In A Believer's Mind

[lethargicsweetheart]

Hello everyone! I saw a few forum posts of atheists asking why Christians on here remain Christians, given that there is loads of evidence against our Bible. Well, for starters, faith is a big factor (I know, I know, you've heard that before). But don't worry, it's definitely not the only reason. 

I decided to make this post after stumbling upon a 10 year old comment on the old thread "Becoming an ExChristian" this morning. I was, at the time of reading this, no longer a Christian, mind you; I was scrolling through laughing at the Christians making pointless arguments about the post until I read this one: 

 

"I am ill. A hazard to the world around me. My disease is this: I have an immortal soul. In this condition I have committed crimes not against the state, but against the statement, including the ultimate sin: betrayal of my human nature. By trusting in a God you rejected, I have gained full control of my libido and aggression, and in the process became something more than your Darwinist views could ever explain. So I must be cured so that "normal" people can still sleep at night. So you shove your cure, your bitter defeatest worldview down my throat every day. But the more bitter the pill, the sweeter the disease. My soul is a terminal, un-treatable case. So your options. A, you let me slip, I go on spreading the "disease",I win. Or B, you euthanize me, I go to Christ, I still win. I cannot lose, and my cause gets stronger by the hour. And that leaves you terrified. So cure me with your words and your pills. Hell, cure me with a .22 rifle for all I care. You flayed my savior alive and crucified him, and I expect and accept no less from you. I am a Christian and this is my manifesto.

Bring it on."

 

 

Having always been a person with some kind of religious background, I can definitely just feel the emotion behind this quote. 

 

You see, being a Christian is not about following blindly and judging others for being different or anything like that. It's about the hope, the faith, the strong sense of safety, that comes with knowing a God who cares about every person individually and unconditionally. 

 

It sounds ridiculous to unbelievers; the Bible even says that (1 Corinthians 1:18 states, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." KJV) , but to us, it's something amazing.. something inspiring.. something we can count on. And I know that personally, I have never had anything else to count on, really. 

 

In a believer's mind, as is said above, there is no losing. To us, it is simply this: Believe in God, be a good person, die, be happy for eternity. See, if we are left alone in our religion, great. We live a simple life, we die, we go to Heaven. If we are killed for our beliefs, we go to Heaven a martyr and never feel pain again. If we're killed for some other reason, we go to Heaven and never feel pain again. Etc etc. 

 

You see my point. To us, it's the reliability; the fact that, no matter what happens, we can have hope in this one thing and this one thing only: In the end, we live forever. Heaven is our final reward. 

 

We may be wrong, it's not like we don't know that. We could be entirely wrong about it all. But if there really is nothingness when we die, so what? We lived our life believing and it was wrong. That's it. But if unbelievers are wrong... they suffer for it.  See... when a Christian evangelizes to unbelievers, it's because they care for your soul and don't want you to suffer. But when an unbeliever evangelizes.. what's the purpose, exactly? To prove a point? 

 

I may not have communicated exactly what my point is in a way that everyone will understand; I apologize, I will answer any questions if you have any. I am not trying to convert anyone here by any means, but I hope maybe this will provide a little understanding for those who were curious. Again, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I just wanted to share my thoughts. 

[yunea]

I have a question: Are you like the guy whose libido and urges would be dangerous to the fellow man if not for their religion?

 

Another question: Do you honestly think that we don't know how it was like being a Christian?

 

We've used the same Pascal's Wager that you do here. Many of us have believed we're filthy and dangerous and deserving of hell. Many of us kneeled down tears rolling down our cheeks thanking Jesus for saving us.

 

I have much more peace now, and much less urges to do "sinful" things than I did as a believer. I also don't worry about things nobody has any proof of, such as "life after death".  I care about my life. 

[TheOutsider]

<snip>

 

We may be wrong, it's not like we don't know that. We could be entirely wrong about it all. But if there really is nothingness when we die, so what? We lived our life believing and it was wrong. That's it. But if unbelievers are wrong... they suffer for it.  See... when a Christian evangelizes to unbelievers, it's because they care for your soul and don't want you to suffer. But when an unbeliever evangelizes.. what's the purpose, exactly? To prove a point? 

 

<snip>

 

The point is to make someone, anyone, think. And maybe, just maybe, decide to reject the ancient dogmatic bullshit that is so routinely forced down the throats of anyone who will, or has no choice but to, listen.

