Was It All That Bad?

[lunaticheathen]

What you need to understand Kathlene is that for some of us, the extreme damage done to our psyche has made us VERY FUCKING ANGRY, and sometimes when people come at us trying to convince us that there is any good in Christianity it sends off our alarm bells and become very very cross.

 

Christians and the church generally have no respect or understanding when it comes to the way people feel inside. We are hurt, we are crushed, destroyed, disillusioned and some of us still bleeding. Don’t expect a warm reception if you come to us in the name of god, we’ve had enough and will distrust and probably kick in the face anyone who is stupid enough to do so, depending on the level of trauma we carry.

 

Come as a friend, beliefs aside.

 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

[ebonileigh]

What you need to understand Kathlene is that for some of us, the extreme damage done to our psyche has made us VERY FUCKING ANGRY, and sometimes when people come at us trying to convince us that there is any good in Christianity it sends off our alarm bells and become very very cross.

 

Christians and the church generally have no respect or understanding when it comes to the way people feel inside. We are hurt, we are crushed, destroyed, disillusioned and some of us still bleeding. Don’t expect a warm reception if you come to us in the name of god, we’ve had enough and will distrust and probably kick in the face anyone who is stupid enough to do so, depending on the level of trauma we carry.

 

Come as a friend, beliefs aside.

 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Yes EvilNarcissus I agree, and notice that Kathlene has not been back to respond to any comments since 20th March, in fact she has not responded to very many at all. Funny that. I find that quite rude actually, to start a thread and only make one or two comments, well that just goes to show you doesn't it, ah, xtians, fuck them.

[Kathlene]

What you need to understand Kathlene is that for some of us, the extreme damage done to our psyche has made us VERY FUCKING ANGRY, and sometimes when people come at us trying to convince us that there is any good in Christianity it sends off our alarm bells and become very very cross.

 

Christians and the church generally have no respect or understanding when it comes to the way people feel inside. We are hurt, we are crushed, destroyed, disillusioned and some of us still bleeding. Don’t expect a warm reception if you come to us in the name of god, we’ve had enough and will distrust and probably kick in the face anyone who is stupid enough to do so, depending on the level of trauma we carry.

 

Come as a friend, beliefs aside.

 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Yes EvilNarcissus I agree, and notice that Kathlene has not been back to respond to any comments since 20th March, in fact she has not responded to very many at all. Funny that. I find that quite rude actually, to start a thread and only make one or two comments, well that just goes to show you doesn't it, ah, xtians, fuck them.

 

 

The first rule of anything in life is empathy. How do you attain that? By listening, and not opening your mouth. What would you have me say in here? Im not going to come in here and dissect everyone's posts. I responded ages ago to say thankyou to everyone, that they were enlightening. The thread keeps getting revived every now and again, and newcomers write their bit in it. It does not mean I have ignored them. I read them, and gain more insight into people's lives and hurts. It helps me to understand where christianity has gone wrong. Im not going to come in here and declare how its gone right with me, now am I? that would be called being stupid. I always take gals advice on board, and she knows I come as a friend first, beliefs aside. It is a learning process that I am growing in.

[Seeking]

• Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?
  
• Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?
  
• Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?
  
• Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?
  
• Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?
  
• Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration?
  
• Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?
  
• Was there any time in your lives where you did feel God close to you?
  
• Do you ever miss God and his presence?
  

 

I just found this thread, so I may be a bit late responding.

 

My honest answer to every question you wrote is "No." I was a Christian for over 30 years, and I never experienced a single one of those things.

[Galien]

The first rule of anything in life is empathy. How do you attain that? By listening, and not opening your mouth.

 

Actually Kathlene I don't think empathy is something you attain. I think you are either born with it or you aren't.

[ebonileigh]

What you need to understand Kathlene is that for some of us, the extreme damage done to our psyche has made us VERY FUCKING ANGRY, and sometimes when people come at us trying to convince us that there is any good in Christianity it sends off our alarm bells and become very very cross.

 

Christians and the church generally have no respect or understanding when it comes to the way people feel inside. We are hurt, we are crushed, destroyed, disillusioned and some of us still bleeding. Don’t expect a warm reception if you come to us in the name of god, we’ve had enough and will distrust and probably kick in the face anyone who is stupid enough to do so, depending on the level of trauma we carry.

 

Come as a friend, beliefs aside.

 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Yes EvilNarcissus I agree, and notice that Kathlene has not been back to respond to any comments since 20th March, in fact she has not responded to very many at all. Funny that. I find that quite rude actually, to start a thread and only make one or two comments, well that just goes to show you doesn't it, ah, xtians, fuck them.

 

 

The first rule of anything in life is empathy. How do you attain that? By listening, and not opening your mouth. What would you have me say in here? Im not going to come in here and dissect everyone's posts. I responded ages ago to say thankyou to everyone, that they were enlightening. The thread keeps getting revived every now and again, and newcomers write their bit in it. It does not mean I have ignored them. I read them, and gain more insight into people's lives and hurts. It helps me to understand where christianity has gone wrong. Im not going to come in here and declare how its gone right with me, now am I? that would be called being stupid. I always take gals advice on board, and she knows I come as a friend first, beliefs aside. It is a learning process that I am growing in.

Empathy/compassion is not a 'rule' in life, it is a quality, and yes much compassion is given by attentively listening, however, if you start a thread asking lots of questions, which obviously you'd like answered, then after reading/listening, and pondering those answers and remarks, it is also showing compassion to respond to them personally, no, not to dissect them or say how wonderful xtianity has worked for you, but to sincerely act on your listening, otherwise it can sometimes be interpreted as indifference to a persons state of mind/the answers to your questions. I think you already know why xtianity has failed, because it is a lie. If you were truly compassionate you would have a lot more to say in response to people's posts when you initiate a thread.

[Petrel]

Late to the party, but there you go.

 

Was it all that bad?

No, lots of stuff I liked about it, most of the people at church were nice, and I had a lot of fun with youth group and at camps. I didn't leave Christianity because I found it unpleasant in the day to day, though once I thought about it there were many injustices perpetuated by most of Christianity that I now find intolerable.

 

Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?

Yes, pretty frequently at times.

 

Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?

I don't know if I ever cried, but I did experience feelings of transcendence and joy.

 

Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?

No.

 

Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?

No. Neither did I hear God's voice in my inner woman!

 

Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?

No. My life has been tediously devoid of strange coincidences. Either that or I realize coincidences are common and just don't notice them much.

 

Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration?

No. The major things I felt horrible about and cried and prayed over (for my father and grandmother's salvation) for years and years never happened. Fortunately I no longer suffer over this because I no longer thing they'll be tortured forever!

 

Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?

No. Neither did mine change much direction after deconverting.

 

Was there any time in your lives where you did feel God close to you?

Yes.

 

How did you go from that to declaring that no Gods exist?

Truth is not determined by my emotions. Emotions are easily manipulated--church musicians are well aware of this, and contemporary church musicians are masters at it. If I could go back to my undergrad and go to their Wednesday evening praise service I'm sure I could enter the same emotional state once I got past the "this is all hooey!" reaction. I could also find the same thing by going to a worship service for some other religion. I deconverted because my analysis of morality and the Bible convinced me that either God is immoral, God is incompetent, or God does not exist, and the final option was the most likely. How I felt about God's existence or nonexistence was irrelevant.

 

Do you ever miss God and his presence?

Not really, I can find the same emotional states Christianity sometimes gave me, I just find them in new places.

[SaltedWithFire]

In a sense, yes, it was pretty bad. I was raised Southern Baptist. Both my father and grand-father are deacons at the church I used to attend. I was feed Christian dogma as long as I can remember. There was a time when I believed it all and I even had experiences that, at the time, I believed where similar to the ones the OP described. Heck, I was even baptized when I was 13 or 14. But now I see that it was all a delusion. I have always been a curious person and the more I dug into the bible for answers the more hollow the words felt. The answer to everything just seemed to be, "God made it that way." Any attempt to dig deeper was met with, "The lord works in mysterious ways" or "We can never understand Gods plan" or "Don't question/test god." Those seemed to me to be deliberate dodges of the questions I asked. It appeared to me more and more that anything that called gods' existance into question, these people would just stuck there fingers into thier ears and hummed. I started to ask, "Well, how do you know that what you believe is true, you have set up a belief system that can never be questioned, tested or falsified. I'm not really sure when it dawned on me that these people were just blindly following what they were told to believe. None of them sought there own answers. They wanted answers to be handed to them and they were encouraged by the 'happy ending' that it promised.

