Testimonies of Ex-Christians

My Story – Part 1. My Journey Begins

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:42:00 +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.

When the doctors finally found her she was laying in a pool of blood. Don't worry, my mother survived and wasn't seriously harmed other than the shock of what she went through.

As a result of this I was born blind in my right eye.

My father was US Army, an alcoholic and a mean drunk who would come home and beat the wife and kids. I was too young so he never hurt me, but for the first two years of my life I got to witness what he did to everyone else.

He was “nice” enough to trade me my bottles for his left over beer. Yes, before age two, I was “drinking,” so to speak. My mom divorced him when I was two. After the divorce he would drive by our house and we would hide behind the bed in fear. I found in my adult life my mom tends to over react or exaggerate the situation so never really know if I needed to be afraid or not, more on this later. But keep in mind he was a violent alcoholic.

Now we move to age five where things really start to build. As my mother as taking me home from a routine hospital visit when I started walking funny and having problems. We turned around and headed back into the hospital and I was tested and found to have severe epilepsy.

From age five on I would battle this disease. Medication at this time was still somewhat experimental and I was the guinea pig. If you have Epilepsy and your life is good, you owe people like me. We were the trial and error cases that brought about todays better treatments.

I would develop a serious learning disability as a result of either the disease or the medications. It was believed I would never succeed in life, go to college, have a career or even marry and have relationships as a result of the issues I had.

Now the stage is set. It was due to the above issues that religion would play a large part in my life later on and I would be taken advantage of and be misled into ideas and beliefs that no rational person should follow. I would also be held back at every turn just to keep me under control.

Many of the issues I had would be made worse by the hand of Christians who are the very ones who were supposed to help. Rather than encourage and bring me in, they would make fun and push me away.

It is a shame that when you go to a place for help and encouragement you are treated as an outcast and pushed away. I can see this happening at a night club, school or other social event, but not in church. Church is the last place you should have to fight to belong and for love. My quest for freedom and victory in my life would first lead through imprisonment and failure.

I am telling this part to set the stage so that you can see how I started out in life and the challenges I would face. Fear not, my story gets a lot better and it is still going and getting better all the time. More on this when I get to the end of my story. I have never shared the detailed story of my life and feel I can do so here without fear.

Next Post - Part 2. The Miracle Child

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Tired of Pimpin the Program

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:21:00 +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.

I was as sincere as anyone I have ever met. My motives were honest, simple, and trusting that I was truly following God. I was led to believe that my calling and gifts would make room for me in the kingdom. It sounded good to me, and I bit into it hook, line, and sinker.

Soon I was the anointed worship leader, Christian school administrator, elder, assistant pastor, building coordinator, TV host, hospital visitation minister, home group leader, secretary, board member, and anything else that was needed on the staff of the largest charismatic church in our four county area. I was "in." I was busy, and I was burning for God.

Sometimes weeks went by without one night at home with my wife and children. I was too anointed to need time at home, right? Does it sound familiar yet? As life unfolded and people kept encouraging me to keep on fire for God, or at least burn out trying, my wife developed asthma. To make a long and painful story shorter, let's just say that it was assumed that because this happened we were losing our anointing or walking in some secret sin.

Weary and burdened with asthma and the disdain of those who once saw us as their leaders, we began to question everything called "ministry." I am leaving out a ton of details for time's sake, but as the 20 years went by, we found ourselves losing any desire for involvement in formal ministry. Instead we loved spending time with those who had nothing to do with church, such as Lou, the bassist and head of the satanic church in Laramie, Wyoming. We loved our time with each other and our kids. One thing led to another, and since October 2000, I have not been in the formal ministry. This has been a disappointment to my father, as well as to those who knew us as church leaders.

These days, I find myself with more respect for myself as a person, with more love for my wife Tammy, with our three grown kids and their sweethearts, and with our grandson. I also love all the good people I have met through the Elks Club, the Chamber of Commerce, my current work in real estate and bus driving, the local bowling and golf leagues, and our downtown community parties.

In short, I have become almost everything I used to preach against. What has become of my theology? I have experienced everything my charismatic background had to offer, and found myself lacking love for myself, my family and others. Since I have left organized religion and de-toxed for seven years, I find love increasing in every way. I think I am reduced to love. If there is a God and that God is love, then I'm into that.

Previously, people were a burden. Now, I love spending time with anyone, regardless of his or her belief system. People are no longer a project to bring to conversion, or a possible warm body to prop up a church program, or a parishioner who might tithe regularly so we can grow the church. I am done with pimpin' the program.

It's healing just to write a bit of my story. Do I miss the ministry or attending church? No. I wouldn't trade my life for what I now have. How could I afford to leave? I drove trucks, waited tables, delivered pizza, installed cabinets, worked in a factory, sold houses, drove school bus, and worked at a golf course. Some of this I still do. If you are dying to get out, it isn't easy. It's a process. It's embarrassment at its highest in the church world. But what the hell, it's so worth it. I'm just starting to live and love.

Thanks for listening.

Christianity is a lie and there is no God

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:31:00 +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.

Anyway, I did go to a public High School from 1975-1979. I was a good Catholic girl, still a virgin at the age of 18, unlike my peers who I found out lost their virginity while in middle Catholic school. Approaching graduation in 1979 I was determined that I wanted to be wild, drink, and have sex -- and I did.

I got married in 1982 to a guy in the Navy at the age of 20, and really wasn't a "practicing Catholic" at the time, but we got married in the Catholic Church to make my parents happy. My husband was Southern Baptist and I remember the priest meeting with us for premarital counseling, telling me that the odds of our marriage lasting were not good as he (my husband) was not Catholic. Regardless, the Catholic Church still married us anyway.

In 1983 I gave birth to our first child, and when she was about two years old, my then husband started to feel guilty that he had not been attending church -- i.e., a Southern Baptist church. So, one Sunday after watching a church service on TV, we visited the First Baptist Church of Orlando and several weeks later I became "born again."

From February 24, 1985, I then became an ultra-conservative fundamentalist Southern Baptist Christian. My life from that point would change tremendously. I stopped watching "soaps," stopped drinking, dressed more conservatively, stopped listening to secular music, read the Bible every day... I can go on and on but I think you get the picture.

My husband got out of the Navy in 1988 and took a job at First Baptist Church of Orlando (FBCO)as the manager of the graphic arts department. FBCO had a membership back then of over 5,000 people, and is still considered one of the largest SB churches in the US. He was also responsible for the church's bookstore. We had a copy of every Bible version made as well as Christian books in our home. I was forced to home-school my daughter for three years and home school our son for one year. Then I was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 (while homeschooling my kindergarten son). Around this same time we became involved in an ultra-conservative movement that believed in no birth control, using the scripture to support the teaching. (I'm paraphrasing here: "Blessed is the one who has a quiver full.")

At that time I had a daughter and a son and did not want to have any more children. I was on the pill, but that we were embracing this new way of thinking, I got off the pill. Eight months later I became pregnant with our third child -- a boy. Later, that child was diagnosed with autism. During the period from 1983 to 1997 I was basically raising my children alone because my husband was devoted to his job and attending an almost full college class schedule (FBCO from 1988-1995 then from 1995 working as a manager in a Christian Bookstore up until 2000). He lived, breathed, and ate everything Christian. I was not allowed to watch certain TV shows during this period, out of a fear I would become a liberal woman. For example, I was not allowed to watch "Murphy Brown".

