My Trip To Sanity

[Guest Praise Jebus]

Hello Everyone,

 

First let me start of by introducing myself. My name is Jase, and Ive been raised as a 7th day Adventist for my entire life. Ive been going to a SDA church school my entire life as well. The following is my story of waking up from the delusional phenomena that is religion.

 

When I was about age 10, I started to take a look at the 7th day adventist religion and realize some things about it. It first started with its random beliefs, first being vegetarianism. I thought to myself, "Hey, why would god care what I eat?" My dad didn't really care, because he had always been a liberal 7th day adventist when it came to that. Then I took a look at the church's founder, Ellen White. For those of you who don't know, Ellen White is considered a prophet by the 7th day adventist, and many seem to idolize her.

 

In 4th grade reading class we learned about her, and the story that interested me was her young child hood. When she was a young school child, she was hit in the head by a rock. This of course affected her greatly, and as they taught us, she often had headaches and was horribly disfigured because of it. Of course, they never bothered to go a step further and figure out that this caused her to be delusional, most likely accounting for her "prophetic visions". I, however, made this connection.

 

The next ludicrous claim they made was about dinosaurs. They taught us that they were not a creation of god, but instead created by evil scientist in the pre-flood era. We were also taught that there was a nuclear war before the flood. This for me was the last straw. I renounced my 7th day adventist faith, and decided to be religion less. I then stated I was a christian, I just didn't believe in following any specific religion.

 

Then last year, we studied the chapter of Job heavily. This really made me think. Why would God allow his children to be killed, and his servants murdered just to prove to Satan that Job loved him no matter what? This sparked something in me. I started doing research, looking up proof of god. The proof to evolution however, was much, much greater. Thus one night, i finally rolled back my chair and said to myself, "Great, I'm an atheist". I was so upset, this meant there was no heaven, no point to life, no greater purpose. So I asked my teacher, who was an expert when it came to religion, if there was any proof in god.

 

We had many talks, and finally one day he found out the I was no longer a skeptic, but a true atheist. He pulled me over and we had another talk. He made the best points any Christian had ever made, but in the end, nothing could budge me, because I was now certain, the proof was undeniable. I still do think of him as a great mentor though, and respect him greatly.

 

So here I am today, happy as ever. Ive now accepted there is no God, and I found that there is indeed no set purpose in my life, but rather I have to find one for myself. Ive been lectured many times by family and friends alike, and sometimes gave been ridiculed as an "atheist bitch" or some other nasty term, but in the end they've come to accept me. I still go to the same church school, and sometimes am angered by the mixing of religion and non religious subjects. I don't ever speak out against the religion, but I do make hints here and there. For instance one of our bible assignments was to pick our favourite bible verse, and i quoted the verse where moses gets drunk and naked.

 

So that's my story, hope to encourage some skeptics out there to look at the evidence, and realize how false religion really is, and discover just how wonderful a world without the evils of religion can be.

[Guest Sinlingual]

Interesting story with the dinosaurs. I've never heard of the seventh day adventists. Evolution can be proven unlike god, and as I have said Religion was there before the science of today could prove it otherwise. Welcome to Ex-C.

[Ex-COG]

Welcome to the Ex-Christian forums. I've heard of the SDA church; they can be pretty fundamentalist. They also have some beliefs that set them apart from other Christians, kind of like they are in their own catagory. I knew that Ellen White had a head injury, and I have no doubt that was the cause of her delusions.

[Piprus]

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for a well written testimony.

 

One of my wife's closest friends is an SDA, but I've never heard that dinosaur story from her. I did look into some of their beliefs, and one of the most striking was that they did not believe that hell was a place of eternal punishment, but rather a place where sinful souls were annhilated forever. Contrary to the place of eternal torment depicted by my own denomination.

 

I appreciated what you had to say about meaning and purpose in life...as an atheist I'm free to define my own meaning and purpose in life, and I have that. In abundance. Best wishes as you define yours. I hope you'll continue to participate in the forums.

