Llwellyn Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 When I first started having trouble with the Christian doctrines, I had no intention of leaving the religion, I just wanted a kinder and gentler theology that I could live with -- one that emphasized God's grace and God's love. I remember thumbing through the shelf at Barnes & Noble on Westheimer in Houston looking for such a book and running across a book on universalism. "How wierd and unbiblical" I thought. Never would I have guessed that in 6 months I would turn my back on the entire religion -- grace, love, and universalism included. But it really was the Internet that made me give up my so-called "faith," and if it weren't for the Tubes, I would still be a Christian. When I typed into Google words like "hell" and "God," I came across collections of anti-Christian quotations. I read them and surprisingly found that I agreed with them... So I read more. One of the first things I explored on the Internet was Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which appeared to present a form of Christianity which denied the doctrines of Christianity that troubled me (Hell, Atonement, Justification by Faith). It appeared to be based more on love and appeared to be more universalistic. On the Internet, I could research Eastern Orthodoxy and speak with Orthodox Christians. I could find out that my hopes were pretty much empty and that the Orthodox were as deluded and close minded as the rest of the Christians. I attended Orthodox liturgies about 20 times, but without the internet, I would likely have joined a Greek Orthodox Church. By the time I found that it was as empty as Protestantism, I would have been a lot older -- and perhaps married to a Greek girl. I might never have gotten out. But with the internet, I could go through my "Eastern Orthodox" phase in a space of 4 months rather than 4 years or 40 years. On the internet, I discovered the idea of "cognitive memes" as Dawkins and Dennett have described them. This idea is a powerful way of understanding and explaining Christianity, and it has helped me to put distance between me and the religion. Apart from the Web, I would never have heard of Robert Ingersoll, Robert Burns, George MacDonald, and others who have contributed so greatly to my apostasy. Finally, on the internet I was able to discover a competing "worldview" that allowed me to become a satisfied non-Christian. Platonism is that worldview, and the internet allowed me to research and understand Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Boethius, etc. in a quick and simply way. I have no doubt that, apart from the web, today I would still be a Christian, or a very troubled and confused quasi-Christian. Thank God, I mean Al Gore, for the Internet!!! What about you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Jeff Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Same here. The information I found on the internet at sites like http://www.infidels.org was instrumental in my glorious deconversion. I got on the Net back in early 2000 with lots of questions and doubts, and the more I read skeptical stuff, the angrier I became at how deceived and ignorant I had been as a Christian. But, if not for the Net, I might still be a Christian too. Glory! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Yeah the internet is definitely a powerful tool in spreading information. I bet there are a lot of stories like this. Who knows, it may prove to be a huge blow against superstitious thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Without the Internet, I might still be a Christian, too. It was meeting my online friends at another forum I posted at that made me start questioning the doctrines of my parents' church. Some of my online friends are Christians but they're more open minded and accepting than most Christians, and some of my online friends are also skeptics, and these people were the ones who helped me in my struggles with accepting my sexuality. Almost everyone that lives around me offline are fundies of some type and think homosexuality is a sin, so I might still be trying to suppress my sexuality and trying to be a fundie if it wasn't for my online friends. Later on I started reading atheist sites like evilbible.com and godisimaginary.com that helped me to finally let go of believing in god, so the Internet also played a major role in my deconversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etchison Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 What a great post! Knowledge is freedom. And the internet is chock full of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xandermac Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Same here. When I first got a computer I lived in an even more rural place than now. It was a window to the world for me. I would still be searching and depressed if it wasn't for the "Wizard Box" as my son calls it. I don't remember what search words I used that brought me here but it was the icing on the cake for me. Once I started reading testimonies and debates by some of these intelligent people here it helped me open my eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbobrob Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Without the Internet, I never would have discovered His Noodly Goodness, RAmen......LOL. Actually, without AOL chat, I would still be a struggling-to-be-Christian Christian. It was on there that I kept coming back to the biggest problem I have always had with Christianity.....Jesus being God. And time and time again I was told, you can't be Christian without beleiving in Christ's divinity... then I drifted toward Judaism....there was a group who completely believed that the Christ, the true messiah, WAS NOT GOD. And I almost converted. But something stopped me. I find the internet a wonderful tool to see all side of religion played out, from the great to the pathetic. It has fed my continuous spiritual development since the early 1990's to today. So, yeah, without the Internet, I might still be dabbling in other religions, but still wearing the completely misleading title "Christian". Without that burden, I have been better able to enjoy the process so much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vendredie Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 without the internet I would at best still eb a very liberal Christian or agnostic. Discussions on the internet had weakened my faith so I went from beign a fairly moderate Christian to a very liberal Christian. Reading The Da Vinci Code dealt a huge blow, and the internet finally killed the faith in Jesus for good. But ever sicne I've been in and out of Paganism... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emme Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Without the Internet, I would still be an ex-c, I found this site years after my deconversion. But before I googled "ex-christian" I felt really alone and in between seats, thinking my position was unique and that nobody had experienced what I had been through. Hah! Guess I was wrong. Thanks Ex-c for pimping my life! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff H Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Without the Internet, I may have still reached the same conclusions, but it likely would have taken me much, much longer. Using the Internet just sped everything up - I could read what others thought and argued, and evaluate them. It's a whole lot easier than buying a ton of books or taking them out of the library... And incidentally, registering at a Christian forum was what brought me here. I had registered at a few to ask some questions, and there was an atheist who visited there regularly and seemed to know what he was talking about. I sent him a few PMs, and he told me about this place, so I joined. I believe his name is light_of_reason on these boards (not sure about the underscores)....but anyway, I just thought it was kind of ironic that a Christian forum led me to an ex-Christian forum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted September 25, 2008 Author Share Posted September 25, 2008 Here are some other internet sources of help in the process: Deconversion testimonies -- I have probably read hundreds of them, especially those posted on this site and on the sister site "exchristian.net" I read every one I can find, long and short. I have read testimonies of people deconverting from other religions as well: Mormonism, Islam, Bahai, Judaism. Some have been boring, others have been breathtaking. I came to see that we all have very similar reasons for abandonding the Krischun fheth. Among them: No evidence for Yahweh, hell is immoral and Yahweh behaves fiendishly. I have also been very sympathetic to people who described negative emotions that Christianity has generated in them, because I have also suffered a lot of grief because of the teachings. christianforums.com -- I joined Christianforums.com as a Christian. It was there that I later explored my complaints with Christian doctrine, and finally left the religion. The nice thing about that site is that you can talk about religion with a lot of people who are interested in the same subject. If I post a question, I can get 30 answers in 2 hours, whereas in real life 2 hours may get me 1 answer from somebody in a coffee shop who only half cares about the thing that is preoccupying you. I quickly discovered that no Christian has any answers to the hard questions. On that site, I could learn about Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Queakerism, etc. There is a wealth of knowledge there if you are willing to wade through the shit. Of course, I have greatly enjoyed discussions on this site as well. On an emotional level, it has made me become much more comfortable thinking of myself as a non-believer. I used to be very hesitant and nervous about saying I was a nonbeliever, but after repeating it so often here, I can do it with comfort in real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Googledotman Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 The internet is a great factor in my denial of the christian faith. Actually, if you go to the Testimonies site, you'll see that "Wikipedia Made Me Agnostic" because of simple flaws in logic that every christian overlooks. Things like the problem of hell, and articles about God's omnipresence and omnipotence really got me thinking away from the flock. I never in a million years thought that one single website would be the hammer to smash my christianity. Go fig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiderwire Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 The 'net has allowed me access to the thoughts of others - through blogs, journals, and this forum. It's also allowed me to tailor my research and focus on specific questions in order to form a more informed opinion. But praying to God hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year and getting zilch from him made my mind up for me just fine. His silence was my authorization to seek another way to live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted September 25, 2008 Super Moderator Share Posted September 25, 2008 I de-converted without the Internet. Plenty of information is available in libraries and bookstores, but for easy access and personal communication, you can't beat teh Nets! People get to their destinations faster in cyberspace and I'm guessing the increased and speedier access to information is favoring de-conversion rather than bringing more to religion. I wonder if there are any stats for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karhoof Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Was the internet what ultimately led to my disbelief in biblegod? No. he died when I realized that he wasn't omnipotent and omnibenevolent. If there was anything like a supreme being as a cause for us, he was either omniviolent or omni-indifferent. The net did lead me to my current belief of no god at all. My searches took me to the beginnings of all the myths and legends. There isn't a library within 250 miles of here that has the things I poured through. At least, not all in one place. Without this magic modem, it would have taken me years to see all the things I've read. It really makes me appreciate the determination of scholars of old. "If the mountain won't come to Mohammad... Mohammad must go to the mountain." I found this site as a link from one of the sites I got a lot of source material from. Glad I did. Thanks Dave! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest danny64 Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 When I first started having trouble with the Christian doctrines, I had no intention of leaving the religion, I just wanted a kinder and gentler theology that I could live with -- one that emphasized God's grace and God's love. I remember thumbing through the shelf at Barnes & Noble on Westheimer in Houston looking for such a book and running across a book on universalism. "How wierd and unbiblical" I thought. Never would I have guessed that in 6 months I would turn my back on the entire religion -- grace, love, and universalism included. But it really was the Internet that made me give up my so-called "faith," and if it weren't for the Tubes, I would still be a Christian. When I typed into Google words like "hell" and "God," I came across collections of anti-Christian quotations. I read them and surprisingly found that I agreed with them... So I read more. One of the first things I explored on the Internet was Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which appeared to present a form of Christianity which denied the doctrines of Christianity that troubled me (Hell, Atonement, Justification by Faith). It appeared to be based more on love and appeared to be more universalistic. On the Internet, I could research Eastern Orthodoxy and speak with Orthodox Christians. I could find out that my hopes were pretty much empty and that the Orthodox were as deluded and close minded as the rest of the Christians. I attended Orthodox liturgies about 20 times, but without the internet, I would likely have joined a Greek Orthodox Church. By the time I found that it was as empty as Protestantism, I would have been a lot older -- and perhaps married to a Greek girl. I might never have gotten out. But with the internet, I could go through my "Eastern Orthodox" phase in a space of 4 months rather than 4 years or 40 years. On the internet, I discovered the idea of "cognitive memes" as Dawkins and Dennett have described them. This idea is a powerful way of understanding and explaining Christianity, and it has helped me to put distance between me and the religion. Apart from the Web, I would never have heard of Robert Ingersoll, Robert Burns, George MacDonald, and others who have contributed so greatly to my apostasy. Finally, on the internet I was able to discover a competing "worldview" that allowed me to become a satisfied non-Christian. Platonism is that worldview, and the internet allowed me to research and understand Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Boethius, etc. in a quick and simply way. I have no doubt that, apart from the web, today I would still be a Christian, or a very troubled and confused quasi-Christian. Thank God, I mean Al Gore, for the Internet!!! What about you? absolutely. the internet is really the only source of info that isnt controlled. yet. i wonder if the religious right or political right for that matter has plans on changing that.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realist Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Yes, it was the internet and sites like this that finally did it for me too!!! THANK GOODNESS!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LastKing Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Just one to many anti-Christian youtube blogger and one to many online fundi did have a big inpact on how I see the religon now. I use to go to a Christian counsler who I use to really tust but she ended up falling for every thing those bloggers said she would do the moment I open up to the religon. To make maters worse alot of the Christians I became online freinds with turned out to be deulded, war craved, biggoted, hypocritcal morons. Its ironic because I went online hoping I could find something that would help my faith that was already getting shaky to begin with and now I have some how found myself here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Net Eng Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 My dis-belief started from within. Asking many of the same questions that many have posted here. The Internet allowed my wife and I find resources (books and online sites) to confirm our waning faith. The free exchange of information will be the death of formal religion. Maybe not kill them all the way be a least marginalize them to political and cultural insignificance. ...and as my screen name may imply the Internet gives me a good job as well!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelloWorld Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 The Internet has definitely played a huge role in my de-conversion, although this role is mostly supportive. I remember when I first found this site, part of me felt SO guilty for reading it. I browsed it for months before I finally had the courage to sign up and say anything, and there are still some things I feel uncomfortable posting about. For example, I wanted to respond to BiMamaFeminist post about her Catholic husband, but I worried about having a hand in directing someone else's deconversion...you know, the latent fear of being responsible for leading someone down the path to hell. You could argue that just by posting here I am helping people to deconvert, but because I don't know exactly who those people are, I don't feel guilty. I am very well aware that sounds contradictory and ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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