 

As for your Pascal's wager, you missed door number 3-∞~. One of which is we are both wrong, and I'm not the one pretending to know anything about whatever god/s, if any, actually do exist.

[Jeff]

Glad you're happy.

Please please, regarding the alleged soul; It's none of your business. I'm so fucking tired of being told how great being a christian is after having been one.

 

I hope you get the opportunity to be witnessed to by a satanist or jehovahs witnesses every time you evangelize to someone who wishes you'd just go away and leave them alone, just so you can remember how absolutely obnoxious it is.

 

Be a christian and a nice person at the grocery store but for Krishna's sake, butt-out of people's business! Seriously.

 

Oh. And welcome to the joint

[florduh]

Welcome to the site!

 

Let's see...... well, your quoted story reeked of desperation to me. I'm sure most believers read it as unshakable faith or some such thing.

 

As we must constantly remind Christians posting here, this site is called EX-Christian, meaning we were, for the most part, once Christians ourselves; devout church goers, teachers, ministers, Bible scholars, missionaries, etc. Most were involved for many years, often from childhood. We spouted Pascal's Wager and delved into apologetics.

 

So we have intimate familiarity with your beliefs. We have, usually for very good reason, come to a different conclusion. There are many reasons to have this opposing view, but a few are Bible history, church history, Bible contradictions with reality, science, history and itself. There is also the rather obvious, to an unbiased mind, reality that prayer simply does not accomplish anything in the real world but seems to make those who pray feel good about themselves and somehow useful.

 

Welcome to the Lion's Den!!! Prepare yourself for well researched, logical arguments against having blind faith in something with no evidence. 

[midniterider]

Hello everyone! I saw a few forum posts of atheists asking why Christians on here remain Christians, given that there is loads of evidence against our Bible. Well, for starters, faith is a big factor (I know, I know, you've heard that before). But don't worry, it's definitely not the only reason. 

I decided to make this post after stumbling upon a 10 year old comment on the old thread "Becoming an ExChristian" this morning. I was, at the time of reading this, no longer a Christian, mind you; I was scrolling through laughing at the Christians making pointless arguments about the post until I read this one: 

 

"I am ill. A hazard to the world around me. My disease is this: I have an immortal soul. In this condition I have committed crimes not against the state, but against the statement, including the ultimate sin: betrayal of my human nature. By trusting in a God you rejected, I have gained full control of my libido and aggression, and in the process became something more than your Darwinist views could ever explain. So I must be cured so that "normal" people can still sleep at night. So you shove your cure, your bitter defeatest worldview down my throat every day. But the more bitter the pill, the sweeter the disease. My soul is a terminal, un-treatable case. So your options. A, you let me slip, I go on spreading the "disease",I win. Or B, you euthanize me, I go to Christ, I still win. I cannot lose, and my cause gets stronger by the hour. And that leaves you terrified. So cure me with your words and your pills. Hell, cure me with a .22 rifle for all I care. You flayed my savior alive and crucified him, and I expect and accept no less from you. I am a Christian and this is my manifesto.

 

Bring it on."

 

Christianity is a disease, I agree. Good drama ^^

 

 

Having always been a person with some kind of religious background, I can definitely just feel the emotion behind this quote. 

 

From time to time I see someone walking down the street yelling at nobody in particular. They are fired up.. by mental illness.

 

You see, being a Christian is not about following blindly and judging others for being different or anything like that. It's about the hope, the faith, the strong sense of safety, that comes with knowing a God who cares about every person individually and unconditionally. 

 

I'm glad you have hope, faith and a sense of safety. I have hope and faith that the world goes on , even after I'm gone. It's not really something I think about much. Death is another thing I don't think much about. Maybe something happens after, maybe not. My parents didn't raise me to fear death nor find a God to cling to, so that's where I'm at. If there is a God , why do I have to think about him? Why would an infinitely advanced being 'want' worship? Why would an infinitely advanced being consider us all 'sinners?" The whole religious thing smacks of humans trying to control humans, imo. But I'm happy it works for you.

 

It sounds ridiculous to unbelievers; the Bible even says that (1 Corinthians 1:18 states, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." KJV) , but to us, it's something amazing.. something inspiring.. something we can count on. And I know that personally, I have never had anything else to count on, really. 

 

Not ridiculous at all. I was a fired up Pentecostal for a decade.