 

“To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master” (Mark Twain)

[Guest Praise Jebus]

Indeed, the 7th day Adventist have some very quirky beliefs when in comparison to other Christians. If there's one thing I always took notice of, it was the incredible amount of hate for the catholic church, and the encouragement to not marry others outside of the religion. That to me struck a cord as cultish, and really I think that's a perfectly reasonable response to such a belief. As for the dinosaur "theory", what shocks me now the most is that it isn't taught in bible class, but rather taught as science! Getting back to the quirky beliefs though, here are some that are both understandable as a christian and cultish to anyone and everyone.

 

-Dancing Is Evil

-Any jewelry is forbidden

-You can't do anything on the sabbath, some even refuse to drive their cars. (Note thought that this does differ from church member to church member, some being very liberal about it, and some being VERY strict about it

-There is no Hell, god throws you into a lake of fire and you perish for all eternity with no suffering

-Evolutionist are Evil heathens and, as given in one lecture, encourage rape and murder

-Sabbath is the day of worship, and the catholics have corrupted this ideal (then comes the evil catholic part)

-And of course, my personal favourites, all the teachings and visions of Ellen White, such as her visiting Jupiter, talking with the "tall majestic people" that inhabited it, and meeting moses (or some other famous bible character) and finding that they were only visiting the planet (who knew!?).

 

Another interesting face about the SDA church is that they have spawned multiple cults, and several deranged people ("Ted Jesus Christ God" for one.)

 

Also, thanks for the warm welcome to community, hope to meets some others who have experienced religions tyranny even more them me.

[Guest Egregore]

Indeed, the 7th day Adventist have some very quirky beliefs when in comparison to other Christians. If there's one thing I always took notice of, it was the incredible amount of hate for the catholic church, and the encouragement to not marry others outside of the religion. That to me struck a cord as cultish, and really I think that's a perfectly reasonable response to such a belief. As for the dinosaur "theory", what shocks me now the most is that it isn't taught in bible class, but rather taught as science! Getting back to the quirky beliefs though, here are some that are both understandable as a christian and cultish to anyone and everyone.

 

-Dancing Is Evil

-Any jewelry is forbidden

-You can't do anything on the sabbath, some even refuse to drive their cars. (Note thought that this does differ from church member to church member, some being very liberal about it, and some being VERY strict about it

-There is no Hell, god throws you into a lake of fire and you perish for all eternity with no suffering

-Evolutionist are Evil heathens and, as given in one lecture, encourage rape and murder

-Sabbath is the day of worship, and the catholics have corrupted this ideal (then comes the evil catholic part)

-And of course, my personal favourites, all the teachings and visions of Ellen White, such as her visiting Jupiter, talking with the "tall majestic people" that inhabited it, and meeting moses (or some other famous bible character) and finding that they were only visiting the planet (who knew!?).

 

Another interesting face about the SDA church is that they have spawned multiple cults, and several deranged people ("Ted Jesus Christ God" for one.)

 

Also, thanks for the warm welcome to community, hope to meets some others who have experienced religions tyranny even more them me.

 

Thanks for sharing your story Praise Jebus, and those facts about the SDA. It's funny that so many Christians can't even agree with each other on anything about their religion. Also it's funny that every denomiation of Christianity calls every other denomination (especially the Catholics) "cults", and they have no respect for each other. I'm a former Catholic and I got told my religion was a cult by every Christian friend I had. I hated it. But anyways, good to see you've found your own method of believing (or disbelieving for that matter). I wish Jebus would deliver ME from these crazy fundies

[Guest Sinlingual]

How did SDA start up? That's really stupid to live a constricted life like that. No indepence whatsoever it looks like.

[Guest Praise Jebus]

I wouldn't say it's and incredibly restricted life, as some religions are much more fanatical. However I was raised in the lower end of strict SDA ideals. The basics of how the SDA church was started was the millerite movement. If you search it on wikipedia, you'll find plenty on him, but basically he said Jesus was due in about 2 years, and was wrong, but some of the millerites were too proud to return to the churches which they previously mocked for not following miller. The few that stayed with miller started their own church as a result, and gave birth to the SDA church (and the various cults that broke off from them).