I didn't work outside of the home as my youngest son having autism took most of my time with doctors, tests, therapies and so on. My husband yelled at me a lot and had a terrible temper. He was a strict disciplinarian with our children, and treated me like his child too. Finally, in 1999, I had had enough and separated from him. I left him and told him I did not love him and probably never did. I wanted my freedom. I walked out on him and my kids. At the time my daughter was a senior in high school.

To the outside world it looked like I was a terrible mother for walking out on my husband and my kids, but I felt I had no choice. In March of 2001 our divorce was final. Living alone was very difficult for me after being in a home with three kids. I was able to get a job working for a lawyer, finally making my own money.

It was tough, financially. My daughter hated me for leaving. I still maintained a good relationship with my two sons and spent time with them as much as I could. I was finally free, but yet very lonely. I even went back to the church where we were attending right before we divorced, but church just did not do it for me. I did still believe in basic Christianity -- the Bible and so on.

Then in December of 2001 I met my current partner "Steve." I felt like I had met the right man for me, but he was not looking for a longterm relationship at the time. After one and a half years of dating him, he would say things suggesting he was not Christian. At one point I questioned whether I should continue dating him, thinking that if I stayed with him we would not be in heaven together when we died. Crazy thinking I know! But at that time I still believed, but did not want anything to do with church.

Steve made Christianity sound like a fairytale, and I listened. I don't have a specific date, but I began to understand how Christianity is a lie and that there is no God. Steve describes it as killing of the head vampire and his followers wake up. That is how it felt to me. I was finally awake!

Flashback to today, January 4, 2009. I am an ex-Christian, and so is my middle son, by his own realization. He is also gay. My ex-husband does not accept the fact that he is gay and that has caused a lot of hurt for my son. So now I am a proud ex-Christian, and an advocate for gays, and proud of my son. My ex-husband lives in Alabama with his new wife and our youngest son. My daughter does not hate me anymore and has two beautiful girls of her own. My life with Steve is wonderful, and we are so happy and I am not living under the threatening umbrella of Christianity any longer. It feels good!

I would love to hear from others who have a similar story. We live in the buckle of Bible Belt so finding others like ourselves is few and far between.

Thanks for letting me ramble!

Officially a heretic

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:39:00 +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.

“My dad died. We buried him this last Tuesday. The preacher at the funeral used Dad’s death as a springboard for his deluded agenda of salvation only through Jesus. (Perhaps he knew of my background as a former minister and was extra full of trying to offset my beliefs.) But, this pained me no end, especially, since a long time friend of his from next door was there as Dad’s pallbearer. This good neighbor has never been a church-goer and never will be. I was embarrassed. Prior to this and only a day or so after Dad’s death, I was surprised by the emotions coming up -- specifically anti-Jesus and anti-Church stuff. As the whole family gathered at the funeral, I looked around and realized that all my immediate family are very strong Christians... I am the sole heretic. Consequently, I began writing in my daily journal on this subject at that time, but it had long been on my heart and mind to begin this process; Dad’s death just sped up my desire to write. So it was that I began to delve into the reasons why I had become so anti-Jesus and anti-Christian. I guess, having felt emotionally raped by the preacher’s foolish Jesus tirade, I decided to sit down and write up a more formal statement about my anti-Jesus thinking.

Here is the gist of it:

Fundamental Christian religion is not very logical. I am supposed to believe in a character who lived 2000 years ago and proclaimed himself to be the Son of God. If I don’t--I go to hell. This is it--pure and simple (and illogical). Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of what Jesus said, and I love parts of the Bible. It is in my heart and will be there forever. Having three college degrees and many years of teaching as a professor at a Christian College and preaching in various churches, I can see from the words of Jesus that he was indeed a special man... but 2000 years is a long time and a lot gets lost in the process. I salute the deep love that Christians over the years have had for this “Christ.” So many were even willing to die for him and their beliefs. (I am thinking of the 30,000 Chinese Christians in history that chose death during the famous Boxer Rebellion rather than simply step on a piece of paper with the name Jesus inscribed on it.) I agree that some things are worth dying for. But for me Jesus is not one of them. Jesus was a prison that I escaped from and I want to record this and show the process.

But first I want to look the present Jesus of today. He called himself the Son of God...we have a few details.… He convinced 12 people and a few hundred others that he was indeed the Savior promised in the Hebrew scriptures. But this is not new. Only a few years back David Koresh had a whole compound of people convinced that he was God and over a hundred perished with him at the Waco, Texas compound. This (God) dummy could have saved all those people with just a little compromise...but he had to have a bunch of people die just because he thought he was God. I’m sure David Korish had some good stuff in the words he spoke. He certainly inspired those fanatical folks and reports show him to be quite a sexual stud. He was a real “copulating” God. But, if this deluded poophead could do this in our enlightened time, why should I believe in this historical Jesus and his 2000 year old story?

I am surprised by the positive reaction in my heart to anything anti-Jesus and anti-Christian. I would much have preferred a Jesus who grew old and wise like a Buddha or Mohamed. He was only 33 when he died. I didn’t even start thinking for myself until I was almost 40. I followed the Christian herd like all the rest of them until I finally exploded from lack support from my “once a week is more than enough” wife. (We got divorced for 10 years then remarried. The second time around has been special because we talked out our problems; nevertheless, we totally disagree about Christianity.) I see lots of confident young men running things now... but to really know life you have to have experience. Thirty years is just not enough time. I resent having to believe in a young man who was only thirty-three at his death. But, believe I must or I am going to hell according to current fundamentalist beliefs. Hell is a place where you will burn forever. Who wouldn’t want to avoid such a place? I sure would. But Hell is not a logical or valid concept.

Burning in Hell for sins committed in a brief lifetime of seventy years or so seems grossly unfair. But, if the powers that be (or rather that were) wanted to keep the Christian herd in line, what better way than to threaten them with a nebulous Hell-fire? I recall as a young and naive Christian ministerial student going out on the weekends to talk to people about Christ. I sincerely wanted to do my best to save them from this burning Hell. I also recall a pretty young speech professor at our Christian University giving our group of ministers a graphic reading of people walking off a cliff and falling into the burning fires of hell. All that stood between them and Hell was us Christians who had to reach out and prevent as many as possible from falling into Hell-fire. Her performance was met with a genuine appreciation and acceptance. But that’s one heavy burden for a young man to carry. We were the only hope for those people. We were sent out weekends to hand out tracts to people on the street telling them how to be saved. I never like doing this. I soon discarded it for less dramatic ways of reaching the “unsaved.” This was the small beginning...I followed my heart. It said I don’t like handing out tracts and being a “fool for Christ’s sake.” One of the teaching tools at that time was a saying often repeated about a man who carried a sign saying, “I’m a fool for Christ’s sake, whose fool are you?” Now I have enough strength of character, to say, “Let him be his own fool.” I cannot follow this distorted Jesus.

But let us go back to the Hell concept. What would be fair? All religions teach us (and I believe) that God is eminently fair. But the Jesus followers say that you are going to Hell if you don’t know Jesus no matter what. If you are a murderer--off you go. This fits even a 16 year old teenager who goes along for the ride with a kid who is drinking; there is a wreck and he is killed...off he goes too. He has not done much of anything wrong. He hasn’t been around long enough to do much wrong, but off he goes--straight to Hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect a harp and mansion. Suppose we had a jury of a man’s peers set up to decide every man’s punishment according to all the deeds he had done and all the thoughts he had had. Suppose God himself allowed this special jury to exist. How many life sentences would they give to a murderer? So, if the average life span is 70 or so... the maximum for even the most gross life deeds would be not more than 5 x 70 or so I would think. Even the most vile person would scarcely be given more that 70 times 70 lifetimes as the absolute maximum sentence and certainly not to a burning hell for all those years. There is a little Biblical pun here... 70 times 70 is the term describing Jesus’ ideal of human forgiveness. But a loving God casts them all into Hell fire forever? I think not.