 

I had always been fascinated with science which sometimes put me at odds with Christian doctrine. I started to see that many scientist weren't afraid to ask hard question, they sought there own answers and they constantly reevaluated old ideas. Whats more, is that they could offer proof of the ideas that they held. Now, I don't want anyone to get the impression that science is a religion to me. It most certainly is not. Science can only answer the "How" and "What" questions. Religion attempts to offer an answers to the "Why" questions. I have come to realise that they is not only no answer to "Why", but there is no question to be answered. "Why" implies intention. Why does the sun rise and set? Well the sun doesn't have a choice in the matter. It just sits there and only appears to rise and set. Why does life exist? Again, life didn't have a choice in the matter. There is no "Why". Only the intentions that we try to impose when we don't understand "How". God lives exclusively in what we don't know. The more we learn, the farther back he gets pushed. The fewwer gaps he has to hide in. It was once believed that a god was required to make the sun rise and set. Now we know he's not. It was onced believed that god lived in the sky. Well, we have explored the sky and even part of space and he was nowhere to be found. So now heaven is in some other dimension outside of our universe. This is one of the reasons that there is so much controversy over evolution. For many people that is one of the places that god was hiding and when we looked under that rock, god was nowhere to be found. The same cycle is going to continue as long as there are mysteries. As long as there is a place for god to hide there will be people that believe.

 

On another topic, I still except the moral values that the bible teaches though I disagree with the motives and explainations behind them. But thats a whole other topic and I don't want to hijack this thread any more than I have.

 

 

Kathlene, Yes, it really was that bad and worse! No, God never audibly spoke to me. Terrified, of eternal/literal hell fire, I prayed a lot to find peace with God through assurance of salvation so I could enjoy life, but I did not hear from God, just the hell-fire preachers claiming to speak for God. After leaving behind Fundamentalist Christian Churches once and for all while in college, I went on a 30-year search for spiritual truth which included earning a Master's Degree in counseling, a Master of Divinity Degree, in Biblical Studies, and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in the integration of psychology and theology. After 45 years, I wrote the book, Spiritual Terrorism: Spiritual Abuse from the Womb to the Tomb, and constructed the website: HealingSpiritualTerrorism.com. Christian Fundamentalists have almost everything backward. Rather than Biblical fire being literal, fire is used metaphorically, in the Bible and other religious literature, to symbolize purification. The Greek word for fire is "pur" from which we get our English words: purge, purification, purity, etc. Rather than a few Fundamentalist Christians being saved, God is going to save the whole world! Rather than eternal damnation, there is going to be eternal restoration! Rather than the world ending in a fiery holocaust, there is going to be world peace! This is the message in all major world religions including un-perverted Christianity. Boyd Purcell, Ph.D.

[Shyone]

Kathlene, Yes, it really was that bad and worse! No, God never audibly spoke to me. Terrified, of eternal/literal hell fire, I prayed a lot to find peace with God through assurance of salvation so I could enjoy life, but I did not hear from God, just the hell-fire preachers claiming to speak for God. After leaving behind Fundamentalist Christian Churches once and for all while in college, I went on a 30-year search for spiritual truth which included earning a Master's Degree in counseling, a Master of Divinity Degree, in Biblical Studies, and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in the integration of psychology and theology. After 45 years, I wrote the book, Spiritual Terrorism: Spiritual Abuse from the Womb to the Tomb, and constructed the website: HealingSpiritualTerrorism.com. Christian Fundamentalists have almost everything backward. Rather than Biblical fire being literal, fire is used metaphorically, in the Bible and other religious literature, to symbolize purification. The Greek word for fire is "pur" from which we get our English words: purge, purification, purity, etc. Rather than a few Fundamentalist Christians being saved, God is going to save the whole world! Rather than eternal damnation, there is going to be eternal restoration! Rather than the world ending in a fiery holocaust, there is going to be world peace! This is the message in all major world religions including un-perverted Christianity. Boyd Purcell, Ph.D.

This raises several questions.

 

First, how do you know that God will save the world? Are you relying on the holy man-made scriptures from the various inconsistent religions, or direct revelation?

 

Second, Save the world from what and how? Can we pollute without worrying about it? Are you referring to a cataclysmic event? Or is this kind of gradual, like people dying generation after generation?

 

Third, if world peace is the object, and I assume you are referring to peaceful coexistence, is God going to handle the rogue states and violent impulses of humans, or are we talking about some kind of "evolution" of humans beyond warlike behavior? Even rednecks and Muslims?

 

Fourth, if God never spoke to you personally, and some people have obviously "misinterpreted" some scriptures (but not you, of course), what makes you think there is any kind of God that is doing anything at all? Things seem to happen pretty much according to natural laws and human designs. Which of those is God?

[SaltedWithFire]

Some of these replies and people's lives are so sad. It certainly gives a lot of food for thought. Why is it that some people become christians and yes, they have a life of pain and suffering, but in the midst of that still feel God near? Then why like so many on here just dont? I dont get it. It does, however give me a lot more understanding, and I thank you.

 

In Fundamental Christianity, fear is the name of the game! People are scared into accepting Christ as their Savior and they go through the pretense of feeling God near since that is what they desperately want to believe and are afraid not to believe or it will be proof that they are either not good Christians or are not Christians at all. "Bad" Christians, as well as non-Christians, get condemned by God to eternal/literal hell fire. Fear locks converts to Christianity into a perpetual state of spiritual infancy since people can never grow in spiritual maturity in an atmosphere of fear! "The one who fears is not perfected in love since fear involves torment; perfect love casts out fear." Boyd Purcell, Ph.D.

[bdp]

Proof that a PhD, in and of itself, is meaningless.

[Galien]

In Fundamental Christianity, fear is the name of the game! People are scared into accepting Christ as their Savior and they go through the pretense of feeling God near since that is what they desperately want to believe and are afraid not to believe or it will be proof that they are either not good Christians or are not Christians at all. "Bad" Christians, as well as non-Christians, get condemned by God to eternal/literal hell fire. Fear locks converts to Christianity into a perpetual state of spiritual infancy since people can never grow in spiritual maturity in an atmosphere of fear! "The one who fears is not perfected in love since fear involves torment; perfect love casts out fear." Boyd Purcell, Ph.D.

 

I might read your book Boyd, but none of us have all the answers

[Guest Valk0010]

Was it all that bad, when I was more liberal, no. But the more I tried to evolve and be a "better" christian the worse it got, started doubting, feeling really guilty is all.

 

So in short, both yes and no.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

The being lied to part did make me angry, though eventually I got over it. I was only believing in it until I just left childhood and was in my midteens. I can see how others would hold alot of that anger though, because they've been made to believe alot longer than I believed.

[Midnight-mindwanderings]

The being lied to part did make me angry, though eventually I got over it. I was only believing in it until I just left childhood and was in my midteens. I can see how others would hold alot of that anger though, because they've been made to believe alot longer than I believed.

 

Thats pretty much how I feel too. I really can sympathize with those whe were in it for longer though.

[JohnnieNaked]

I'm late too but here goes:

 

 

Was it all that bad?

 

It was barring better words, the most terrifying and horrible years of my life.

 

Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?

When I got saved the 3rd time, I felt washed with the peace of God. It was a positively intense experience, and I was overjoyed. Then I read the Bible.

 

Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?

I saw other people having these experiences so i tried to make them happen for myself, since I was batshit scared of not being 'really' saved, and looking back now I am ashamed of myself for trying to conjure up feelings to appease god's wrath. I'm still recovering. I knew who I was for the most part and I lost a lot of myself during that, it comes back in bits and pieces but I am still quite fragmented, a year later. I'm struggling to not slide into consuming depression.

 

Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?

 

Once again, I tried desperately to discern the voice of god in my life because I never heard ANYTHING and I literally want to puke at how I behaved.

 

Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?

Yes, right after the 3rd time I got saved I felt the peace of god wash through my soul and the bible quite literally lit up when I read it. Then I got to the bad parts.

 

Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?

 

Not really. Sometimes I would and will use my intuition to do this now, as I did then.

 

 

Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration?

Only once. The time I asked God to prove to me I was saved and almost drove myself insane as a result. Then I gave up and accepted he just wasn't there and my life is slowly restoring.

 

Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?

 

Yes, for a while. And then as creatures of habit we slowly go back to the way we are. I've seen the 'Holy Spirit' in peoples faces after they've converted. Then, eventually, they ALL revert back to their prio lifestyle for the most part, with some minor adjustments sometimes. Some of us are too afraid to let go of god and take total responsibility for ourselves and others have to hang on to it, for fear or preventing loss or whatever.

 

How did you go from that to declaring that no Gods exist?