 

In a believer's mind, as is said above, there is no losing. To us, it is simply this: Believe in God, be a good person, die, be happy for eternity. See, if we are left alone in our religion, great. We live a simple life, we die, we go to Heaven. If we are killed for our beliefs, we go to Heaven a martyr and never feel pain again. If we're killed for some other reason, we go to Heaven and never feel pain again. Etc etc.

 

As an agnostic, I could apply a win-win philosophy as well. If I die and there is a Summerland, I go there and enjoy an after life. If there is nothing, I'm not alive to be aware of it. And my mind can choose to ignore all other belief systems, such as Christianity. I can choose to create a unique philosophy about death/afterlife and make it seem as real as I want. The more you program yourself to believe a certain concept, the more real it becomes for you. 

 

You see my point. To us, it's the reliability; the fact that, no matter what happens, we can have hope in this one thing and this one thing only: In the end, we live forever. Heaven is our final reward. 

 

We may be wrong, it's not like we don't know that. We could be entirely wrong about it all. But if there really is nothingness when we die, so what? We lived our life believing and it was wrong. That's it. But if unbelievers are wrong... they suffer for it.  See... when a Christian evangelizes to unbelievers, it's because they care for your soul and don't want you to suffer. But when an unbeliever evangelizes.. what's the purpose, exactly? To prove a point? 

 

Pascal's Wager. On the surface, if you don't question it, it sounds reasonable. But, if there really is no afterlife then some Christian people have wasted 10% of their income paying for a preacher's house, car, vacation, church building, etc. They have also wasted countless hours of their life for nada. So where is my soul going to suffer if I decline Jesus' offer, in Hell? I'm actually an ex-believer (not unbeliever).

 

Regarding ex-believers evangelizing. I don't personally care what someone's belief is. If you take that as evangelizing then that's fine. Maybe you could say that as an agnostic I offer you freedom of thought. I think the 'why' of evangelization assumes you have something valuable to offer. You push Christianity/afterlife as something that has innate value to all. It isn't valuable to everyone. We've been there, done that, it is devoid of value. You comment "To prove a point" attempts to devalue our world view. I say these things to elucidate for myself as well as share my mind a bit. But, of course, debate is fun.

 

I may not have communicated exactly what my point is in a way that everyone will understand; I apologize, I will answer any questions if you have any. I am not trying to convert anyone here by any means, but I hope maybe this will provide a little understanding for those who were curious. Again, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I just wanted to share my thoughts. 

 

If your point is not trying to sell us Christ, then what is it? When I was a Christian I remember there was a Great Commission and it was pounded into our heads to go out and SAVE people. I remember getting this 'icky' feeling when I would do the occasional 'sales' job on someone. My churchmates would warn against that with some guilt producing baloney that if I truly loved Jesus I would wouldn't fear recruiting others. After deconverting though I just realized the icky feeling was the natural feeling some people get when they are trying to sell someone something they dont really want. Like Amway.

 

Anyway, I blather on.... Have a good day.

[duderonomy]

Welcome lethargicsweetheart!

 

I have a question...you said you were not a Christian, this very morning, when you were scrolling through the old posts and found the one you quoted, but your bio says 'yes I am a Christian'.  What's up with that?

[♦ ficino ♦]

Yes, I'm confused, too, lethargicsweetheart. Are you an ex-Christian posting something you read, underneath the first paragraph written by you, or did you compose the "us/we" parts because you are still a Christian?

 

The question is relevant since you have posted on a site that exists to encourage people who are leaving or who have left Christianity.

[Geezer]

Can't figure out why God is mad at human's. It's that damn snake that created this mess. Send the snake to hell & leave us alone.

[rjn]

What? Pascal's Wager? Is that you? Long time no see bro, it must be like, several hours since we last met. How are you doing? Same old? Well, give my best regards to your wife, Mrs. Clichéd Argument.

[sdelsolray]

The OP is most likely another hit and run.  It's not worth the time to deconstruct her shallow attempt to apologize for her own religious indoctrination.  If she adds additional posts, I may change my mind.

[dangitbobby83]

*Yawn*

 

If your god can fall for the fake belief you're claiming (Pascal's wager), then your god is a moron.

If the muslim faith is the proper one, you're heading to hell anyway. So if you're going to make a wager and you think said god will accept some sort of lip service belief, then you might as well become a christian, muslim, and a jew all at once. And toss in some other pagan gods just to cover your bases. 

 

I do love the drive-by apologists who think they can drop some nice words, pascals wager and a few bible verses and suddenly all us deconverted will go running back into the (not-so) loving church.

