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Goodbye Jesus

Reborn Again...and Happier Than I Could Have Imagined


TerranceG

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I'm sure my story is similar to many others here. I'll give the basic bullet point version and try to leave at least a bit of mystery.

 

. Born into an uber Christian family

. Was never really anything but Christian (belief was more of an unchosen condition than a decision I made)

. Was isolated from other perspectives (other than casual contact) until exploring them for myself at 39 years old.

. Father was a pastor, evangelist in a charismatic Penticostal denomination.

. Began to question my beliefs after attending a Christian college and studying psychology. (I had enough intense Bible courses to reveal the inconsistencies in scripture.

. Losing my belief in inerrancy started a chain reaction that led me away from faith.

. I have a keen interest in Biblical studies from a historical critical perspective now.

. I now know more about the Bible than I ever could have as a fundamentalist Christian.

 

Side note: I've also been a professional musician for 27 years.

( No one you have heard of, but I've played with s few that you may have)

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Welcome, Terrance, and thank you for sharing your story.

 

If you don't mind my asking ... how did it come about that losing your belief in inerrancy led you away from faith rather than to a less fundamentalist version of it?

 

Cheers, f

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Terrance,

 

  • Did you present your finding about the scripture(s) to clergy/pastors or other xtians?
  • What was/were their response(S) ?

 

I find them amusing. GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

    - MOHO 

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It was a much more gradual moving away from belief than I made it sound like. The first step was to explore Christian Universalism. Once I came to think that the Bible taught that the sacrifice of Christ was for all, it led to a deeper investigation of the Greek and Hebrew texts and issues of translation. Of course it is always possible to use apologetics to explain away anything discrepant; If you're desperate enough that is.

 

That was about the time that I started at the Christian college and learned even more to cause me to question all of it. With required Bible courses each semester, I soon had enough Biblical education that I could have been ordained as a minister. But it became too hard for me to ignore the nagging questions or accept the grossly inadequate apologetic responses to them.

 

It was after I had graduated and had been living alone for a year or so that I ran across the book Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman. Reading it was the nail in the coffin of my ability to believe in the inerrancy of scripture. Almost simultaneously I began to allow myself to think the thought that I had always rejected: Maybe there is no God. All that was left to make it real was to talk to my dad about it. It was the hardest and most painful thing I've ever done.

 

That led me agnosticism and now eventually atheism. Now I subsist on a diet of children and small animals. Lol!

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Terrance,

 

  • Did you present your finding about the scripture(s) to clergy/pastors or other xtians?
  • What was/were their response(S) ?

I find them amusing. GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

- MOHO

Oh yes...it can be amusing. But I'm more concerned with helping them to understand that you can go from all that blind faith and fear to freedom through logic and reason. Hee hee

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Hi Terrance, welcome to the community. Good on you for taking the approach of trying to help others out, religion is a prison for the mind and people need to be set free of it. Your experience sounds fairly similar to mine: once the inerrancy of the Bible is out the window the whole tower of cards falls over.

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It certainly does James. But it seems that not everyone is able...or willing as the case may be...to question their long held beliefs. Christianity wasn't the last of the indoctrinated ideas that I have shed after becoming a skeptic. But it is still the most salient one. It amazes me how much of what many people do and believe about the world is based on their religious beliefs.

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Welcome to Ex-c Terrance! Thanks for sharing your very interesting story.

 

I'm really glad you are here with us! I look forward to reading more from you!

 

(hug)

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Thanks Margee!

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" Father was a pastor, evangelist in a charismatic Penticostal denomination."

 

Horrible. What bad luck! Does he know you threw the insanity out?

 

Welcome to the 21st century.

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Yep...I actually dragged him along with me. He's currently identifying as agnostic.

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"Yep...I actually dragged him along with me. He's currently identifying as agnostic."

 

Terrance, 

 

​You simply MUST share your approach to this. I would LOOOOOOVE to drag the wife out of her delusions. What a happy life would could have if she was not so flaming, over-the-top, in-your-face, evanfuckinggelical !  eek.gif eek.gif 

    - MOHO 

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Whoa...not for the faint of heart. Don't try this at home folks!

 

Ha...it is a long grueling process of introducing ideas slowly and letting that person come to grips with their own biases against it. Everyone is different. And if they are the type that has their identity wrapped up in religion and those groups, it may never be possible. My father was already disillusioned with organized religion. All it took was getting past a lifetime of brainwashing and indoctrination. Ha...easy right?

