Fundamentalist Christian Left The Church Three Years Ago...

[Guest Daniel1982]

Well, how should I begin... My mother became a pentecostal christian a year before I was born. About a half a year later my dad became "born again", and half a year after that I was born. According to my mom I was very curios as a child and I became very strenuous and aggresive towards my mother. I didn't look her in the eyes etc. When I was a few years old we went to a tent revival. One of the speakers was ........... At a meeting with this guy I started screaming and kicking, and he called my parents and me forth to the stage. He asked my mother what she had done previously in life for this to have happened. She replyed that she had been in to the occult and new age, which she had been before becoming "born again". The speaker cast out the demons from me, and according to my mom I went all normal and started looking her in the eyes etc. Ok, so this is basically what I have been told and remember of my early years in life. Moving on a few years...I'm about 13 yrs and have seen bodybuilders on tv. Growing up beliveing that I can pray about anything, and should speak my heart to "God" I started praying for bigger muscles. I did this for a few days I think. One day I went to a church meeting with an evangelist from a nearby church against my will, he started prophesying to me. He said that I should not build my physical muscles but build my inner beeing strong. Also he said that "God" was not an old man with beard sitting on a clound but a powerful god or something. The last thing I have never doubted or thinking that he was an old man with beard. This prophesy really worries me, it's kind of a proof. Later when I met this evengelist again I was so nervous, it feelt like he could see trough me...I was so embarresed. Oh, I forgot that according to my mom I was fighting "in the spirit" agains fever and disease at a very young age. After have done so for a long time I became better. Later prophesy have told me that I had the "holy spirit" even before I was born, which it turns out is very unussual. Now a few years ago my mother became psychotic in that she said that some old boyfriend was talking to her. I rememer my mother beeing looked into her room for the whole day, praying and crying. Later my father, sisters and me have came to the conclution that she have been more of less mentaly for most of her life. She also took drugs when she was young, and according to her self she was an addict. My parents got divorced over a year ago, and I'm living with my dad and one of my sisters now. My dad is a christian, but he says that he doesn't like the church, so he never goes there. I almost forgot, we attended a big church in Uppsala, Sweden called Livets Ord(Word of Life). It's an outgrowth of Kenneth E. Hagin. The pastor(Ulf Ekman) went to the REMA bibleschool in 1981 I think. I went to the Word of life bibleschool for one year, in 2002-2003. I didn't feel that it was that special, but most people thought that it was heaven on earth. A while after bibleschool I started to question my beliefs. I started out with stop attending the church meetings. My friends started asking what was wrong and I told them that it's my own decision whether or not to attend church. From there on I started to really search for answears. First other churches then reading alittle about other religions. After that I started the look more into conspiracies, ufos and stuff. Lastely I have arrieved at atheism, the last few months, I have seen "The God movie" with Brian Flemming. Now I'm listening to Richard Dawkins alot. I want to study science and considering physics in college. How ever today I was reminded of the accurate prophecy about me praying for muscles and I became deeply troubled. Does anybody have any explanations for how that can be possible? Because of these incidentes I can't fully discard Christianity and the existence of a personal god. Please help!

[Guest Daniel1982]

I forgot the name of the the speaker at the tent revival meeting who supposebly cast out demons. He's name was Derek Prince, I just read that he died in 2003.

[Taphophilia]

Hi Daniel,

 

Welcome to Ex-C. We have a moderator who is from Sweden, he's been busy lately, but he's due back soon.

 

As a mom, your story disturbs me. I had a very outgoing baby, she's still outgoing. I used to have to hold her facing away from me because she just didn't want to miss anything. I was even a Christian at the time. Also if my baby cried in church, I took them out of the service and calmed them down, fed them, or played with them. If someone would have called me out and told me my baby was possessed, (and I went to a charasmatic church) I would have said they were crazy and told them to go read a child developement book. I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

 

Taph

[Lycorth]

Welcome

 

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear about your childhood, too. Nothing like being indoctrinated with a terrifying cult of fear to really harm a child's mind.