How can Christians assign people to Hell so easily? Part of it is religious arrogance (a sort of unconscious hidden pride, I think.) “We know God and you don’t type of thing...we have the inside track on God.” Furthermore, Christians have this “All are sinners and need salvation” angle well covered with the Original Sin concept. It basically says, “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.” So we all start out as sinners and need a savior. Enter Jesus. Oh, by the way, can I be a Christian and not believe in the Original Sin concept? I sure can’t handle it now. To me, it is the tool the church uses to keep people in bondage.

Now the question becomes--does the man believe in Jesus just because he wants to escape Hell, or because he is “CHA” (covering his ass). But hey, for the simple act of going forward in church and maybe even going through the ritual of getting baptized, one gets an insurance policy against Hell and with a side benefit of a ticket directly into heaven--not a bad investment for a CHA person. How does God count this obvious “manipulation” of the system? Do surface Christians squeeze through the Pearly Gates just barely?

What does it mean to “believe” in Christ? I ask this question often. My Christian relatives and ministers I know always quote Scripture... “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou shalt be saved.” This is what the Apostle Paul said to the frightened jailkeeper when an earthquake hit and all the doors of the jail flew open. And the man did too...he took Paul and Silas and bound up their wounds and was very grateful. I don’t blame him. Any man in his right mind would have believed and behaved the way he did in such circumstances.

But how does one believe in, on, around this Jesus?

Do I have to believe in Original sin to be saved?
Do I have to believe in the Trinity to be saved?
Do I have to believe in the Apostles’ Creed?
Do I have to believe in the Virgin Birth?
Can I believe that Mary fooled around and the result was Jesus?
Can I believe in a special place called Hades like the Catholics do?
Can I be a member of the Irish IRA Catholics who believe in terrorism?
Can I be a Communist?
Does God take in account a person’s environment and parental teachings?
Do I have to be baptized? (The Church of Christ out of Abilene, Texas believes you must be baptized in their Church in order to be saved.)
At what IQ level am I exempt from Hell?
Do children who die go to hell? (Christians have a special exemption here, but if there is one exemption why can’t there be more?)
Do I have to believe in Pro-life?
Do I have to believe in monogamy?
Can I be a Mormon/Christian? a Buddhist/Christian?
Can I be a Christian/homosexual? Bi-sexual? Lesbian?
Can I be a Christian whore? (I have met some ladies of the evening who were a lot more compassionate than many Christians I know; moreover, didn’t Jesus associate with them?)
Can a Christian who commits suicide go to heaven?
Can I worship my ancestors and believe in Jesus too?
Can I believe also in evolution?
Can I be a Christian nudist?
Can I believe in Free Love?
Can I own a liquor store and still get to heaven?
Do I get credit if I believe that Jesus was a human being that existed 2000 years ago but was not God?
How about if I believe he was god with a small “g”?
What if I believe that he was on the level of a son of god like Buddha must have been?
What about all those folks born before Christ came? (There was a bunch of them.)
Will Socrates be in heaven or Hell?

The Christian reply to all the folks BC (Before Christ) is that they are under a different “Dispensation.” They didn’t know it yet, but Jesus died (or was going to die) for them. So people with God in their hearts and deeds got into heaven with a special pass--under a special dispensation. Now we shift to the AD area. After Jesus’ death all people had to get into heaven through him. He took over the keys to the kingdom. Was there a transition period? Does the belief in Jesus thing fit the first 200 years AD? Or does it take effect when Constantine set up Christianity as the religion of the empire? Prior to Columbus we had a whole half of the world that existed AD and had never heard of Jesus. I have pinned down several old ministers on this and they all say, “If they (Native Americans for example) live up to the light that was shown to them, they will be saved.” (quoting from the Old Testament) This “Light” is a bit of a slippery and wobbly thing. How do you define light... how much light? Would a spark do? Does belief in the Great Spirit count? Will the American Indians get into heaven?

I simply cannot see how a rational man can believe in a “Jesus or else” type of religious dogma. I think Jesus would be very embarrassed to see what his followers teach today as “Gospel.” But let’s return to the Hell thing again. If we take it that all men are sinners...Hey I can buy that partially--we all goof plenty in our lifetime, but I like the term mistakes better than sins. So why are all sinners assigned to a burning Hell automatically if they don’t believe in Jesus? Or was Jesus like David Koresh who let his followers burn to death with him because he thought he was God? My figures are rough, but some 3/4ths of this present world is non-Christian. Let’s say that 1/4 of the world is Christian. Now of that 1/4th, about half don’t go to church much and then quite a few of those that do, just do it out of duty. Then we get into all the many churches believing different creeds and doctrines? If all these churches can’t agree on doctrine, why should I trust its ministers to show me the way to heaven?

Can a man be a total “Jackass” (murderer, etc.) and get into heaven if he believes in Jesus on his deathbed? Why can’t we just believe that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world...and include everybody so that there is universal salvation for all races, creeds and colors? I could handle Jesus a lot better if he did it once for all, for those in the past, present and future and it was a finished thing and everybody got a piece of it. Why is salvation so limited (according to the church)?

In my years of study for the ministry which included many college Bible courses including 3 years of the Biblical Greek language, I noticed that many of our local dogmatic dummies who emphasized the “going to Hell message” did not even have a BA degree. I also noticed that the wise old scholars were much more broad in their views. The men that really knew the Biblical languages--whose business was to study the Scriptures diligently--became more and more broad. I recall my amazement on reading the statement of one such famous Biblical Scholar who wrote words to the effect that there would be a lot more people in heaven than we ever imagined.

Is it possible that God could have a second Son? Why only one? Wouldn’t the world be better if there were many sons of God? Why should the Creator limit himself to one? Are there other worlds besides ours out there in Space? And, if there were, would they get to heaven? Or will they be treated on the dog and cat level of once dead and that is it...no heaven and no hell?

“One cannot question God and God’s hidden purposes”... thus sayeth the Church, but this is another enslaving Church dogma. This is the same Church that has proved itself to be totally wrong in the past. No wonder they don’t like people to question God. Why didn’t God wait another 2000 years now that we have satellite TV and the Internet and have Jesus come during this age? Why do it the hard way?

A thought I had recently--Does my prayer to God count? Are my daily prayers for my family and other personal needs wasted because only the people who pray to the God who is the father of Jesus Christ have their prayers heard? (My son thinks so.) This is extremeness and arrogance. Why is God so limited? It is illogical?

My son thinks I am going to Hell. He has followed his mother’s path of fundamental Christianity and has become a fundamentalist minister much to my regret. Perhaps he will grow out of it as I did. I was just like him at his age. I love him. I honor where he is. I hope he gets past it.

Is it any wonder that I may be a little hard on this Jesus. Hey, I don’t like the one they talk about in the Churches, but I do somewhat like the one in the Bible without all the baloney surrounding him. Do I want him as my savior? No thank you.”

Ex-Christian and former missionary kid

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:13:00 +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.

Growing up, we attended private Christian international schools and were encouraged not to question the bible and to spread the gospel at a very young age. And I followed like everyone else. I believed whole-heartedly that I was going to heaven and somehow I just needed to get through this "worldly" life so that I could enjoy the real prize in heaven.