[LogicalFallacy]

Hey lethargicsweetheart, welcome to Ex-C.

 

The Lions den is an interesting choice of place for first post. My answers, thoughts etc included under the sections quoted.

 

Hello everyone! I saw a few forum posts of atheists asking why Christians on here remain Christians, given that there is loads of evidence against our Bible. Well, for starters, faith is a big factor (I know, I know, you've heard that before). But don't worry, it's definitely not the only reason.

 

 

I decided to make this post after stumbling upon a 10 year old comment on the old thread "Becoming an ExChristian" this morning. I was, at the time of reading this, no longer a Christian, mind you; I was scrolling through laughing at the Christians making pointless arguments about the post until I read this one: 

 

"I am ill. A hazard to the world around me. My disease is this: I have an immortal soul. In this condition I have committed crimes not against the state, but against the statement, including the ultimate sin: betrayal of my human nature. By trusting in a God you rejected, I have gained full control of my libido and aggression, and in the process became something more than your Darwinist views could ever explain. So I must be cured so that "normal" people can still sleep at night. So you shove your cure, your bitter defeatest worldview down my throat every day. But the more bitter the pill, the sweeter the disease. My soul is a terminal, un-treatable case. So your options. A, you let me slip, I go on spreading the "disease",I win. Or B, you euthanize me, I go to Christ, I still win. I cannot lose, and my cause gets stronger by the hour. And that leaves you terrified. So cure me with your words and your pills. Hell, cure me with a .22 rifle for all I care. You flayed my savior alive and crucified him, and I expect and accept no less from you. I am a Christian and this is my manifesto.

Bring it on."

 

 

Having always been a person with some kind of religious background, I can definitely just feel the emotion behind this quote.

 

I think if you learn to view what others say with a critical mind, and not let emotion cloud your judgement you will be better off in the long run. The person writing that quote, is so seriously deluded that he/she believes that their soul has been cursed with Adam and Eve's sin. While it is true that some people do find comfort and meaning in Christianity as a way of sorting out life's problems, I feel that if we could muster the appropriate resources together, a secular solution would be better.  Bear in mind that people have stories like this relating to many religions. Christianity is not special in this regard.

 

You see, being a Christian is not about following blindly and judging others for being different or anything like that. It's about the hope, the faith, the strong sense of safety, that comes with knowing a God who cares about every person individually and unconditionally. 

 

You seem to be forcing your view of Christianity on to every Christian, which gives a false view of the differing opinions within Christianity. I can tell you, after sitting in the sermon today, that some Christians are very very judgement, and only give a flying fuck about what God thinks of themselves, and to hell with everybody else.

 

It sounds ridiculous to unbelievers; the Bible even says that (1 Corinthians 1:18 states, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." KJV) , but to us, it's something amazing.. something inspiring.. something we can count on. And I know that personally, I have never had anything else to count on, really. 

 

In a believer's mind, as is said above, there is no losing. To us, it is simply this: Believe in God, be a good person, die, be happy for eternity. See, if we are left alone in our religion, great. We live a simple life, we die, we go to Heaven. If we are killed for our beliefs, we go to Heaven a martyr and never feel pain again. If we're killed for some other reason, we go to Heaven and never feel pain again. Etc etc. 

 

You see my point. To us, it's the reliability; the fact that, no matter what happens, we can have hope in this one thing and this one thing only: In the end, we live forever. Heaven is our final reward. 

 

The problem I would have with the above line of thinking/belief is that there is absolutely nothing to base it on but your belief/faith in a book horrendously cobbled together. 

 

We may be wrong, it's not like we don't know that. We could be entirely wrong about it all. But if there really is nothingness when we die, so what? We lived our life believing and it was wrong. That's it. But if unbelievers are wrong... they suffer for it.  See... when a Christian evangelizes to unbelievers, it's because they care for your soul and don't want you to suffer. But when an unbeliever evangelizes.. what's the purpose, exactly? To prove a point? 

 

Some interesting questions here, and rather than simply dismissing them I'm going to try and address them so you might gain some understanding. The first part of the line above is a very very common argument from Christians, and one of the first that was poked at me when I first told my parents I didn't believe in God. They said well what's wrong with living a good Christian life, if we are wrong we have lived a good life. This entirely misses the point that many people live a good life without any religion, and many other different types of religious people live a good life. It's been mentioned by others, but this line of thinking falls for Pascal's wager trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager  The problem is that he was wrong because its not a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong. To be right you must pick the correct religion, and within that religion the correct sect in order to succeed. 

