Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Please Forgive Me?


Margee

Recommended Posts

 

Hi sweetie! I went back and read your letter which was the first thing I read when I came here almost a year and a half ago. Your letter really defines who I am and who I was. It also gives definition to my struggles. Thank you so much for putting into words what is in my heart and mind. It gives me strength to go on.

 

 

Thanks Woodsy. My gawd hon, even I go back to read my own letter to keep reminding me every time the fear of hell comes back to haunt me. (which it still does) I still go through periods where I wonder to myself, ''What if I'm wrong''. So many on Ex-c seem to get 100% free of these fears but I'm not sure if that will ever happen to me. This makes taking my last breath even more terrifying. When my time is up, I would love so much to let go of this earth in peace and I am so afraid that I will die in terror because the thought of hell stills plagues my mind. Sometimes brainwashing takes forever to heal it seems.

 

I't's one of the reasons why I still love to read here everyday. Just about every post helps. The newcomers letters show me that I was not the only one in the world to question the christian god. The older I get, and the more I learn about evolution, the more I can see that humans needed to create a god of genocide to justify what they did to each other. The fight on earth still goes on between power hungry human animals. Humans made god in their image.

 

To me? The bible is a book about human behavior. Humans passed the buck and called it 'Yahweh'  which means ''I am that I am''. That describes power-hungry humans to me...... 'all powerful', greedy, self centered, smart and stupid....Lol  The god of love never existed. 

 

It's so good to see you Woodsy. I hope you are staying around for awhile. You always brighten my day!!

 

Big hug to you hon!

 

 

I'll be around from now on. Got sidetracked a little with caring for my Dad and selling his house, etc. I now realize that I need this group to keep me on track. It was hard this summer. You mentioned you have been studying evolution. Can you recommend some "light" material to read for this old brain? I try to read some stuff but, hell, it flies so fast off this gray head and bounces away! Just don't seem to get alot of that "heavy" stuff.

 

It is so good to talk with you, sweetie. Missed doing that. You always lift me up when I get down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Oh my goodness, this words exactly how I feel about giving up on my faith. It makes me feel a little bit better about leaving.

If God is real, then he should be trying to reel me back in, I would never have found this website and created an account. I would never have accepted that I had moved on. I would never have felt happier about turning my back on my religion, for better or worse.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Oh my goodness, this words exactly how I feel about giving up on my faith. It makes me feel a little bit better about leaving.

 

If God is real, then he should be trying to reel me back in, I would never have found this website and created an account. I would never have accepted that I had moved on. I would never have felt happier about turning my back on my religion, for better or worse.

Welcome to ex-c GoldenWolf. It's so true what you state here. Why wouldn't a loving god bring his straying child back into the fold? Why would a loving god allow satan to let us stray? Why wouldn't a loving god come to us and give us some answers? Especially when he sees that we are in agony searching for him in sincerity?

 

It's because he doesn't exist and that my friend, has taken me 4 years to come to terms with. Thanks for sharing on this thread hon.

 

Again, welcome and looking forward to hearing more from you.

 

Hug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

 

The world looks just like there is no Bible God to me and I am heartbroken. It saddens me from the bottom of my heart to admit that I do not believe that the Holy Christian Bible is the ‘Word of God’ anymore. It grieves me very much to say goodbye to the God of the bible. It is your ‘Holy Scriptures’ taken literally from all over the world has made the planet into the mess it’s in today.....

Please forgive me for saying this.

 

Thanks Margee for linking me here. It's a very well written and so honest prayer and made me feel really... quiet.

 

What I quoted above got to me the most... I have moments that I feel this way so much. It leaves a gaping, painful hole in my heart to really know that I can't trust in God/Jesus anymore, there's no secret foundation to my life that I can trust will last for eternity, no secret friend that I can send a "help me" thought to, the lonely footprints in the sand are not evidence of me being carried. No secret (or not-so-secret) smiling when I hear someone is Christian/loves Jesus - it's not evidence of any unusual goodness anywhere in sight.

 

And it reminds me, there are so many sermons about how there's a hole in your heart that's Jesus shaped. It's come true for me now, but not quite the way they meant. They say it's there if you've not accepted salvation. My Jesus shaped hole is there because I really tried to trust him. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

 

 

The world looks just like there is no Bible God to me and I am heartbroken. It saddens me from the bottom of my heart to admit that I do not believe that the Holy Christian Bible is the ‘Word of God’ anymore. It grieves me very much to say goodbye to the God of the bible. It is your ‘Holy Scriptures’ taken literally from all over the world has made the planet into the mess it’s in today.....

Please forgive me for saying this.

 

Thanks Margee for linking me here. It's a very well written and so honest prayer and made me feel really... quiet.

 

What I quoted above got to me the most... I have moments that I feel this way so much. It leaves a gaping, painful hole in my heart to really know that I can't trust in God/Jesus anymore, there's no secret foundation to my life that I can trust will last for eternity, no secret friend that I can send a "help me" thought to, the lonely footprints in the sand are not evidence of me being carried. No secret (or not-so-secret) smiling when I hear someone is Christian/loves Jesus - it's not evidence of any unusual goodness anywhere in sight.

 

And it reminds me, there are so many sermons about how there's a hole in your heart that's Jesus shaped. It's come true for me now, but not quite the way they meant. They say it's there if you've not accepted salvation. My Jesus shaped hole is there because I really tried to trust him. 

 

 

yunea, I'm so glad you're here with us. And I totally understand what you are saying here. The world always tells us that we will have a ''god vacuum'' if we don't believe. I believe every person in the world has this vacuum just from being human. We need to keep busy with things that make us happy and content as much as we can because the real cold hard facts are that life is very hard. I think it's one of the reasons that our ancestors along the way during real survival out in the  jungles concocted up the idea of god in the first place. So they wouldn't have to feel so alone and scared in life. So they prayed to the 'volcano god' thinking it would stop the volcano from spewing it's guts. They never understood how the earth and nature works back then.

 

Now we know the truth and it's up to us to fill that empty spot where we believed in magic..We  must create our own magic. And life can be beautiful if we watch for it.

 

Reality is the way to go, as hard as those facts are. When I first accepted jesus into my heart, they performed a great sermon that night on this 'hole' that can only be filled by jesus. I was prime because I thought that was what was missing in my life at 20 years old. I grew up in quite a bit of dysfunction and I thought for sure that god would heal that hole. It did for awhile as long as I didn't question anything. I could sit back and pretend that jesus was going to make it all better. I saw that the whole church was depressed (we even had support groups) and I wondered to myself why these people who have been saved weren't anymore happy that the people out on the street??

 

Now we know. There is nothing there. No magical god. People have to heal themselves by having a good support system and a lot of courage to tackle and live in this world. We need to be grateful for all the good days and well prepared for the bad. That's why I stay here on

Ex-c...cause somebody is always available to help me if I reach out for that help. We're here for you. Go do something really nice today that makes you feel good in your heart.

 

Big hug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Furball

 Especially when he sees that we are in agony searching for him in sincerity?

 

 

 

That was one of the last straws for me about christianity. I struggled so hard and cried so hard begging for gods help, and nothing ever happened. After multiple attempts with no answer is when i realized it was all in vain, and that there was no god coming to help me. What a sham christianity is. -signed, i want my money back 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

 

 Especially when he sees that we are in agony searching for him in sincerity?

 

 

 

That was one of the last straws for me about christianity. I struggled so hard and cried so hard begging for gods help, and nothing ever happened. After multiple attempts with no answer is when i realized it was all in vain, and that there was no god coming to help me. What a sham christianity is. -signed, i want my money back 

 

You better believe that this is one of the things that DROVE me crazy also CC!! There was an incident that happened to me a long time ago (my sister's death) and the whole god-damn city was praying for her recovery for hours. What does god Do? Let's her die. He didn't give a fuck and yet he told us to come and lay our heads on his shoulders because he would make our burden 'light'. Imagine begging your very best friend for comfort and he won't do it? What's up with that??  Fuck him.....I'm saying that a lot today.....

 

Hug CC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Margee, Your words echo my own heart in so many ways. We really wanted God, and this process is not easy.

I send love and healing to you. We're here for each other.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

This is one of the most amazing posts. I think amid all my current anger and scorn for Christians I'd forgotten just how painful the process was for me outside of the influence of people. I thought it was the people who had hurt me the most through my deconversion, but it was actually realizing that this God that I'd tried so hard to love either really didn't love me back or just did not exist.

 

I remember writing letters to God in my journal too. In one of them I finished with "I hope you still love me God. I still want to love You." It pains me to remember the anguish behind those words.

 

But it's good to be reminded that it is not easy to deconvert, regardless of what Christians think. They just don't understand that we actually didn't WANT to deconvert... It just kind of happened. This must be one of the reasons I don't really want to talk to Christians about it. I want to save them from the pain of discovering their imaginary friend is not real.

