving drummer quits the band. They can't do anything on Sundays, and they won't hang out with you at the pool hall.

I didn't find Jesus; I was born with him. Losing faith is both terrifying and simple at the same time. First you follow the routine. I was baptized as an infant, into the Catholic Church, and from then until I was about ten I went to church nearly every Sunday morning.

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Hell is a Mixed Message!

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaBy Bill Jeffreys

If we truly love or care deeply for someone, we don't dismiss them. How could you? I do not fault people for not loving or caring for everyone. I only hold those accountable who claim to love me and don't.

To be Christ like should mean more than just words or deeds. It should mean honesty in ones actions and speech. Dishonesty is easily masked with religion. It is much like politics. Once should mean what one says and say what one means.

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