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Goodbye Jesus

Dead Again: Director Of Theological School De-Converts


James23

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ironchariots.org

 

The Gnostics, like the Zoroastrians, still exist, just in smaller numbers. If the Gnostics had won, Islam might be the dominate Religion. A really horrible thought.

 

 

Yes, thinking about it, it is possible that gnosticism wouldn’t even have been accepted by Constantine. Although it may have become more organised if it were Catholicised it has stronger ties to spiritualism than does orthodox Christianity and is therefore less akin to organisation. It may well have just died off. Totally agree that the world would be in a far worse state if Islam were the dominant religion. Sadly, it looks like it will be very soon.

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Welcome James23!  I started reading through your website - great content, I can tell you put a lot of thought and work into it. 

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Hello. I’m new to ex-Christian.net coming all the way to you from New Zealand (look at your Globe, go down, no further, right down the bottom, find Australia, just South East of that). I became a Christian in my early twenties after going through a fairly traumatic series of events. At the time I didn’t see that those events could be psychologically impacting my decision-making. I asked a lot of questions before I converted, but there was an extremely clever young pastor who was doing a degree in theology at the time and he was able to answer all of my questions to my satisfaction. Reflecting back now I can see that at the heart of it I really wanted to believe (X-Files styles!). I was a good Christian, I did my best to follow the ridiculous rules of Christianity, both written and unwritten. I read widely, that is to say widely within Christian authorship, prayed and read my Bible religiously. There was a particularly large group of people my own age at the church at that time, so we were all able to engage in self-convincing, confirmation bias. This of course further reinforced my zeal. Over the years I went through a number of training courses within the church, moving cities I changed churches and went through all of the swings and roundabouts that someone who has been in the Evangelical community for any period of time will be familiar with. I should clarify that I was Charismatic/Pentecostal during the early part of my walk and really just defined myself as Evangelical in the latter part of my walk. I did fundamentalism, prophecy-mania, laughing in the spirit, end times fanaticism, you name it. Finally I ended up in a large church which was considerably more spiritually conservative than some of the previous ones I had attended. At this church I became involved in teaching and taught theology, biblical studies, philosophy, ethics, leadership and discipleship for ten years. For the last four years I was the director of a theological training institution. In the latter period I studied theology at an accredited academic institution. This was a real eye opener, and was the beginning of my journey out of Christianity.

 

I should also mention that starting at the first year that I became a Christian I began to have health problems which slowly transitioned revealing themselves as a chronic pain disorder which affects me to this day. Unfortunately, this condition has been life defining affecting my work and home lives. Going through the process of praying for healing, not receiving it and feeling (and being told) that it was my fault because I didn’t have enough faith was agonising. But over time the continual lack of answered prayer and absence of any real voice of God became revealing. I grew distant from God because there was simply no relationship. I wasn’t trying to manufacture one, so I was able to see the complete lack of God. This allowed me to drift closer towards objectivity so that when I did my theological studies and was able to see the enormous flaws in hermeneutics, Christian theology and the Bible itself I was in a good place to evaluate them. During the process of teaching I had allowed for an element of grey. In other words, there were not clear answers to all of the questions within orthodox Christianity. My studies allowed me to see that every single area of theology is grey and that in fact there are no clear answers to any area of Christianity. For one reason or another I began to study the problem of evil with fresh eyes. I had been teaching about the problem of evil for almost a decade, but observed that as time went on the answers that I felt so convinced about at the beginning seemed weaker and weaker. I listened to a number of debates and searched for adequate answers to the problems presented by the atheist position. I became more and more convinced that the problem of evil could not be solved by the trite, and often pathetic religious answers. I wrote a forty page document effectively just blurting out my thoughts and offering arguments as to why God was necessarily evil if he existed at all. I contacted a number of people who I trusted as mature and qualified theologians and gave them this document, asking for answers. I also submitted it to a world expert (who will remain unnamed) in the theodicy. The answers that I received I had all heard before. And in fact, conversations revealed the frailty of their position. At the end of the day, even from the lips of theologians, I was still asked just to have faith that God was good. But, by that stage faith had evacuated the building. I was looking for logical answers and nothing else would satisfy.