 

Not sure whether that's a favour or a disservice though.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

This is one of the most amazing posts. I think amid all my current anger and scorn for Christians I'd forgotten just how painful the process was for me outside of the influence of people. I thought it was the people who had hurt me the most through my deconversion, but it was actually realizing that this God that I'd tried so hard to love either really didn't love me back or just did not exist.

 

I remember writing letters to God in my journal too. In one of them I finished with "I hope you still love me God. I still want to love You." It pains me to remember the anguish behind those words.

 

But it's good to be reminded that it is not easy to deconvert, regardless of what Christians think. They just don't understand that we actually didn't WANT to deconvert... It just kind of happened. This must be one of the reasons I don't really want to talk to Christians about it. I want to save them from the pain of discovering their imaginary friend is not real.

 

Not sure whether that's a favour or a disservice though.

 

I totally get what you are saying here eXcell. Even four years later I am amazed that I couldn't convince myself that my gut feelings were 'right on'. If the whole damn cities around the world believed in Jesus and the OT god....why shouldn't I? Who was I to question? Because I WANTED there to be a god and I couldn't fully face the truth that there might not be one. So I stayed in Denial for a long, long time and did every in my power to wait for that one miracle that would convince me that I had a loving god looking after me.

 

People go through a lot of shit in their lives and you soon get tired of trying to figure out what 'lesson' it is that god wants to teach you.zDuivel7.gif  I had one very personal hurt that took the cake for me. I went out on my back deck that night and looked up to the heavens and said, ''I would rather spend eternity in the pit of fires you prepared for us, than spend one night in eternity with you!!''. That's how angry I was. I was very depressed when I joined this board and have gone through lots of it while deconverting. This morning, I wouldn't change a thing. The freedom of not having to watch over my back for god to thump me is gone and it's a big relief. I also do not try to deconvert anyone out of their belief.

 

Welcome. I'm so glad you are here with us! smile.png Ex-c was the 'home' that helped me keep my sanity.....

 

I just posted this on my status update the other day and I believe (for me) it's my answer and how I try to live my life now.

 

''What you believe and what you say to yourself has a tremendous impact on what happens to you and what kind of life you’ll lead. You are the creator of your own destiny. Every choice you make is yours. You write the script of your life with every thought and every action. The more self-worth and love you have for yourself, the more prosperity and success you will achieve.''

 

hug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gratitude for (in a little way) helping many of us explain our own feelings.  Explaining is difficult, because we've been programmed to deny any such emotion as "Fuck you, god!"

 

I feel as if I have stumbled upon the CliffsNotes primer for when the inquisition begins.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Margee. I agree with you, even though it was and still is painful I am much happier with where I am now. I have found a new kind of freedom. Which is why I say I'm not sure if I'm disservicing people or doing them a favour by trying not to deconvert. Eh, I bet I'll figure it out eventually.

 

And yeah, I got to a point where I realized that I'd rather spend eternity in hell than spend "heaven" with this jerk God too. I think that's a conclusion many Ex-Christians come to, and it is fundamental in debunking the whole hell barrier. That's when you truly become free.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. This is so beautiful!!! This is how I felt when I left. I just wasn't able to write as well. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

I'm am so happy that my angry letter to the christian god has helped you guys. The anger one feels when one has recognized that they have been 'duped' is beyond any emotion. I classify myself as a fairly smart (street) person.(not well educated) To find out you have been lied to, brings about emotions of rage for me. I had to work my way through my anger and rage throughout the whole deconversion here at Ex-c.

 

Stay here with us and post all your concerns, angers and feelings. We'll do our best to validate you and help you along the new, scary journey. To realize that you were probably in charge of your whole life was a huge eye-opener for me. I was terrified, I don't know how I would have gotten through this without the people and support here at EX-c.

 

Hang in there, god might not love you, but we do!!

 

Hus to all of you.....   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

I realize it's been several years since you posted this, but count me as one more person who appreciates the honesty, beauty, and sincerity of your words. My experience hasn't been exactly like yours, of course, but much of this resonates with me. (I prayed to God and searched for years, too.) So often, Christians view nonbelievers as people who have willfully, stubbornly and hard-heartedly rejected God despite his best efforts to reach out to them. In your letter, it's so clearly the reverse. You really tried. You really sought God and wanted him to be there. You prayed, a lot, sometimes through tears, and he didn't answer. And even as you reached the painful conclusion that he probably wasn't there at all, you still signed your letter with love, "Your Child, Margee," and asked forgiveness for any mistakes you might have made or anything you might have missed. If there is a God, and if he gives a damn at all, surely he would respond to that.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

I realize it's been several years since you posted this, but count me as one more person who appreciates the honesty, beauty, and sincerity of your words. My experience hasn't been exactly like yours, of course, but much of this resonates with me. (I prayed to God and searched for years, too.) So often, Christians view nonbelievers as people who have willfully, stubbornly and hard-heartedly rejected God despite his best efforts to reach out to them. In your letter, it's so clearly the reverse. You really tried. You really sought God and wanted him to be there. You prayed, a lot, sometimes through tears, and he didn't answer. And even as you reached the painful conclusion that he probably wasn't there at all, you still signed your letter with love, "Your Child, Margee," and asked forgiveness for any mistakes you might have made or anything you might have missed. If there is a God, and if he gives a damn at all, surely he would respond to that.