 

I don't declare any such thing. But if the Bible God is real I would rather have never existed.

 

Do you ever miss God and his presence?

 

I only ever felt a presence that one time. But I look at it now, and it was all made up by my mind. I wanted there to be a god, a father in the sky who loved me. I cried a few times when I realized he wasn't really real. It was like losing a family member. My conception of god and love and the like was never compatible with the bible's description of god, and when I confronted that faceoff I began to deconvert.

[peaceatlast]

Was it all that bad?

 

Yes. It was. Because the whole thing was a lie and I did everything that was asked of me.

Yes. Because the church's belief that woman should be subservient resulted in my mother and my brothers spending years in a violent alcoholic home and all being emotionally, physically abused, and spiritually abused by the very people my mother asked for help.

Yes. Because it filled my mind with fear and terror and guilt and my nights with nightmares that took years of therapy to deal with.

Yes. Because I was denied the right to live a normal childhood because of church beliefs and ridiculed and ostracised by my peers.

Yes. Yes. Yes. It really was that bad

 

 

Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?

 

I have had what I thought were moments of closeness with god, but which I now know were simply moments of high emotion. God is a construct created by man, if people believe in that construct enough they will interpret their experiences to fit that belief.

 

Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?

 

Basically the same answer as above.

 

Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?

No, because he doesn't exist. But I convinced myself that it happened because I had been socialised to interpret events that way.

 

Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?

 

No, same as above.

 

Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?

 

Fortunately I have come to understand through reading the research that this stuff happens to lots of people and it means nothing in particular. we also do and say a lot of things that are not 'confirmation' of what someone needs to hear everyday, so it means nothing either way. the questions you are asking are very biased and all predicated on the belief that God exists, it's a terribly flawed questionanire.

 

Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration?

No.

 

Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?

 

I have seen people's lives changed, for better and for worse, after they believe they have found god.

[Darklady]

Kath

I understand your questions, for long time I denied that I no longer believed. I took small steps away -first not going to church, then not believing in the personal god, and finally, after many internal battles, no longer believing in any god.

I can answer yes to many of your questions – but how real was that experience? Even now I can ‘feel’ the same way when hearing some stirring music, or being in a quiet place (with myself). Answered prayer – sometimes things happened when I prayed, but no more than any probability of coincidence , it was the unanswered prayer that really opened my eyes. I had strange prompting, but so what, I still do. We do not understand the human mind – nor the power of it – but to put it down to a spirit? Don’t belittle yourself.

I only hope I have found is in myself. Recently my granddaughter died, my Christian friends all prayed, but did it bring her back, did it reduce my pain, my kids pain? No. Dead is dead.

Stop looking for answers outside of your self. You are your only way out.

[Guest confused idiot]

"Was it all that bad?"

 

Yeah, it really was.

 

"Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?"

 

Never.

 

"Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?"

 

No, not unless you count one time where me being emotional decieved me into thinking I was in God's presence.

 

"Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?"

 

Never, not once.

 

"Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?"

 

No.

 

"Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?"

 

No.

 

"Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration?"

 

No, I've had the complete opposite happen.... Me being hopeless, then feeling like God was laughing at me, kicking me when I'm down. This Jesus crap NEVER brought me any hope, peace, joy, or meaning. It gave me the most miserable hopeless depression that I've ever faced, and it left such huge scars that I still can't shake the depression and anxiety.

 

"Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?"

 

No.

 

"Im just curious to know if when you were a christian, was it all that bad?"

 

I can honestly say the times where I've saught after God the most have been the worst, most hopelessly depressed times in my life.

"Was there any time in your lives where you did feel God close to you?"

 

Never.

"How did you go from that to declaring that no Gods exist?"

 

I've not reached that point yet.

"Do you ever miss God and his presence?"

 

Can't miss what was never there.

[Shyone]

"Do you ever miss God and his presence?"

 

Can't miss what was never there.

Ain't it the truth. Ain't it the truth (to quote the Lion from the Wizzard of Oz - another set of religious beliefs).

[Searching For Mark]

Was it all that bad? Only if you consider buying into something that gave me a false sense of security for 20 years as "not that bad"

 

Christianity itself and it's teachings won't harm a person but the followers and their actions make it impossible to believe there's a leader when you see how they live and speak

[nightcomeson]

Late and bored and needing to write my testimony soon....hrrrrr...

 

Was it all that bad?