It wasn't until my last two years in high school that I began wonder if maybe these things I have believed all my life might be wrong. The more christian leadership roles I took, and the more bible studies and events I attended, the less I began to believe. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder and My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok were my first introductions to other ways of thinking. I am so grateful to have read them! These books were the only mentors and guides I had in my transition to ex-christianity. It was a bit terrifying.

Unfortunately in my move to Minnesota for college, I gave into feelings of anger and low self-worth, along with culture shock and loneliness, and turned myself over to the whims of self-destruction. I seemed to be the very cliche of the prodigal child. Lots of drugs, lots of alcohol, and visions of death all around me brought me to a dead end of having no where else to run. And after six years of attempted escape and anger, I found my way into Hazelden, a chemical dependency rehabilitation center. It was my very concerned parents who helped me get in. Through a great program and a lot (a LOT!) of work, I learned to take responsibility for myself and not blame others for my own bad choices. I learned that it's ok to be a skeptic and be responsible at the same time. And although I disagreed with the religious principles my folks raised me on, I didn't have to beat myself up over it. It is not their fault that I made bad choices. The grief of not belonging to the very group that raised me is something I learned to deal with maturely by replacing it with self-love, positive choices, and an unquenchible lust and curiosity for life.

I straightened my life out about five years ago.

I have been a solid, happy atheist for about two years now (the years prior to that I was agnostic). Time alone with my thoughts at the factory has been great for sorting out my history, and learning to respect my journey and others' journeys as well. My favorite author lately has been Carl Sagan. Still, things are not easy in the sense that I am the only one in my extended family who confidently rejects Christianity. They are dumbfounded and are always trying to pinpoint exactly what happened to make me leave the church. And no matter how many times I kindly explain my (wonderful) conversion, the same questions come up again later. I love them a lot, and I try to maintain a close relationship with my family, but the constant attempts to re-save my soul do get tiring. The reminders that they are praying for me and that jesus loves me still slip into our conversations. I am pretty good at squashing those conversations before they get out of hand, but find that I've squashed more than I care to. Fortunately, I have such an awesome husband and a few friends who I grew up with that converted to atheism also. These friendships are priceless! And so is this website.

It has been a long and interesting journey so far. I love how my life has turned out. Even the bad days. They keep us humble when we think we've got it all figured out! I love the idea that there is no god trying to teach me a lesson or pull me closer, and I love that my views morph and grow and change over time. And if I feel stuck, I have the power do something about it.

Escape from fundamentalism

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:41:00 +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.

My family would now be described as dysfunctional. My paternal grandfather was a drunkard who beat his wife to death. My father carried an incredible amount of anger throughout his life stemming from the terrible experiences of his childhood.

He was converted at the Joyful News Mission in Brisbane Australia. He met my mother at that church. My mother's mother was a Methodist. Her father was also violent, but not to the extent of my paternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather left my grandmother during the Great Depression.

My life as a child was one of vigorous defense of the faith, coupled with anger regarding my unfair treatment at the hands of my parents. Life was filled with blame.

As children, my sister and I were constantly being yelled at for misdemeanors such as leaving drawers open! At school I studied Japanese and worked hard getting reasonably good marks. I was involved in many church activities at this time. Upon leaving school I worked to save up enough money to go to bible college. I attended Bible College of New Zealand for three years, full time. I did a short term missionary stint in Japan during this time. The missionaries' report on me was not favourable. I was devastated. I had put an enormous amount of work into preparing for the mission field.

I married a guy I had met at Bible College. This marriage lasted for 13 years but was beset with problems caused, in part, by my upbringing. We divorced 11 years ago. Early in our marriage we sought help from a psychoanalyst who began to challenge my beliefs. My world was very black and white, and absolutist. He challenged these ideas. He said that ideas that are unbending are brittle. He challenged me to consider Jesus' humanity and the fact that he (Jesus) may have made mistakes. We also talked a lot about guilt, Original Sin and fear. I began to believe that we are not all sinners and that our life experiences shape us. We spent a lot of time looking at my poor self esteem and the fact that it was this and extreme loneliness that had drawn my husband and I together. I found much healing in psychotherapy. I was able to forgive my father to his face at this time. My husband began to study philosophy and became an atheist. I began to see that my faith was based on fear and that fear is not a good motivator.

I left the church a few years after leaving my husband. I have continued to study the Bible and I try to understand it. Lately I have been involved in an Internet discussion group which is a mix of atheists, agnostics and Christians (One of them recommended this site.). I shared my story with them including my resentment of my mother sticking with my father all these years. An atheist encouraged me to make peace with her and forgive her, which I did. She is now 87 years old and our relationship is good. I have very recently renounced the God of the Bible (the problem of pain) and have decided that the Trinity doesn't make sense. I believe that Jesus was just a man with an amazing message.

I believe that truth lies in unconditional love for others. Nine years ago I met a lovely guy and we are very happy together.

Finished with that. Now what?

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:50:00 +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.

My dad was a career Navy guy, and a heavy drinker. My mother and dad often talked about divorce. Then when he retired at 40 (I was 14), my mother became a born-again Christian, and when my dad saw the transformation, he too "accepted Christ". It changed my family profoundly, as he stopped drinking and their marriage was healed forever.

So we became a 4-times a week church-attending, fully-paid-up members of the evangelical church and life. We formed a family gospel quartet, I led the youth group, never drank a drop of alcohol or touched drugs, and was virgin till the day I was married (actually till the second day after the wedding, because we couldn't figure out how "it" worked quite!!) I attended Multnomah Bible College and earned a Bachelor of Theology, and then served as a missionary in Europe for 7 years. I have been a Youth Leader and Deacon in various churches.

It is possible that my very first seeds of doubt were planted when I attended Community College, and had a class in Introduction to Philosophy, taught by a brilliant, completely un-religious professor. And of course as we were taught in Bible College to always be an apologist and challenge secular, anti-religious thought, I did so with this professor, and he left me reeling with his sharp, almost-surgical dismantling of my shallow and ill-prepared Christian worldview.
But with C.S. Lewis as my favorite Christian "thinker" and author, I had no doubts that my faith was on solid ground. People much smarter than me had no problem with the veracity of the Christian faith.

When I returned to America in 1990 after 17 years living in Europe, the first thing that shocked me was the umbilical ties that the evangelical world had to right-wing politics and the Republican Party. I was quite comfortable with European socialism (eg., healthcare for ALL people, etc.), and could not see why American Christians were so narrow-minded, compared to European Christians.

That was the beginning of my exit from the evangelical church. With my brother and mother still right-wing republicans and evangelicals, I have chosen to not share with them my journey out. I always taught my sons to find their own reasons for believing or not believing, not just accept what their parents say. My two sons chose to leave the church before I did, when their honest questions about problems in the Bible during youth group were met with charges of "bad attitudes" from the youth leaders.

The main, key factor in turning me away, is the evangelical concept of hell. I heard a show on NPR, This American Life, featuring Bishop Carlton Pearson, who lost his mega-church and television ministry when he stopped believing that a loving God could send 99% of his children to eternal, un-ending torture, simply for a lack their consenting to accepting that Jesus "died for their sins." This pretty much reflected my own thinking. Frankly, it's a load of bullshit to think that Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and many other holy and completely unselfish people have been sent to hell by God and are wailing in anguish forever and ever. What earthly father would or could ever condemn his own children to eternal torture because they did not repeat a loyalty oath to that father?

I have stopped going to church. I am still a great admirer of Jesus, and believe that he did not live to start a religion called Christianity. And through the writings of Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong and others, I have learned a whole new way to look at the Bible, and that John (as in the gospel) put a lot of words in Jesus mouth, that Jesus probably never spoke.