 

First of all, and excuse me if I'm missing something, but what prophecy are you talking about?

 

Secondly, no matter what you say, I can encourage you to simply pay it no mind. Don't let fear rule your life anymore. Xianity thrives on fear, the fear of Hell or the fear of God or the fear the Devil, etc. It's driven by spiritual terrorism, and if there were nothing to fear, Xianity would have nothing to stand on.

 

It can be hard to ignore things that were pounded into your head from childhood. To learn to ignore fear is a daunting task and it doesn't happen overnight.

 

My advice is to start reading up on anti-xian arguments. Study the opposition, read and learn about what the opponents of Xianity have to say. I've tried to collect links all the online sources I've found most revealing about the utter falseness of the religion of Jebus; click here to see them for yourself. They were very helpful in my early days of learning to deprogram myself from the fearmongering of the Xian cult.

 

I hope you find what you seek, and find your way out of that disgusting religion for good

[Guest JP]

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to ExC!

 

I, too, have had worries about someone prophesying about me. However, many thirteen-year-old boys want to get big and strong. At first glance it seems kind of weird, but if you read over it again it seems like a generic statement a typical fundy would make to an adolescent. Either way, immerse yourself in this site. Everyone here is very supportive, and it is a great outlet for your fears.

 

JP

[Guest Daniel1982]

Thank you all for responding. And yes this seems to be a great site for recovering ex-christians. I have been studying the flaws and contraditions for about a years now. It's quite obvious to me that it's all bunk. I've also looked at the roots of judaism and found that it has borrowed just about every concept and belief from older religions. Needless to say I'm pretty tired of all the fear spreading fundie wackos. I just had a weak day yesterday and I needed to tell someone about how I felt. Thanks again for taking the time to respond. Now I'm of to work.

 

 

 

 

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to ExC!

 

I, too, have had worries about someone prophesying about me. However, many thirteen-year-old boys want to get big and strong. At first glance it seems kind of weird, but if you read over it again it seems like a generic statement a typical fundy would make to an adolescent. Either way, immerse yourself in this site. Everyone here is very supportive, and it is a great outlet for your fears.

 

JP

[StewartP]

One day I went to a church meeting with an evangelist from a nearby church against my will, he started prophesying to me. He said that I should not build my physical muscles but build my inner beeing strong.

 

That was a lucky "hit" by the preacher. Cold readers do the same thing, They make generalised guesses based on a person's age/circumstances. We remember the hits and forget the misses.

 

Wanting big muscles is standard fare for boy teenagers. Think of the Ren & Stimpy episode when the are praying at bed time and Ren prays "Oh yes, can you give me HUGE pectoral muscles" Why do you think Charles Atlas adverts were on the back covers of comic books?

 

You remember his "hits" but other preachers and prophets would have said a bunch of other stuff to you over the years and you don't remember them at all, because they were "misses".

 

All this happened a long time ago, and it's time to let this stuff go. It belongs in your childhhod, you've become an adult now, and discovered the truth.

 

regards

 

 

Stew

[ShackledNoMore]

Welcome, Daniel 1982.

 

It seems that your mother has demons of her own to wrestle (figurative of course, not literal, since they don't exist). It's a terrible thing when those demons get unleashed on the innocent kid. It was pretty tangible this time. The stories you were told about having demons cast out when you were a baby were an extension of that turmoil fostered and exacerbated by the church. Then add the mixed messages along the way (such as your having the "holy spirit" before you were born--if you think about it, it doesn't make much sense that you'd be both possessed by demons and specially anointed by the holy spirit when you were an infant)--it turns into a sort of abuse that you just don't deserve. I'm glad you found your way out.