 

So about three years ago I made the decision to stop following God. I only told a few people because I wanted to collate my ideas, continue my research and provide an opportunity for people to offer me satisfactory answers. I also prayed from time to time during this period asking for God to reveal himself if he was genuine. Basically, I have given God every opportunity possible to prove himself. The sad truth is that I was praying to an empty sky. If Yahweh exists at all he is necessarily evil, so I really hope he doesn’t! I may not be a Christian anymore, but it is more difficult to suppress my teaching urges. I have created a website devoted to exposing these myths in the hope of helping other people who are imprisoned by religion to become emancipated. I have published a number of articles but it is still in its early days. Please come and check it out here, and follow it if you are so inclined:

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/

 

Thanks for letting me share. It is great to be able to talk to some people who understand where I’m coming from.

 

Jason.

I'll certainly check it out.

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Hi readyforchange. Thanks very much, I have quite a number of Christians who read my articles so I’m trying to address topics that are challenging and meaningful to them.

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Hi SkepticalDaniel, thanks for checking out my site, I hope you get something out of it.

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Hey James23, would you be at all willing to allow me to include some of your content in a book I'm writing? I'm essentially compiling evidence against Christianity being ethical, as well as calling out the many abuses and biases occuring in the evangelical church. As I study more and am in school for communications, I'll be making more progress. For now, I am researching.

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Hi Abijah, I appreciate you asking. I am considering using this material to write a book of my own at some stage in the future. Could you please PM me so that we can discuss it.

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Hi hockeyfan70, I can relate with your slow de-conversion. For me it seemed like a very organic progression, and it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when I stopped believing. I know from experience that being in Ministry can leave a scar, I’m sure you have many interesting stories to tell. Finding the new normal is a challenge. Personally I became a Christian as an adult so it’s probably less challenging to me that it is to someone like my wife for example who converted at the age of 5. I know that she sometimes doesn’t know how is she is supposed to “be” in the world. As I see it, this is all a part of the way that religion damages us. It can feel as though we have to delouse ourselves from the emotional and intellectual trash that we were exposed to. Anyway, all the best and I hope to see you floating around the forums or on my blog (shameless plug).

Yeah, I'm going to share them in my blog at some point, and some in a book I'm writing.

 

I'll definitely check out your blog! I read a lot of stuff these days.

 

If you're looking for a good podcast, I would suggest the Life After God podcast with Ryan Bell. 

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Hey can I get a link to your blog? I will check out that podcast, thanks.

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Kali mera, Ellinas!

 

"Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύθερος. (Νίκος Καζαντζάκης)"

 

Wot, we should all learn Greek now? (Not a bad idea, as it happens). I like to feel I'm ελεύθερος too, though not ανέξοδος. Ah, whatever it is, the Greeks have a word for it (-:

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Kali mera, Ellinas!

 

"Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύθερος. (Νίκος Καζαντζάκης)"

 

Wot, we should all learn Greek now? (Not a bad idea, as it happens). I like to feel I'm ελεύθερος too, though not ανέξοδος. Ah, whatever it is, the Greeks have a word for it (-:

 

Γειάσου.

 

Καλό είναι να μάθω ότι δεν είσαι ανέξοδος - επειδή σε τέτοια περίπτωση θα βρισκόσουν και παμφθήνος!

 

So, do I take it you know at least some Greek?

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I feel like !$?&@#%^*¥£€>~_{} if you know what I mean

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Yeah.  It's a bit like Wendystop.gif10.gifzDuivel7.gifjesus.gifWendyshrug.gif .

 

I think...

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Hey can I get a link to your blog? I will check out that podcast, thanks.