I know I will (and am) missing the caring community, the family, that is yours when you belong to a church community. I don't what or how to replace that. I haven't come to any conclusion about the existence of God or the place of Jesus in history. And I cannot deny that I have seen many lives transformed and given meaning by this "conversion experience." There is an immense, immeasurable amount of pure humanitarian work being done around the world, in the name of Jesus. (As well as a lot of hatred and killing being done in his name as well . . . does the name Bush ring a bell?) So while this faith is no longer true for me, at this point I am not ready, nor do I see the need, to commit myself to the faith of atheism, or any philosophy that states, "I know the truth."

What I would like, and maybe someone reading this can help out, is to meet with others in the Portland area who have experienced a similar exit from the church, just to talk. It's a scary journey for someone who is now 60 years old and started it at the age of 14.

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

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:18:00 +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!

Where do I start? Growing up, I went to a Catholic school where I was to go to church on Friday mornings at 7:30 before classes started at 8:30; had my first communion in the third grade and had to go to confession (that really sucked). I went to mass from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade.

From high school to college, I never went to church for a long time. As long as I was a good person who never hurt or harmed anyone else, then this whole church/God didn't matter. You could say I had a pretty good childhood.

Fast forward 1995 - My parents never attended church (mom is Baptist; dad is Methodist - I don't know when the last time dad went to church)but one day, Mom told me that she was going to make me go to church (because I had self-esteem and motivational issues) and I told her that I don't need Jesus in my life and she did not like that. Later on, she went to a missionary baptist church and eventually joined. I went a couple of times, but never joined until two years later.

For a long time, my life was pretty good. I went to New Members classes, vacation bible school, Sunday School, attended Sunday and Wednesday services, and even participated in the newsletter ministry.

Fast forward today: When I graduated from college with a Bachelor's Degree in Business in 2007, things really started to change. I made many new friends who were non-Christians as well as gays and lesbians through MySpace and I also went to my first Gay Pride Parade in Chicago last June. I had a great time and I'm making plans for next year's Pride Parade. I know the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, but in my honest opinion, I don't give a rat's ass about it. Life is way too short to be judging anyone and I accept everyone for who they are. I even love listening to non-Christian music such as dance music, hip-hop. All this time, Mom warned me to stay away from the bad things and conform to the Christian lifestyle--guess what?! I'm done with this "godly image" and I am learning to enjoy life without God or religion. I am also learning how to be more open-minded in new experiences and in new situations. Isn't life grand?!!!

I already threw out every Christian books and music CDs because I was not going to spend the rest of my life conformed to all of this "Christianity" bullshit! I have finally come to realize what church is really all about: pushing people into becoming Christian robots for the rest of their natural lives and not learning to think or feel for themselves. Whenever I see Christian programs on televisions, I start laughing because all of these crazy people are being brainwashed into all of this religious bullshit! People claim that Jesus is coming back and He will "save" them from destruction! What a joke!

Now I am almost 43 years old and I am promising myself not to fall for all of this Christianity garbage. If my mother thinks that I need to get back in church, she is in for a big surprise: it will never happen. I feel so much better about myself now and I can get a chance to sleep in on Sundays!! :)

Whoever reads my rant - thanks!!!

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

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:23:00 +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.

I grew up in a Catholic home: Filipino Catholics. Most people have heard of the zeal of Filipino Catholics, some of whom will actually go to such lengths as nailing themselves to a cross! I haven't seen such acts in person, but often at a Filipino funeral, someone will lug a huge cross down the church aisle just to get their point across. My mother, however, wasn't steeped in this tradition, and so I wasn't raised by the zealots of the Catholic faith, rather just the moderates.

Later on in my life, at about 14, my father, who is an American of British ancestry (since before the Revolutionary War) converted to Protestant Christianity, and it was through my father that I became acquainted with it as well. The brand of Protestantism that he converted to was Pentecostalism, known for preachers laying their hands on babbling parishioners speaking in tongues, falling onto the ground, and writhing in religious ecstasy.

My first experience with the "laying on the hands" occurred during a youth group session. At the end of his sermon, the youth pastor asked us to come up to the altar and be prayed for. It wasn't long until he began speaking in tongues and tapping people's foreheads. Naturally (or perhaps supernaturally), these normal, boisterous teenagers, began falling down and twitching like epilepsy victims.

I'd also gone up there to pray, but was a bit perplexed by the odd happenings going on around me, though I had heard about this in prior meetings. When the youth pastor started praying over me, I thought I felt a tremor in my knees.

I guess I'm an atheist in respect to religion, but not necessarily to God. He then laid his hand on my forehead and blew out a blast of hot air at me. I opened my eyes and looked at him, and he gave me a genuine look of surprise and took a step back. He approached me again and repeated the whole thing all over again. I didn't know what to do, because I didn't really feel like I had to fall down, and he stopped after that, moving on to someone more versed at what to do.

Admittedly, I almost passed out because of his breath, which reeked of halitosis and garlic. We eventually left this church because they began putting too much emphasis on speaking tongues, and were beginning to claim those who don't speak tongues will go to hell. "It's becoming too much like a cult," said my father.

So, we went on to another church that was part of a mainstream Pentecostal denomination, and it was called Calvary Assembly of God. As I had already been acquainted with the intensities of Pentecostal Christianity, all the erratic behaviors I encountered at Calvary were taken in stride. I really "grew in the Lord" at Calvary, became baptized, and began reading the Bible regularly. I was often found with my nose in the Bible, reading as much as I could of it.

I gained some great friends, and we regularly went on field trips, ranging from huge multi-church winter camps up in Lake Arrowhead, or surf trips with the youth group down in San Onofre. We'd become politically active and were involved in numerous pro-life protests and even one anti-gay counter-protest.

We'd regularly witness to complete strangers as well, as the Bible suggested we profess the Good News to all.

It wasn't until my junior year in high school that the first doubts crept in, and by this time I had moved to Lakewood, but would still try to attend church in Lomita as much I could.

None the less, there was a physical barrier of distance between me and the church I had grown to love. My parents divorced, I took my first hit from a joint, I had sex for the first time, got drunk, and other taboos were occurring regularly.

After committing or witnessing each sin, hellfire and damnation still seemed as far away as ever, and yet doing these things actually brought me closer to people, sex of course with my girlfriend at the time, and smoking and drinking with my friends, most of whom I am still in contact with today.

That said, I never really doubted the divinity of Jesus Christ at this time. Rather, it was the doctrine of sin that I began to doubt. How can these behaviors be evil? They were fun, they brought camaraderie, and sex brought on, for me at least, an emotional maturity that I couldn't have had should I have remained a virgin.

Another crack to my system of beliefs occurred while I was in the Navy. While overseas, spinning laps around the Persian Gulf in a brand new, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, I would sit on the fantail (or the rear of the ship) and ask myself the old chestnut, "Why was I here?"

And not just in the philosophical sense, but also in the social-political sense as well. This line of questioning led me into an inquiry that caused me to question one of the things I had taken granted for so long, and that was that America was an "innocent" country. In 1998, we were still bombing Iraq on a regular basis. It seems that the decade between the first Gulf War and the second was more like a siege than anything.

The United States prevented supplies from reaching the desert nation, and we enforced a no-fly zone, all the while bombing various targets while we were there. This notion of America as the best country or even an innocent one, actually goes hand in hand with my religiosity, as it is in fact a symptom of ethnocentrism. I've learned that the reason that I love America is not because it's the best country, it's just that it's the one I'm the most familiar with, and is the one I have always called home.