 

To address the question about an unbeliever evangelizing. I can't speak for all, but I believe I speak for many when I say the reason we 'evangelize' is for the same reason that you tell a child over a certain age that Santa Claus is not real, or if someone says the earth is the center of the universe you correct them. It is to try and bring people the truth about the world. It is so disheartening seeing friends and family believing in stuff that I now know is codswallop.

 

 

I may not have communicated exactly what my point is in a way that everyone will understand; I apologize, I will answer any questions if you have any. I am not trying to convert anyone here by any means, but I hope maybe this will provide a little understanding for those who were curious. Again, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I just wanted to share my thoughts. 

 

You are welcome. I think you'd have a hard job converting anyone here We've all been where you are, and apart from the Christians that come here to debate with us, we have all come to the conclusion that there is no evidence for God. Note, and this is important, this is often after many many years and a believer, and after years of searching for the truth, praying, crying, and I dare say pleading or begging God to reveal himself. Sorry hun, no god exists, he's not coming to save us, there is only humanity who decides their own destiny, and we have chosen to decide our own.

 

LF

[Shinzon]

Was thinking this might be interesting till i realized its pascals wager. Double yawn.

 

But if we are talking about hope, something that was mentioned frequently. Might i mentioned that theism is the least hopeful view imaginable. There is no learning, no agape(im using that word for a reason), there is no reason to live. I cant love fully under the threat of sin, it becomes a duty and not a desire or wish. I cant truely learn from my mistakes when a god says im forgiven because there is no reason for guilt. I cant live under theism because the air i breath becomes meaningless, temporary and full of sorrow.

[Voice]

Being a. christian isn't intended to be about following blindly and judging people who are different, these become side effects. Not for all christians, but for many. And wickedly, hopelessly so.

The sense of security found in being a christian is in a way artificial since the religion first promises spiritual rejection of unbelievers. Abandonment. What human infant/toddler/child/young adult, even adult doesn't somehow fear abandonment? So under threat it sets you up to need the comforts it promises to deliver.
Further, underlying the security a christian can experience, hides a fundamental fear of hell, one christians invariably deny is there. But it's there. You might not realize it until you ask yourself, "what would happen if I left the faith right now?" Your answer, fear of hell. You shudder and tell yourself, "OMG, no, I can't leave the faith". That's a hell worse than hell as you would have enjoyed not ever having faith. So it is really security? Or is it entrapment? 

Reading your post I wasn't sure if you were ciristian or ex-c at first. If you've decided to accept christianity as your paradigm, might you enter that in your profile?

[yunea]

Wait. The 6th Nov post, "what hope we have as an anchor of the soul" on the main page, is also you, right?

[yunea]

Derp..

[Margee]

Sweetheart, you know in your heart it's all baloney. Christians are afraid to die. They are afraid of hell that the almighty has planned for those who even question his so called holy word. Those who keep the faith have that hope that they will never die and get to see all their loved ones. None of it's true baby. The bible is man made hon. Come to terms with it and learn how to think for yourself.. Thanks for dropping in!

 

(hug)

[rjn]

Unlike many others on this site, I'm not categorically opposed to everything that can construed as "religious", but to be honest, I can't take anyone (whether they're Christian, Muslim or something else) who believes in Hell for their fellow man seriously. No true compassion nor understanding of the human condition can come from a person who sincerely believes that. Go on, talk about your "love", at the end of the day, all I see is a bunch of vengeful bile, fear-mongering and not a little self-righteousness.

[L.B.]

I love it when the point of a Christard is for them to come along and brag about how messed up they are.

 

Ooh... you're so wretched, and your magic Sky Man came and "saved" you, and now you've got a "manifesto" and you're going to storm the gates of Hell with righteous fury.

 

Right...

 

...except that it's YOUR GOD who cursed you all with the stain of inheriting the guilt of "original sin". It's your god who made up a bunch of religious rules no one could obey because A) no one is perfect to begin with and that original-sin thing again, which renders everyone totally unable to even have the right motives to be perfect if they could.

 

...and it's YOUR GOD who then tells everyone that he loves them but that he's going to torture them in Hell forever if they don't accept his sacrifice of himself to himself - and this sacrifice is to "save" people from a guilt they were born with through no fault of their own.