 

Welcome to Ex-c HoustinSeeker! I'm so glad you joined us! Yes, it is five years now since I wrote this and I still feel the same way. I am so glad you could relate to this letter. I think we all really tried to hear from god in the end of our doubting. I think we all cried out to him. We all wanted so much for him to see our pain and confusion. But when you get NO response whatsoever, you begin to believe that the christian god is a fraud. It's all fraud. With every relationship I have been through I asked for forgiveness and answers for the part I may have played in the breakdown. But when you get no answer at all, then you begin to realize it was all fraud from the very start. That was the hardest for me to deal with. Any loving, kind creature that has one ounce of empathy would at least give you some answers to your questions?  Knowing that we all had been tricked into believing that someone loved us and would protect us from any harm or hurt is one of the most painful things we can experience as humans. It certainly was for me.

 

I still stick to this paragraph on trusting. '' It’s not that I want to reject you – I just don’t trust you anymore. Trust is reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, of a person or thing; confidence. It is the confident expectation of hope that someone really cares for your well-being. It gives you confidence in the certainty of the future. It is a loving person on whom one relies. It is the condition of one, to whom something has been entrusted with, like custody or care. It is a commitment of love, and that love would not hurt you.....

Please forgive me for not trusting you anymore.

 

I am so glad you are here with us. Looking forward to hearing more from you my friend. And thanks for replying to this post. I'm glad it still means something to the newcomers.

 

((hug))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
  • Moderator

Dearest Heavenly Bible God, Father, Jehovah, Jesus, Holy Spirit, The Creator of the Universe,

 

I come to you with the utmost sincerity of my heart, to talk with you. I have wanted to please you all my life. I have searched for you all my life. I have wanted to be one of your chosen. I never wanted to worry on this earth about going to your hell. So I tried to be good. Yes, I screwed up quite a few times, made quite a few mistakes, but they told me it was because I was 'blood and 'flesh' and that you were like the potter, taking this ‘blob’ of sinful clay and turning me into a diamond. I have always asked for your forgiveness and to give me another chance to prove myself to you. I hated letting you down. I always wanted to strengthen myself and be a woman of god for you – but you did not want to prove yourself for me, no matter how much I asked or prayed to you.....

Please forgive me for missing any signs that you did try to give me.

 

I have also, throughout the last 30 years, asked for more faith because I always felt as if I didn't have enough. I was honest with you about this. I told you everything. I confessed everything. I was told by many, that the 'mustard seed’ was good enough and that's all I had to have. But I wanted more than a seed of faith. I wanted big faith; enough to convince my mind of you, enough to stop the questions that I continued to drive you crazy with. Enough to move all the mountains in my life....

Please forgive me for this lack of faith that I had during all the past years.

 

I even joked with you, so many times that YOU were the one who gave me this inquisitive personality. You are supposed to be all powerful and therefore you could have changed me? I asked you to change me. Why didn't you? Why did you hesitate? Were you testing me all along like you did your servant, Job? I was even straightforward about that  and told you that I would not pass that kind of test. Then I asked you why you would even want to test us? Why would you – a loving, kind father, even permit this devil you allowed to fall from grace, sit by our side and watch as we suffered through many horrific things in life? We are your children. You made us. You created us. You didn’t answer.....

Please forgive me for my reservations with this issue.

 

Now I am learning that you might not be there at all. You have watched me at my computer. You have seen the research I’ve been doing in the past 5 years. You have seen and heard me questioning the bible since the night I was ‘saved’. I have asked you a hundred times in the last year to show yourself to me. I have screamed in agony. I have told you that are about to lose me. I have asked you if you care that I am falling away from the faith. And still you do nothing. You don’t even kill me. I was honest before you concerning this ‘doubting Thomas’ syndrome...

Can you really see what’s in my heart? If you can, and you are truly a loving entity - will you please forgive me?