Not sure how to answer this. The actual Christians I knew were fine. Taking the Bible seriously emotionally killed me. Never hearing from God emotionally killed me. Having to go through most of I had to go through on my own wrecked me in ways that might have made me a permanent skeptic. But I survived.

 

Did you ever have moments of closeness with God and his presence?

I thought I did, but that connection between what I felt and God began collapsing when I realized I could summon it at will. I still can.

 

Did you ever have such close communion with Him that you cried in His presence with joy, or through healing of any pain in your heart?

Never.

 

Did God ever tell you something that would happen in your life and did it ever come to pass?

Aheh... I was prophesied to/over, and nothing ever happened.

 

Did you ever hear Gods voice in your inner man? Did words from the Bible become real and alive for you, and for you specifically?

No.

 

Did you ever have strange promptings to do something or say something, then find out it was confirmation for another person, or telling them something they needed to hear just that day?

Strange promptings, yes. The confirmation bit, no.

 

Have you ever had such pain over a situation and think that it was completely hopeless, and God speak to you in it and find hope, and slowly see restoration? Have you ever seen someone's life completely turn the opposite direction after meeting God?

No to either.

 

Sorry thats a lot of questions. Im just curious to know if when you were a christian, was it all that bad? Was there any time in your lives where you did feel God close to you? How did you go from that to declaring that no Gods exist?

Do you ever miss God and his presence?

Within my own head, it really might have been that bad. What I felt I needed from God and what everyone around me was telling me God was like were completely disjointed. I don't miss realizing that belief in God didn't lead people together, but rather served as a way to fragment people. I don't miss feeling cut off, having to rely on God for the truth that couldn't come from anyone else. I don't miss the nights crying, asking why God never answered me. I don't miss the depression and the guilt. I don't miss the counseling and the antidepressants. I certainly don't miss the bitterness toward the end, when I choked in the middle of praise and could speak no more. I don't miss going from church to church and from Christian to Christian trying to find traces of where God had been to try and bolster my faith that he was at least answering someone.

 

If that's God's presence, I definitely am OK without it.

[PaulQ]

Hello again

 

So I have read lots of stories and experiences on this site about your lives when you used to be christians.

I would like to ask some questions though, if anyone would be willing to answer.

 

Was it all that bad?

 

Absolutely. It set me back considerably as a child.

 

Instead of answering your questions point by point, I'll just tell you what it did to me.

 

I used to believe in God. I prayed every morning and every night. I would read the bible all the time.

 

When the school was teaching me science, history, and math, I wondered, why aren't these things in the bible? I never considered them important at all, but at the same time, I didn't want to fail. I was taught the bible was the most important thing to learn, so I would study it, and pray for God to provide me with the answers I needed to pass on test day.

 

Needless to say, I did terribly poor. To make things worse, it caused me a great deal of confusion and turmoil. When we learned about dinosaurs, I knew there was no mention of them in the bible. Was the school lying to me? Why wasn't there any mention of them in Genesis? Someone was right, and someone was wrong. Which one? Was the school teaching me lies? The answers were not forthcoming or clear. When I challenged the teacher, she was too afraid of backlash to set me straight; and when I asked the religious people at the church, they assured me the dinosaurs drowned in the flood. That still didn't fit with what I was being taught in school.

 

It got worse. Bullies would pick on me, so I'd turn the other cheek only to get beat up more. Most of the kids I went to school with didn't go to my church, and some never went to church at all. Why were those kids so well adjusted, popular, and successful? I could feel religion turning me into a hateful, spiteful person.

 

It was a slow struggle for me to turn my life around from a life of poverty. The less I believed, the better off I was. The thing that pushed me over completely to Atheism was the birth of my son. Seeing him, the product of the genetic material of my wife and myself, with no divine intervention whatsoever, caused me to realize that there was no god involved; we are all the products of our parents. It was such a wonderful, enlightening experience; looking into his eyes, I realized I was wrong about the existence of a god all along.

[Guest Valk0010]

 

 

It got worse. Bullies would pick on me, so I'd turn the other cheek only to get beat up more. Most of the kids I went to school with didn't go to my church, and some never went to church at all. Why were those kids so well adjusted, popular, and successful? I could feel religion turning me into a hateful, spiteful person.

 

 

I relate a ton, to that.

[bdp]

there is going to be world peace!

 

 

Not holding my breath, sparky.