The Making Of An Ex-christian

[Guest faith shaker]

I grew up in a family of former church goers. If you asked their belief they would profess to be Methodist. I however was never baptized, taken to church, or taught anything beyond hell and fear. Even that teaching was vauge. As a child my Christian, Mormon, and jehovah's Witness friends would always try to take me to church and it would terrify my mom. My family was very rural and reclusive. I craved the happy community my friends seemed to have. Only occasionally would I get a glimps of the crazy side to their belief systems. One day in 4th grade I took the movie Legend (Tom Cruise) to my JW friends house. If you know the movie it has unicorns and monsters in it. He family came home, popped in the tape, and saw a picture of the monster. They declared that I had "demonized their house" and the tape must be destroyed to set things right. Finally they agreed to leave the tape in the back of a truck so I would have time to retrieve my demon materials. At my Christian friends church I remember my friends mom flopping about & supposedly speaking in tongues as they did at their church. When they switched to a church where that didn't happen her gift seemed to disappear. Dispite numerious red flags I still had a great curiousity about the bible and religion. When my grandfather was dieing of cancer my friends family and church reached out to us with meals and support. they even did the funeral for free. The day after the funeral we wentto church as a family for the 1st time. They did an alter calling and while everyone was praying I began to feel nausia and almost fainted. I took it as a sign from God instead of a sign of greif and exaustion from taking care of someone for 24 hours a day while they slowly die. I was at my most vulnerable and that is exactly the kind of person they are looking for. I bought it all and jumped in with both feet. Over night I was a born again hard core evangelical without having studied a thing. I believed what they said because it felt good to think my grandpa was "saved". I spent the next 3 years being very active in my church and attending all the suggested classes and bible studies. I started to notice we only studied the same verses over and over. When I would find something questionable I would refer to my Student Bible that was supposed to cover things verse by verse. They seemed to skip all the verses that I found facinating. When I would ask I would get questions like "what they must have meant was..." Really? Because that isn't what it says. I was also trained to bring people into the fold. They had high hopes for me as a future church leader and wanted me to work with the youth. Once I actually got a person to accept the Jesus story and they asked how to be "saved". i told them to say the sinners prayer. It seemed to silly. I knew in my heart reciting a stupid paragram wasn't going to "save" them and really didn't mean a thing. I started to study harder to find the answers and the more I studied the mor ethe whole stupid story fell apart. I found a special distaste for Paul's story. None of the apostles seem to get it but after jesus's is gone he supposedly lays all the answers out for this guy. Then I found out that they don't even knnow who wrote the gospels for sure and no longer have the original texts. They always quote Josephus, a devote jew who converted to the roman way of life. They quote one paragraoh that gives a devine and glowing account of Jesus. It doesn't even fit with the rest of the passage and Josephus never because a Christian. Most scholars believe the passage about jesus was added in the 4th century as it doesnt appear in older transcripts. Even the end of Mark with angels at the tomb is well know to have been added after the fact. If they could doctor the most sacred book and change the words of historians like Josephus after they die what else did they add? It all unravelled. At 1st I was angry at being deceived and brain washed. I got frustrated with my christian friends as they spoke Christianese to me not know I had learned the truth. Eventually I got over that and became comfortable telling them. Of course they were disturbed. It was like I had been murdered and replaced with an alien they didn't know. I'm finally comfortable with it all. It took a while to deprogram all of that fear and I was only in it for 3 years. I can't imagine the fear of someone who spent their life on it. I read a book by Raymond Fontaine "My life in and out of the church". He was a Roman catholic priest groomed up from age 13 by the church and didn't get out until age 68. The pain and confusion he must have went through were unbelievable. At that point I was gratefull to my vaugh and reclusive family for not raising me with any specifics toward religion. I'm finally free of my fear and see the world in a totally different way without those blinders. I can't even believe I bought into all of it. I'm not an atheist because I have no idea if there is a God or supernatural world. The beauty and peace lies in being certain that nothing written by man on the subject is true.

[Guest WarrantedPVC]

Hi there,

 

Thanks for sharing that story. It's great you're over that initial stage of fear, I hope it never returns!

 

Welcome - Make yourself at home.

 

PVC

[Freethinker]

Just letting you know that I ready your story and can sympathize with it. Thank you for writing it. I was raised in it all my life till age 20 when I deconverted. And I've still got a lot of deprogramming to do.