 

My Debunking the Bible blog, which I haven't updated in a month, is here:

 

http://christianityisatrampoline.blogspot.com/

 

My new one about my journey as an ex-pastor and ex-christian, is here:

 

http://expastorconfessions.blogspot.com/

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Γειάσου.

 

Καλό είναι να μάθω ότι δεν είσαι ανέξοδος - επειδή σε τέτοια περίπτωση θα βρισκόσουν και παμφθήνος!

 

So, do I take it you know at least some Greek?

 

 

Hi Ellinas, 

 

I do indeed know some Greek, but have forgotten most of it to be fair. I was always taught to employ the underpants principal: While it might be used to support what I do, it should never be seen in public.

 

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Thanks hockeyfan70 and ThereAndBackAgain, I will check it out.

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Well done what you wrote. You had what it takes to realize the Magic Man is just a fantasy. Thank goodness you were able to figure it out. People waste their entire lives believing in ridiculous nonsense.

 

I liked this: "the ridiculous rules of Christianity". Now you are a free person instead of slave.

 

I was a brainwashed Catholic. When I realized it was a business and the customers were suckers I threw it out. I became an agnostic which is almost as bad as being a theist. Now I am 100% certain magical beings are not real. I'm a real atheist. In a perfect world where everyone is normal, the word atheist would not be necessary because there would be no theists.

 

Since you plugged your website (which I will be reading) I should plug my new blog which virtually nobody knows about. https://hardcoreatheism.blogspot.com

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Hi BobCu,

 

Thanks for your comments. I think that one of the main things that keeps people in Christianity, or any religion for that matter, is lethargy. Humans tend to follow the path of least resistance, and if you think that you have the truth you don’t go looking for the truth. So I think that a lot of people remain in religion because they are busy getting on with the rest of their lives and it requires a lot of mental energy to challenge one’s belief systems and go out seeking evidence which challenges one’s own, long held views. For someone like myself at least, it acquired a great deal of effort to leave Christianity.

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Kali mera, Ellinas!

 

"Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύθερος. (Νίκος Καζαντζάκης)"

 

Wot, we should all learn Greek now? (Not a bad idea, as it happens). I like to feel I'm ελεύθερος too, though not ανέξοδος. Ah, whatever it is, the Greeks have a word for it (-:

 

Γειάσου.

 

Καλό είναι να μάθω ότι δεν είσαι ανέξοδος - επειδή σε τέτοια περίπτωση θα βρισκόσουν και παμφθήνος!

 

So, do I take it you know at least some Greek?

 

 

Welcome from me too, James!

 

Τώρα ξέρω δύο λέξεις για μένα καινούριες · ανέξοδος και παμφθήνος! Στο καλό.

 

Γεια σας!

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Welcome to ex-c James23! Thank you for sharing your story with us. It looks like you are already making some good friends here! I looked at your site and it looks wonderful. I'll go back and have a better peek as soon as I get some time to read. Keep writing my friend. And keep posting. We have all been through what you are going through, so we can relate to you in many, many ways. Ex-c is our little 'click'.  We're like a little family. Where others in the outside world do not understand us losing our faith, the people on this board do. It can be serious with the best discussions and sometimes we have the greatest fun and act so foolish. Lol So, please...do join in! We need the support from each other.  I'm so glad you found us! Looking forward to hearing more from you!

((hug))

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Hey, thanks for the welcome ficino and Margee. It is good to have a community like this because it can feel awfully lonely out there when most of the people from your “old life” are Christians. The Christians that I know are very unhappy about my decision, and especially about my boldness in telling people about it. I guess I am the latest Antichrist - and my teachers never thought I would amount to anything.

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I have posted a new article on Thought Control about a conundrum that will have your Christian friends twisting in knots. You can find it here:

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/the-evil-god/the-details-are-in-the-devil/

 

And don't forget - the devil made me do it!

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