After I got out of the Navy, I attended Cypress Community College and it was there that I took my first philosophy class. This class fed some of my suspicions that began festering in the back of my mind. This is where my doubts about the Bible's validity and divinity of Jesus really began to manifest.

Initially, I was a militant agnostic, and was very hostile toward Christianity. It's very much the same as when I first became Christian and became very anti-secular, anti-"other religions", etc. There is an initial fanaticism that occurs each time a new belief sets in.

Around this time, my father went on to become a preacher, and my mother converted to Protestantism as well. My father and I get into some very interesting conversations at times, as one could imagine, but we always engage in these conversations with respect toward each other. We still have these conversations, often when we camp out in the desert.

I never completely gave up spirituality, and so I actually turned to eastern religions for a while. Buddhism in particular drew me in, though I did find Hinduism to be quite fascinating, too. However, Buddhism is steeped in alien mythology, and I decided to extract from it the things I thought made the most sense. Ironically, this is actually advice imparted from Siddhartha Gautama himself.

In Buddhism, for example, I thought much of the philosophy behind it was quite sound, but the mythology was just ridiculous. Siddhartha's argument for extinguishing suffering is compelling, the thousand-armed goddess ... not so much. Meditation, too, is very practical, and can produce amazing spiritual insight. I have also learned through further Biblical research that the Old Testament is just influenced by numerous myths from Sumeria, Babylon, and Canaan, and that these myths were perpetuated by the Israelites, who had come out of these people.

If I were to sum up my personal belief, I'd say the concept of God is kind of like the mirrors placed in the upper corners of markets. They're not necessarily there to help store employees watch a theft; rather they are there to prevent the theft from happening.

When the shoplifter looks up at himself, he sees himself in a third person perspective, and the person he is seeing is a bad guy. Likewise, the concept of God is like an internal mirror.

This isn't even a new idea. Plato called it the form of the Good, Sigmund Freud called it a Super Ego, Christians and Jews call it Yahweh, and Muslims call it Allah. I just call it the "Ideal Self", which we strive to be like, and its standard is set largely by the society or culture we live in.

Similarly, there is a competing force, and this is our physical body's needs and desires. Plato might have called it natural urges, Freud called it the Id, Christians call it the Devil, and Muslims call it Shai'tan. I just call it the Animal Self.

The struggle between the two competing forces is basically the situation we are constantly in. I just drop the supernatural description and see it to be a natural part of being a social animal.

Divorce in the name of Christ?

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +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.

After her parents passed away at early ages from cancer it was evident to me that her desire to go to church was at a much lower level than previously. I felt her faith was really shaken especially after her father passed 3 years after her mothers death. She was not motivated to go to church or she would have. I never told her I had any problem with it at all. I only told her I had a problem going myself because of the things I was learning considering Christianity.

About the last three to four months I have noticed that her interest has come back. She has been spending a lot of time with a close friend that divorced her husband after twenty two years. She divorced him because she did not like her life with him any longer. There was no infidelity on his part but he was kind of reckless with finances. This was her main reason of many reasons. It was a bit suspect on her part when right after the divorce was final she was already with another man and married to him within six months.

I am telling you about her situation because she is a Christian. She was not a real active Christian but when she got remarried she started going to church a lot more. Her new husband went to this church. She claimed to have a renewed life with now the true love of her life and a renewed life in Christ as well. In the eighteen months they have been married they have had two separations and are back together again.

As I said my wife has been spending a lot of time with her the last few months. She has started going to church several times a month. I am pretty sure she is going with her friend to the church she and her husband attend. I don't question her much about it. I have only told her if this is what she needs I am OK with it.

On Christmas eve my wife told me she wanted a separation from me. She said if I don't want a separation we need to look into a divorce. She wants me to move into a rental house I own that was my fathers home. She says she needs her space and to be alone for a few months. I asked if it had to do with me not being a Christian any longer and she said yes, that is a large part of it.

She told me that all this time she has been aching inside because of the research I have been doing.

She says I should have never once tried to let her know anything of my research and it's findings.

She says I have tremendously hurt her with this.

She said she has to have her faith in Jesus and now realizes more than ever she has to have Christ in her life and lord of her life.

She says she has to know she will see her parents again one day. If she does not believe in Christ she will never be with them again.

She asked me if I could start to believe as I had in the past. I said in the past I believed because I believed the people in church that told me these things were true. I never researched any of it I just believed as they said for me to in faith. Now I have read a lot of the bible myself. I said outside of all the other evidence there is against the religion being true just what I read in the bible makes me not believe. She knows what I am talking about.

I said the only way I could believe again is if I went to a hypnotist and they blocked everything I know out of my mind so I just don't know about it any longer. Then I could do the same as I did when we got married and just believe what the people in church told me on faith and hopefully not start questioning again.

This did not go over well with her. I think she now believes I am lost and will not go to heaven. She must think she needs to move on in her new life without me. I believe her friend has possibly showed her in the new testament where it teaches if a spouse leaves the faith it is not an even relationship any longer. It says if the unbeliever leaves the marriage let him leave and it is OK. I am not the one that wants to leave. I love her as I always have but she now says she has lost her love for me on many levels.

I am moving out in a few weeks to start this separation but have reservations on it helping. I have a feeling of guilt and that it is all my fault. I feel now I wish I just never questioned anything and just went on not knowing what I have found out. I have lost a few good friends over the years that remained Christians. They feel I am destined to be in hell forever and feel sorry for me. This is a bad situation I find myself in. I don't want this to happen.

The Zombie Jesus Mind Virus.

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:58:00 +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.

I Attended small private Christian Schools, mostly Baptist except for the three years I spent in a denomination called "Bible Missionary," a cult similar to the Amish or Mennonite. The women could not cut their hair, no jewelry, no pants, no cosmetics,no TV, no dancing... Monthly revival meetings and the cultish belief in the "Sanctification" doctrine, where you no longer sin. I have NEVER met a group of individuals so dysfunctional, so hypocritical, so unhappy, than a church full of people who believed they reached a certain point in their Christian spirituality where they actually stopped sinning.

The last few years of my high school life, I attended public school for the first time. I led Bible studies and prayer groups, I walked around downtown passing out bibles and chick tracts.

My de-conversion was completely unexpected and began after high school when I, for the first time seriously studied on my own, what I loved the most, the Bible and Creationism.
My entire identity and love affair with Christianity had to with this concept of Unconditional Love, Jesus Loves me. I was enthusiastic and driven to live Christianity, be "on fire for Christ", and tell everyone also hell-bent on proving Creationism true (I have always loved science). I had no idea what I was jumping into. I had never before been exposed to critical thinking, the scientific method, other religions, canon history, Christian history and development and so on.

During this time I was working 12-hour shifts with nothing to do but sit and think about things. I realized, after dwelling on the compatibility of the Hell doctrine vs.Unconditional Love vs. Justice, it really hit me suddenly like a brick: Christian doctrines of Hell and Love are the ultimate illogical oxymoronic beliefs. I suddenly realized I could no longer believe in Hell. A few moments after I realized I could no longer believe in hell, my entire belief system collapsed. I sat down, cried for a week and lost my entire self-identity.

About week later I woke up one morning, as happy as I have ever been in my life, a HUGE world open before my eyes: a world full of beauty, freedom, the thrill of the journey, the love of not knowing and the love of learning.

Freedom is knowing that you don't know. I felt for lack of better words, truly born again. I really believe there was some physiological chemical change in my brain. Everything looked different, brighter... even colors... it was the oddest thing. I felt my entire self-identity was gone. While it was scary at first, after time it became a source of renewal, inspiration, and new life.