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Terrance, welcome to our family of apostates! I for one feel more at home here than I ever did in church, especially in the latter years, and I hope you will feel welcome here too.

 

I sent you a PM as I think we may be more-or-less neighbors (almost heaven). It sometimes takes new members a while to realize if they have messages waiting, so I'm just sayin.

 

Again - Welcome!

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Terrance,

 

Yes, very easy. Looks like your father's apparent previous disillusionment was key. My wife gets VERY angry when I attempt any type of questioning whatsoever. 

 

"I Know what your're trying to do !!! "

 

Oye vey!

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Terrance,

 

Yes, very easy. Looks like your father's apparent previous disillusionment was key. My wife gets VERY angry when I attempt any type of questioning whatsoever. 

 

"I Know what your're trying to do !!! "

 

Oye vey!

 

Yep, that's my husband.  He's "supportive" of my deconversion....except when it threatens his own opinions/worldview in any way, shape, or form.  Then, suddenly, I'm an angry, bitter, closed-minded person.  (According to him.)  No....I'm just a person who is more interested in using logic to make sense of things than convenient fairy tales.

 

I also cannot stand that he pities me (in that, he "mourns for my soul"/thinks I'm going to hell).  He chooses to base his opinions of me/my life/my choices/my passions and motivations in life based on what his religion SAYS about me, versus what, after 18 years together, he should KNOW about me.  That stings.  (And a lot more than I'd like to admit.)  My own merit, goodness, and work ethic mean nothing (to him), since I'm not doing things for Christ.  (And then there's the whole "faith vs. works" thing.)  He KNOWS I'm a good person....but apparently that's not good enough, now that I've denounced my faith in Jesus.  Anyway....

 

You can probably see why (among many reasons) we're having MAJOR issues right now.

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Terrance, welcome to our family of apostates! I for one feel more at home here than I ever did in church, especially in the latter years, and I hope you will feel welcome here too.

 

I sent you a PM as I think we may be more-or-less neighbors (almost heaven). It sometimes takes new members a while to realize if they have messages waiting, so I'm just sayin.

 

Again - Welcome!

Oh cool...ill have to see if I figure out how to tell if I have messages. Excuse the noob. I'll get it I swear. Ha

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Terrance,

 

Yes, very easy. Looks like your father's apparent previous disillusionment was key. My wife gets VERY angry when I attempt any type of questioning whatsoever.

 

"I Know what your're trying to do !!! "

 

Oye vey!

Yep, that's my husband. He's "supportive" of my deconversion....except when it threatens his own opinions/worldview in any way, shape, or form. Then, suddenly, I'm an angry, bitter, closed-minded person. (According to him.) No....I'm just a person who is more interested in using logic to make sense of things than convenient fairy tales.

 

I also cannot stand that he pities me (in that, he "mourns for my soul"/thinks I'm going to hell). He chooses to base his opinions of me/my life/my choices/my passions and motivations in life based on what his religion SAYS about me, versus what, after 18 years together, he should KNOW about me. That stings. (And a lot more than I'd like to admit.) My own merit, goodness, and work ethic mean nothing (to him), since I'm not doing things for Christ. (And then there's the whole "faith vs. works" thing.) He KNOWS I'm a good person....but apparently that's not good enough, now that I've denounced my faith in Jesus. Anyway....

 

You can probably see why (among many reasons) we're having MAJOR issues right now.

Yah...I'm not sure why it ever made sense to me to think that "saying the magic words" made any difference in whether or not I was ok. Is God really so petty as to demand such trivial things of us? And really...have you ever stopped to ask why a blood sacrifice suddenly makes everything ok? That may have made sense to ancient Mayans who sacrificed thousand to their blood God, but are modern reasonable people still taken in by such ridiculous notions?

 

Sorry to hear that things are hard for you right now. 18 years is a long time, and I hope you can find a way to continue together.

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I also cannot stand that he pities me (in that, he "mourns for my soul"/thinks I'm going to hell).  He chooses to base his opinions of me/my life/my choices/my passions and motivations in life based on what his religion SAYS about me, versus what, after 18 years together, he should KNOW about me.  That stings.

Yes, this drives me crazy. The Bible teaches its followers to become authorities about us, who know us better than we know ourselves.

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