 

You give me no clues whatsoever. The world is falling apart. We are killing each other. There are murders, rapes, poverty, and slavery. There are people fighting over whose land is whose and bombings everywhere. Do you see this? Did you understand that your ''Holy Bible' promotes this?? There is torture, starvation, cancer, drowning, dismemberment, and very painful diseases. You are supposed to be ‘all knowing-all powerful’. You could give us the cure for cancer and yet you remain silent. There is an epidemic of depression and suicide and thus far - you do nothing. How could a good and powerful God who loves you stand aside, unmoved to action, while such things happen?

Please forgive me for being angry at you.

 

My biggest problem with you is you are supposed to be all powerful; Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. You are supposed to be all good...full of love and yet all this evil exists? They have reassured me that when I get to heaven, you will explain all these mysteries to me. Why wait? Why not explain them to me now? Why not appear at the bottom of my bed in the late of night to have a talk? Why not appear in the sky (or wherever), even one community at a time and tell us that ''you will bring all things together for good'' as you promised in your bible. So many unanswered prayers...

Please forgive me for questioning your invisibility and indistinguishable lack of presence.

 

You are hiding from me so effectively, that the world looks just as I would expect it to look, and be, without a God running the show. It doesn’t have any of the characteristics I would be anticipating to find, if there was a caring, intervening, superseding God. All of my attempts to confirm your existence have come up empty handed. You are hiding so successfully. I have to admit that in order to believe like I did for years, I must do it by ignoring the contrary evidence. I must resolve to this concept called ‘faith’. You are hiding so stubbornly, I must conclude, among other things, that you do not want or care if I believe anymore. If you wanted me to believe, you think would show me evidence in a thousand obvious ways, because my heart has yearned for the proof....

Please forgive me for giving up the search.

 

One last quick discussion. Why didn’t you make us the way you wanted us to be in the first place? It could have been so simple – you are the God of the universe! Why tempt us in the garden? Why make hell? Why scare people? Why would you do this to us? I have been taught that all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour will go to heaven, but the amount of reward in heaven will be directly related to how closely each one followed God's will in his life. I really tried to do this. Likewise, all those who reject Jesus Christ will go to hell, be tortured forever and will be punished to the degree of how much evil they committed in their life.

Please for me for thinking you are cruel.

 

Why did you need to resort to human sacrifices to ‘satisfy’ the sin disease - which you created and tempted us with in the first place? Why be so cruel? Obviously, I will go to this hell you created for people who reject. It’s not that I want to reject you – I just don’t trust you anymore. Trust is reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, of a person or thing; confidence. It is the confident expectation of hope that someone really cares for your well-being. It gives you confidence in the certainty of the future. It is a loving person on whom one relies. It is the condition of one, to whom something has been entrusted with, like custody or care. It is a commitment of love, and that love would not hurt you.....

Please forgive me for not trusting you anymore.

 

I loved you for a long time and yet, you scare me with hell? And then you tell me that you are a loving God. Would you be affectionate and forgiving enough to take my hand and walk in hell with me?

 

I really wanted to believe in your existence, but you have gone to extraordinary lengths to make that difficult for me. The world looks just like there is no Bible God to me and I am heartbroken. It saddens me from the bottom of my heart to admit that I do not believe that the Holy Christian Bible is the ‘Word of God’ anymore. It grieves me very much to say goodbye to the God of the bible. It is your ‘Holy Scriptures’ taken literally from all over the world has made the planet into the mess it’s in today.....

Please forgive me for saying this.

 

One last prayer of forgiveness:

 

I pray that you will understand all my questions and forgive me for not believing the ‘Holy Bible’ that I was brought up to believe in. I am asking for your forgiveness for my doubting. I am asking for forgiveness for not really believing in you – but please, if you do exist and I have missed it – before I end this letter – would you always try to remember the heart that searched long and hard for you?

I will forgive you – if you will forgive me.

 

Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart – Your Child, Margee

 

Please-Forgive-Me-Flowers-Vic-Hang_in_Th

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I just read this, Margee, wow. I resonate with so much of this. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing X

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

I just read this, Margee, wow. I resonate with so much of this. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing X

 

Honey, you're going to be alright....It just takes some time to form a brand new world view. You've been severely indoctrinated and that's who you know as 'you'. As you keep studying, reading, posting and taking new actions with your life, eventually you will find the 'you' that was there before you were brainwashed by the church. Stay patient hon...it takes time. Do as many fun things as you can everyday....

 

Keep posting sweetie!

 

(Hug)

 

r-buckminster-fuller-quotes-8164.pngbutterfly.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.