During my Christian experience, I had managed to infect/save three people with the Zombie Jesus Mind Virus, and one guy I accidentally "led to Christ" after my de-conversion. Thankfully I have helped de-convert three people since then (only one more to go), balancing out the negative karma I feel for infecting those others with the Zombie Jesus Mind Virus.

After my de-conversion, I accidentally converted one individual to Paulianity after giving him a handful of tickets to an evangelical Halloween event a few years ago.
My mom gave me the tickets hoping I would attend and repent. I gave them away at a warehouse I was working at. The next day a co-worker walked up to me with tears in his eyes, hugged and thanked me for introducing him to Christianity. DAMN-IT, more negative Karma

My family, siblings, parents, and Christian friends, they dropped me years ago. But thats life and not that uncommon amongst fundamentalist cultures.

I don't think I hold ill feelings towards them, only the Zombie Jesus Mind Virus.

Thankfully my wife and best friend of 14 years is 90% de-converted.

TO all you Christians out there reading this and feeling doubts about the validity of your Faith....don't let the irrational fear of not knowing keep you from questioning.

Viruses are strong, they want to feed and reproduce, they don't want to kill the host.
Don't let the viral survival mechanisms control you.

Freedom is knowing that you don't know.

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

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:42:00 +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!)

Space does not permit me to give the in-depth analysis here so I will just give the recap:

For ease of discussion I will refer to Moses as the writer of the Pentateuch, recognizing that there were probably several writers.

The Creation Story:

Why did Moses need a creation story? This is simple, he had competition. The first thing Moses had to establish was that his god was bigger better stronger and more powerful than all of the other gods. In ancient cultures everything that men could not control and did not understand (weather, sickness, infertility, the seasons, day, night, etc.) was controlled by gods. The gods were bigger than life men who lived in the "firmament" ie sky. You had to work very hard to keep the gods happy because if they weren't happy, you would have drought, or sickness, or infertility. So most of life consisted of doing things to keep the gods happy. Moses had to establish right off the bat that his god had created everything! so his god controlled everything! So keeping his god happy was the top priority!

By the way, Moses never said his god was the only god, he said his was the best god, the greatest god, kind of like my favorite sports team is the greatest, the "only one".

The Adam and Eve story:

Why did Moses need this story? For a couple of reasons. First of all Moses needed to establish in the minds of the people that women are inferior to men. The Adam and eve story does this nicely. Remember Moses is meeting with the men to give directions THEY MUST FOLLOW. These same men have to go home and tell the wife "here is what we are going to do". Women have a nasty habit of asking things like "why" and "how does that benefit me and my kids?" So Moses needed a construct that would allow men to believe that there own wives could not be trusted, after all look what happened to Adam when he listened to his wife. In addition he needed the women to believe that the men knew what was best for them, that they could not trust there own instincts.

I had to admit that the foundation of fundamentalist Christianity, and fundamentalist religion in general, was flawed and not trustworthy. The Adam and Eve story served another purpose. In Egypt there were two things the women had they did not have in the wilderness: birth control, and pain medication. Yes in Egypt archaeological digs have shown both, albeit primitive by todays standards, but better than nothing! So the Adam and Eve story (and the Creation story) conveniently COMMAND men to have as much sex as they can talk their wives into (be fruitful and multiply) and then leave the women with no recourse when it comes to the pain of childbirth, because it is God's will, i.e., the curse on Eve as a result of The Fall.

The Noah story:

What purpose does this story serve? I don't have the space to give a detailed accounting of any of these stories, remember I am only hitting the highlights with the main question being "how does this story benefit Moses?"

So how did Moses and his relatives benefit from this story? It served a two-fold purpose. First it established that his god could wipe out the entire world! His god sent a flood! I think the Noah story has some element of truth, insofar as ancient cultures experienced natural disasters just as modern cultures do today (i.e., Katrina). In ancient cultures all such disasters were explained as occurring because the gods were not happy. Moses just said that the flood everyone had heard about was caused by HIS god, the biggest, baddest, to be feared, and to be worked for god in the pantheon of gods of that day.

This story also served another purpose. Food. Specifically the food Moses and his relatives ate every single day, (including on the Sabbath day). One of the first things Moses did when they got out into the wilderness was to set up his own personal barbecue pit, i.e., the Tabernacle. Yes, contrary to popular belief the animals that were slaughtered at the tabernacle were not completely burned up, they were eaten by Moses and his relatives Aaron and Aaron's sons (not daughters!). Leviticus gives detailed instructions on how this food was to be prepared, by whom it was to be prepared, and who was allowed to eat it. Everywhere the word "burnt" is used substitute the word "cooked". Remember these are ancient people barbecuing while camping, they have no way of knowing when food is done cooking, plus they have no way of controlling the fire. As fat drips on the fire guess what you get? flare ups of flame that burn the food, hence "burnt offerings". I will quote one scripture from Leviticus 6:26:

"The priest that offereth it for sin SHALL EAT IT: in the holy place shall IT BE EATEN,..." (emphasis is mine). Lev.6:29 "All the MALES among the priests SHALL EAT THEREOF:..." (emphasis mine).

So let's get this straight. Moses and his top generals (i.e., his brother Aaron, and Aaron's sons) get to eat fresh barbecued meat everyday. There are plenty of "sins" for which it is necessary to bring your BEST lamb, calf, bull, etc. to Moses and his relatives for their daily steak, (remember the priests are eating the best cuts of meat), while the "common" people are eating seeds! Remember the "manna from heaven"? If you read closely this "bread" is made by the people at home out of seeds that they have to go out each day and gather. While at the same time they are taking their best meat to Moses and his priests to eat! Sounds like a good deal for Moses, et. al.

So back to the Noah story. A careful reading shows that Noah took MORE of the "clean" animals. What was a "clean" animal? A "clean" animal was an animal you could eat! Hence the first thing Noah did after the flood, was to set up an altar (everywhere that word is used in the OT substitute the word "barbecue pit"), and ate a real meal!

So the Noah story also establishes what food is acceptable to Moses's god. Only the freshest (less than a year old lamb), with no sign of sickness or injury (no "blemishes"), and only food from your own flocks and herds (don't be bringing me no squirrel to eat!) Get the idea?

Now I have covered three of the most well known and debated stories in the Pentateuch. By asking a simple question "did Moses benefit from these stories, and is so, how?" I was quickly able to ascertain that the "Holy Book" was written by men for the benefit of those men. It was a short leap to go from there to asking the same question about the well known stories in the New Testament. Did Jesus walk on the water? What about the virgin birth? A few simple Internet searches and lo and behold, ancient cultures have always had deities that were born of a virgin!

One by one I began to pick apart each story, easily! Until I finally had to admit this book was written by men and no more "inspired by the Holy Ghost" than say Shakespeare.

I loved this book. It was a sad day when I had to set this book down, and admit that it was written by ancient people for ancient people.

And so I had to admit that the foundation of fundamentalist Christianity, and fundamentalist religion in general, was flawed and not trustworthy.

It's an odd thing. Once you know something, you can't un-know it. Which is why I think religions work so hard to keep their people from being exposed to other points of view. Because once you see things from another point of view, you can't un-see it.

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

noreply@blogger.com (webmdave) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:25:00 +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.

After my family quit attending church regularly I drifted from the practice of faith and really didn't think of God much until I became deathly ill while on vacation in Russia in my 20s. Alone and in agony, I called out to God for help and somehow I stumbled from a dirty and pathetic hospital out onto the streets, chanced upon a bus station which ran to the airport, and hopped a flight home to the US. Five weeks later I made a recovery with the help of a modern and clean US hospital.