 

Yeah, you're such a bad-ass now that you're filled with the power of Casper The Friendly Ghost.

 

Go fuck yourself, idiot.

 

EDIT: In the end, it's really too bad you're so full of shit, hon. You're actually kind of cute.

[rjn]

I love it when the point of a Christard is for them to come along and brag about how messed up they are.

 

Ooh... you're so wretched, and your magic Sky Man came and "saved" you, and now you've got a "manifesto" and you're going to storm the gates of Hell with righteous fury.

 

Right...

 

...except that it's YOUR GOD who cursed you all with the stain of inheriting the guilt of "original sin". It's your god who made up a bunch of religious rules no one could obey because A) no one is perfect to begin with and that original-sin thing again, which renders everyone totally unable to even have the right motives to be perfect if they could.

 

...and it's YOUR GOD who then tells everyone that he loves them but that he's going to torture them in Hell forever if they don't accept his sacrifice of himself to himself - and this sacrifice is to "save" people from a guilt they were born with through no fault of their own.

 

Yeah, you're such a bad-ass now that you're filled with the power of Casper The Friendly Ghost.

 

Go fuck yourself, idiot.

 

EDIT: In the end, it's really too bad you're so full of shit, hon. You're actually kind of cute.

 

Dude, calm down and give her a break, she's a high school kid. 

[LogicalFallacy]

Go fuck yourself, idiot.

 

EDIT: In the end, it's really too bad you're so full of shit, hon. You're actually kind of cute.

In my opinion polemic like this achieves nothing.

 

Seriously, is this intelligent reasoned thought to help a Christian de-convert?

 

And what the hell has "you're kinda cute" got to do with anything?

 

We get it, Christians are full of shit, but it would heed the atheist community well to show compassion once in a while to those needing help - especially the young and vulnerable.

[rjn]

 

Go fuck yourself, idiot.

 

EDIT: In the end, it's really too bad you're so full of shit, hon. You're actually kind of cute.

In my opinion polemic like this achieves nothing.

 

Seriously, is this intelligent reasoned thought to help a Christian de-convert?

 

And what the hell has "you're kinda cute" got to do with anything?

 

We get it, Christians are full of shit, but it would heed the atheist community well to show compassion once in a while to those needing help - especially the young and vulnerable.

 

 

I don't give a damn if someone is religious or not, as long as they're not pushing beliefs that pave the way for outright bigotry, violence, fundamentalism and anti-scientific attitudes. 

 

And yes, the "Atheist community" would do well to show some compassion. A lot of people in that community do come across as resentful assholes. I am a member of an Atheist group on Facebook, and few people seem interested in discussing anything in-depth, they're simply interested in posting silly memes and pat each other on the back for being part of the right in-group. Does that sort of behavior remind you of something? Religion, perhaps? 

[lethargicsweetheart]

Woah.

 

Okay. Well, first of all, I'd like to give a very sincere thank you to everyone who commented on this with intentions to make me think about things, instead of just calling me names.

I'm happy to tell you all, however, that I came back to read comments every day and did not allow myself to reply, specifically because I wanted to really think about what you all said. And after long weeks of contemplation, I came to the conclusion that my religion was, in fact, complete and total baloney. There were so many things I was over looking, and logic often times escaped me, I'll admit. I posted this because I noticed several people asking others why they kept their faith, not because I was trying to evangelize- but in the end, the only thing keeping me religious at all was fear. Fear of hell, fear of change, etc. That's why I was so indecisive- when I joined this site I called myself an agnostic, then my family stepped in so I started doubting myself and changed it to Christian, but my heart wasn't in it. I was honestly, completely, 100% confused. So I decided I needed to figure out then and there what I truly believed, not my family. I posted this as kind of an experiment, to see what made everyone leave the religion and decide if I should, too. So, again, I say thank you. There is nothing I strive for more than to have a mind that is open about anything around me, and this website and the people on it have helped me with that more than anything. I've been reading through different forums and testimonies and have yet to find a single unintelligent person on here. Everyone is so full of passion and logic here. I love it. Thank you all for the comments, the constructive criticism, and the role you played in helping me make my decision. ☺

[rjn]

Good to have you back lethargicsweetheart! Looks like you've done a lot ot soul-searching since your last visit here. Sorry if I came across as an asshole back then, I try not to be offensive and I rarely, if ever, go ad hominem, but I might be a bit snarky and sarcastic every now and then.