 

I think the prophecy gets its believability the same way as psychic predictions do. There are a couple of techniques psychics use to garner credibility without actually possessing supernatural or predictive powers. First, psychics know what sorts of things are very common or universal and can skillfully present these things to look impressive if they hit or not be so obvious if it doesn't really apply. Having been a 13 year old boy at one time, I know that at least half of them, if not more, are interested in building muscles. I would be surprised if a large number of those fully immersed in xianity didn't also pray for bigger muscles at some point or another. Bingo, now it's pretty likely for that prophecy to seem to apply. But let's suppose that you weren't interested in bodybuilding at all. Well then his statement about building your inner being strong instead of your muscles would sound like a simple analogy and still not seem to have missed the mark. You've probably had other things said about you that didn't apply perfectly, yet you didn't think about really being "wrong." That part about god not being an old man with a gray beard certainly seemed like an optional statement. Another thing about psychics is that they are astute observers. They pick up on little cues to figure out quite a bit about the person. The evangelist may have been such an astute observer, too, even if he was well intentioned. Maybe you'd been working out a bit and he noticed, or maybe you just had "the look" that you might be interested in muscle-building. He could have just relied on the general analogy, but if he noticed a possible interest you might have in muscle building, it would have made it even more likely for him to cue in on this particular statement.

 

How about that, I wrote this out in notepad, had some breakfast, refreshed the page, and saw that someone else has just posted something similar to what I wrote. Looks like I'm in agreement with StewartP!

[Guest Daniel1982]

Yes you where both on to the same thing. =) Thank you both for making the points. Well, like you said we only remember the hits but forget about the misses in these so called prophecies. It all seems so obviously ridiculus when seen in the light of reason. And yeah my mother plays a big part in this. She was and still wrestling with her own "demons", her life is very dramatic and "supernatural". Demons are everywhere, the devil makes you sick etc. Both of my sisters have also left the faith, and are in agreement with me that my mother has a very disturbed world view. On the flip side, if I wouldn't have been exposed to such an extrem religious life I probably would have remained a moderat christian without concern. So, yey!

 

Welcome, Daniel 1982.

 

It seems that your mother has demons of her own to wrestle (figurative of course, not literal, since they don't exist). It's a terrible thing when those demons get unleashed on the innocent kid. It was pretty tangible this time. The stories you were told about having demons cast out when you were a baby were an extension of that turmoil fostered and exacerbated by the church. Then add the mixed messages along the way (such as your having the "holy spirit" before you were born--if you think about it, it doesn't make much sense that you'd be both possessed by demons and specially anointed by the holy spirit when you were an infant)--it turns into a sort of abuse that you just don't deserve. I'm glad you found your way out.

 

I think the prophecy gets its believability the same way as psychic predictions do. There are a couple of techniques psychics use to garner credibility without actually possessing supernatural or predictive powers. First, psychics know what sorts of things are very common or universal and can skillfully present these things to look impressive if they hit or not be so obvious if it doesn't really apply. Having been a 13 year old boy at one time, I know that at least half of them, if not more, are interested in building muscles. I would be surprised if a large number of those fully immersed in xianity didn't also pray for bigger muscles at some point or another. Bingo, now it's pretty likely for that prophecy to seem to apply. But let's suppose that you weren't interested in bodybuilding at all. Well then his statement about building your inner being strong instead of your muscles would sound like a simple analogy and still not seem to have missed the mark. You've probably had other things said about you that didn't apply perfectly, yet you didn't think about really being "wrong." That part about god not being an old man with a gray beard certainly seemed like an optional statement. Another thing about psychics is that they are astute observers. They pick up on little cues to figure out quite a bit about the person. The evangelist may have been such an astute observer, too, even if he was well intentioned. Maybe you'd been working out a bit and he noticed, or maybe you just had "the look" that you might be interested in muscle-building. He could have just relied on the general analogy, but if he noticed a possible interest you might have in muscle building, it would have made it even more likely for him to cue in on this particular statement.

 

How about that, I wrote this out in notepad, had some breakfast, refreshed the page, and saw that someone else has just posted something similar to what I wrote. Looks like I'm in agreement with StewartP!