At the end of this ordeal, I had lost 50lbs from an already thin, athletic frame. I credited my recovery to help from God and his guardian angels. This is where I recommitted my life to Christ, sought a Christian wife, got involved in a church, lead a Bible study, and even lead some poor fools to Christ.

This wasn't good enough for me though. I wanted more. I wanted to know God, to see his face, to love him completely with all my being. And this was the beginning of the end of my faith.

My first task was to read the Bible through fully from start to end. After the first reading I was amazed at God, but still a little confused about some things like the book of Job, where God entertains a little wager with the devil (How is that possible?), and where Isaiah says that the messiah would return in 40 years, Jesus appeared 490 years later, and the Jews are still looking for his appearance. So I read it again. During, this time I also read the Koran to try to understand why the Muslim world hates us so (the Koran is even more screwed than the Bible). This brought up more questions, but I still believed that the bible should be interpreted literally, and was amazed at God. I read the book "Practice of the Presence of God" and tried to follow its recommendations, which I might add was a total waste of time. So now on to my third reading, here is where I began to struggle. Not from the readings, but from the observance of pain and injustice in the world.

For instance, 25,000 children die from the effects of malnutrition in the world every day. A question popped up in my head, "How could a loving, merciful God let this happen?" To further bring this tragedy home, I theorized that many of these children come from Christian families. I pictured many thousands of mothers and fathers praying for a scrap of food or sip of milk for their dying child. God would not answer that day, today, or tomorrow. My mind reeled, "God would not refuse to hear and answer their prayers, there must be another answer: Ah, God can't hear. Why? Because he is not real." This sent my Christian brain into crisis mode. I turned to the Bible for answers, there were none. I turned to the assistant pastor of the Church; he could not help but insisted I must have faith.

Two years later I am a confirmed atheist, I believe not in Gods or Devils, Demons or Angels. I revel now in the immense richness and fullness of the natural world. I am repulsed at the "narrow-mindedness" of nearly all the religions of the world. I now see that for people of average or greater intelligence that reading the Bible is a road to loosing faith. If you truly try to understand the God of the Bible by reading and not by just listening to your preacher, you will find a God of contradictions, a jealous, unmerciful, cruel God, who demands your love and obedience and threatens eternal pain and misery if you don't.

Pssst. Never fear! He isn't real! I don't have to think that God is someone watching me all the time and I can catch fish, not because of God's blessing, but by a combination of skill and chance.

My troubles are not over however, as I still have a very Christian wife (who has not read the entire Bible) and an extended Christian-bigoted family. I see myself as a lone outpost for reason. Every time I question a statement of faith from my wife, it sends her into tears. I know she is thinking that I am going to hell, or that I will corrupt our children's minds. I have been encouraging her to read the Bible for herself, but it will be a hard struggle for her as it was for me. I am afraid of being shunned by my parents and have not told them yet. I still attend Church to show my wife that I love and support her, but don't know how much longer I can listen to this dribble.

The salvation message has to be the downright stupidest thing to listen to for the never before Christians, it is amazing that I was ever saved in the first place. I think it was only due to the thorough brain washing I received as a child.

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 21:42:00 +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.

As a child, you believe what your parents tell you, they say that the world is round, so it is round. They say that God is real, and that He loves you, and so He is and He does. They tell you that Santa exists, and will bring presents if you are good, and keep your room clean. You keep your room clean, and are a good girl, and on Christmas you find presents under the tree signed From Santa. If you had any question about the existence of God, the presence of Santa reassures you.

You dress up in your favorite dress, wear your pretty shoes, you take your mom's hand, and you sit in the pews. You are told to sit still, and you go to Sunday School in the middle of Mass, because you and the other ten-year-olds can't sit still, and the priests know it.

Many people do this for the rest of their lives. They wake up early on Sunday mornings, put on their nice clothes, and go to church. My regular attendance stopped around the age of 10 or 12. I was due to go through conformation that year, the Catholic way of re-affirming that you believe in God, and He wasn't just forced upon you, because you really didn't have any say in the matter at your baptism.

My mom got a job that required her to work on weekends a lot, and Dad already had a sporadic work schedule. Even without these changes, I may not have gone through conformation. Everything that I needed the word "believe" to define had been proved fictional. Magic, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus. Could I truly kid myself into believing that God wouldn't be next?

Paralleling the disappearance of all things magical in my belief system was a deep-set interest in folklore and fairy tales that eventually led me to mythology. Somewhere between reading A Treasury of Classical Mythology cover to cover and discovering an entire section in the library devoted to the myths of other cultures, I came to the realization that these stories had once been held as hard facts. There were people as devoted to the worship of Zeus and Aphrodite as any modern evangelical Christian is devoted to his god.

Humans had been sacrificed in the name of some South American Gods; animals had been sacrificed to most European Gods. Fasts, and prayers, and wars had happened in the name of ancient divinities that most people today are not even aware of. Had there been any repercussions? What made the Christian, Hebrew, Islamic, or Hindi gods any more powerful, likely, or real than the ancient forgotten divine?

Still, these Gods had been forgotten; passed over as the impossible beliefs of ignorant pagan man. If the god of Christians is the one true God, does that mean that millions of people have been damned because they had no concept of monotheism?

Aztecs believed that their gods needed help fighting the night. They sacrificed people to feed their gods, and give them the strength to fight off the night. If they didn't feed their gods, the Aztecs believed that the world would end. It has been hundreds of years since the last sacrifice to the Aztec's Gods, and the sun still rises every day.

In a thousand more years, there will be another religion, and the current ideals of gods will be put under the category of "mythology." The religion of the Norse also fell in the path of Christianity. Their nature oriented belief and heaven of drinking and fighting died not by Ragnaok, the Norse version of Armageddon, but by conversion.

The Celts, the Greek, the Romans and the Inca each had belief systems that lasted hundreds or thousands of years, yet are shrugged off today by people as â€˜myth.â€™ While judging these as fiction people read their own holy books filled with stories of creation and morals pulled straight from the myths that they disbelieve. If these religions didn't last, and nothing happened when they disappeared, what makes us believe that modern religions are any different?

I don't believe that modern religion is any different. It is here, and it comforts some people and scares others into conformity. In a thousand more years, there will be another religion, and the current ideals of gods will be put under the category of "mythology."

How does this belief influence my life? I am just about the same as anyone else my age. I am a little bit more careful about who I discuss religion with, because for some reason most people are more comfortable around other people with a similar faith.

Between the ages of 12 and 15 I suffered through the stages of grief that I find inevitably follow the loss of any great force in one's life. I denied the feeling that something wasn't right, and that God could not exist; but the more I learned of other myths and even the history of Christianity, the less I could convince myself that God existed. In the process of losing faith I did more research on a variety of different beliefs than most other people my age. Growing up with something to believe in makes losing that safety net hard to do.

Then I went to anger, as one will. Hating the con that I had been sucked into, the fact that I had wasted so many useless hours at Church, and reading the most boring, violent, bigoted work of fiction ever to be written. Following on the heels of anger was depression, a state that was not helped by the fact that my sister would burst into tears when I mentioned that I no longer believed in God.

Finally I made it to acceptance, and my belief that this is it, when I die, game over, there is nothing more, makes me want to get the most out of life. I spend my time with people that I love, because there is no point in wasting time with superficial people, learning things that are interesting, doing things that are fun, reading books that draw me in, and sleeping in on Sundays.