SkepticOfBible Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I been around on as this one forum for quite some time, but I never told others to who I was. I finally managed to write my testimony I guess the best place to start, would be to tell as to how I got into the theology debate. Before I came to the place where I am working now, I was a happy go lucky person, who was a borderline hindu, but believed "all path lead to one place" - God, ie all religion are the same. Science to me was complimentary to God. Everybody knows from right to wrong. After all it's common sense. But then I came over in this wonderful part of New Zealand, I meet a bunch of people called the Fundamentalist evangelical christians. I work for the biggest evangelist(which I found out after I came here) of the country, and my office is right in the middle of Bible school/Camp. My work environment is quite secularised, although we tend to work on christian content quite a lot, and some of the guys discuss christianity quite loudly(young earth creationism), but in general they refrain from evangelising to me. However other christians outside my office told me that I am going to hell because I don't believe in Jesus and that I am nothing without the belief of their God. Evolution is actually evilution and the earth was created in 6 literal day. Pretty much I am a "sick" person, whose only cure is Jesus and "Tolerance is a Myth" (Greg Koukl). Their arguements for Christianity sounded convincing, but at the back of my mind I knew something was wrong. I would have converted to christianity, if I had not got access to Internet. The internet showed me a lot of their claims didn't have much substance in them, thanks to Skeptical sites and Jewish Counter Missionary websites. So pretty much I can say "Internet Saved me". It certainly was a life changing experiance for me, because Christians do ask real good question about life,God, morality. the afterlife. However what I discovered is that their answers aren't quite fantastic, some of them depressing. This experiance certainly made me requestion my current belief and in fact did converted me to Skeptism. Ironically, I used to hate the word skeptics, which I mistakenly took for cynics. It is now I realise that everybody is a skeptic. At times the bible really depressed/disgusted me, specially when I read about the killings of the babies in the Old Testament. Somehow I must reconcile my sense of decency with the worship of this kind of God. The sexual laws in the Old testaments, pretty much killed people for having sex or just losing virginity in case of accident. To me all of this made sense from a man writing the word of God from a barbaric sense, but I couldn't comprehend as to why would the creator of the universe would bother about the activities about a particular tribe and why would an all-loving god choose one person over another. So much for the verse which says "God doesn't have favourites". I guess that's one of the reason why Christians told me to read the NT, since it contains more fluffier teachings(not to mention a complete revisionist take on the Old Testament). One of the biggest lies that Protestant put forward is that "we all believe in the same, yet differ". However as soon as look at differences amongst the various sects, they are as diverse as the culture between two countries. Right now I am a agnostic on the borderline deist/panentheist, with following answer to some of the question I had answer to others and to myself. Do I think there is god or not - I don't know, but I am not gonna blindly believe anything Do I know there is a afterlife - I don't know, but I guess life is journey which I have to find out. Nobody else knows either, since nobody has come back from the dead Do I know everything - No and never will, because knowledge is infinite Do I believe in the god of the bible(hebrew/christian) - No, and never will. So is my opinion. Do I still believe all religion are true and lead to one path- Not anymore for first and Don't know for the second Do I still believe all religion are valid - Yes they are, and everybody has the right to their belief. Just be careful what you choose, because some of the beliefs are harmful Coming from a highly multi-religious country, I understand the basic needs that religion fulfill. Most religionist just want to get on with their life, with simple answers. I don't bother them, so far as they don't bother me. It's been 2 years now, since I got into the theological debate. I must have spent hours on this topic. More than I should have. I really want to take a break, but everyday I just seem to learn more and more, which pretty much increases my thirst for knowledge. In the past 2 years, I have learnt more about the various biblical theology and the history of the christianity, then someone who has been a fundamentalist christian for a lifetime. One thing I am proud off, is that I managed to convince one of my collegues to not to convert to christianity. He was a freethinker like me, but was extremely attracted to christianity. However after a few talks with them, with what I knew at that time, he quickly changed his mind. Here were some of the websites that were a great influence on this Journey Agnostic Review of Christianity(80% of my arguements come from here, and the best counter apolgetic site on the website) No Religion Losing My Religion Paul Toubin Skeptical Review of Christianity Messianic Verses in the Tanach(Short and Excellent Rebuttals) Messiah Truth(Comprehensive Jewish Counter Missionary Website) Thanks for reading guys Skeptic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WakingUp Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Thanks for sharing your story and the website links. As they say, knowledge is power! Power to make informed decisions and not decisions out of fear. I am still in the "Studying" stage but know enough to have deconverted from fundamentalist Christianity. WakingUp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Hi Skeptic, I love reading your posts and how you debate with Christians here. You do a great job and are very appreciated. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing. So much information available to a person just to learn about. I don't understand how people can still be Christians with all the information available to the average person that was never available them before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkepticOfBible Posted September 2, 2006 Author Share Posted September 2, 2006 Hi Skeptic, I love reading your posts and how you debate with Christians here. You do a great job and are very appreciated. Thanks Isn't the internet a wonderful thing. So much information available to a person just to learn about. I don't understand how people can still be Christians with all the information available to the average person that was never available them before. You are aware in the case of fundies, it is mostly because of fear, that they won't deconvert. As for the rest, I guess if religion is not causing too much problem in their lifes, then they don't see the need to Information is only a tool at the end of the day. It can't deconvert you anymore than a chisel can make you into a scuplture I found this article to be quite helpful in understanding as why christians won't deconvert, and I don't disagree much http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ano...stminister.html There is another one on exchristian.net, which talks about a similar thing, but I don't have the link for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Hi Skeptic, I love reading your posts and how you debate with Christians here. You do a great job and are very appreciated. Thanks Isn't the internet a wonderful thing. So much information available to a person just to learn about. I don't understand how people can still be Christians with all the information available to the average person that was never available them before. You are aware in the case of fundies, it is mostly because of fear, that they won't deconvert. As for the rest, I guess if religion is not causing too much problem in their lifes, then they don't see the need to Information is only a tool at the end of the day. It can't deconvert you anymore than a chisel can make you into a scuplture I found this article to be quite helpful in understanding as why christians won't deconvert, and I don't disagree much http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ano...stminister.html There is another one on exchristian.net, which talks about a similar thing, but I don't have the link for now. Skeptic, thank you so much for posting this link to the infidel library. I read the entire article and got so much out of it. Thank you also for sharing your story. I'm quite new here and haven't read your posts yet but I love the way you analyze your deconversion. This article about the agnostic Baptist preacher is very insightful re communication with fundamentalists. Ruby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkepticOfBible Posted September 3, 2006 Author Share Posted September 3, 2006 Skeptic, thank you so much for posting this link to the infidel library. I read the entire article and got so much out of it. Thank you also for sharing your story. I'm quite new here and haven't read your posts yet but I love the way you analyze your deconversion. Well it was more like conversion for me, since I never was a religious person in the first place, although I am fascinated by Anthropology Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts