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Goodbye Jesus

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Doubt, The First Frontier To Deconversion From Christianity


falemon

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It was around mid September, just four years prior to the day I would finally be released from the prison of Christianity.

 

It was a church service so surreal, led by us, the youth, and I was to give an exhortation to encourage members of the church to consider one fundamental concept to strengthen their faith.

 

Early that morning I had been watching documentaries on christianity and they had shown possible locations of bible events. They had even explained how Goliath was likely to have been pronounced and how the Hebrew tongue had transformed it into the sounding we are familiar with today.

 

But I had also watched a documentary on Sodom and Gomorrah, and in that documentary it suggested that the story was inspired by a sudden fire, but that unlike the bible account one of the towns still remained to some degree.

 

Something about that documentary made christianity itself seem a little fictional.

 

At the time I felt a little disassociated with the faith, though still excited at being able to connect with scripture I just focused on attending the service.

 

Towards the end of the service we began to pray. We were asked to stand in a circle while the guest pastor would play the piano and sing prayers, but something about his aura stood out as fake to me. I felt like he was masquerading as a christian and exploiting our belief, especially as I could not "spiritually connect" with his music, so I disassociated from what was happening.

 

Then came the speaking in tongues and the prophecies about people. Naturally my friend who was wearing a fancy suit, six feet tall with a grand smile brandishing a large brown leather cased bible was foreseen to be a great pastor. My friend, mixed Indian and Guyanese, who had a wonderful voice (that they never knew about) was foreseen to be a great leader, maybe a woman preacher. But something about it seemed fake.

 

Then finally they came to this poor little foster girl who was fostered by the main pastor/bishop. What would follow would haunt many for years to come. See this poor little girl was abandoned by her mother, had been destroyed emotionally and due to her mistreatment suffered from near blindness in one of her eyes.

 

The visiting preacher attempted to faith heal her, and at that moment I knew it was going to fall apart. He prayed and prayed. We sang and she still couldn't see. So he prayed and prayed and prayed again. He put up some fingers and she still couldn't make them out. So he prayed and prayed and prayed once more, this time telling her to "stop playing games", as if he could speak to the complex arrangement of elements that were causing her the near blindness.

 

She was in tears. She clearly felt responsible for her pain and somewhat useless. For a moment she believed she would be healed, but instead she was being accused of lacking faith and blocking her healing.

 

We never saw that girl again, and thankfully the pastors never adopted anymore children.

 

As for me. I left that service feeling absolutely no attachment to God at all. I knew then what I now know to be true, that christianity is a lie and that there is no God, that we are alone in the Universe and we just happen to have enough sentience to fathom our own incompetence, but nothing more.

 

Unfortunately I would fight against what I knew to be true, and during that week I convinced myself to believe in God, though thankfully my eyes had been opened too much and it would be another four years before I would again open my eyes.

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"I left that service feeling absolutely no attachment to God at all."

 

Good for you. That was the only humane reaction to that cruel, humiliating spectacle. 

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TheBluegrassSkeptic

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I.have had encounters with.faith.healers and the speaking in tongues bit was an annual recruitment for prophets in our church. I feel your desire to fit in during those times, trying to not feel anything when an event didn't jive with the red flags your instincts were waving around. At least, during the ultimate test of your humanity, you comprehended that was abuse of that disabled girl. These types of stories keep me believing in my fellow man.

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