abysmal Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 I haven’t been a Christian for some time now. What led me away from my faith would be a combination of things. The internal strife that often goes on behind closed doors and the hypocrisy that follows afterwards. I remembered the day when my best friend came up to me and told me that we needed to follow God. “We needed to be brothers in Christ and be one with Him, so that, we won’t go to hell.” “We didn’t live pure lives because we were terrible sinners. “ I was very young when this happen, and very naïve and so I believed him. This complicated an already complicated life. I grew up in a Muslim household in a post 9 11 atmosphere. So, I’ve seen firsthand how people react towards you based on race regardless if you believe in the same religion. Also, I was afraid that I might be kicked out of my house because of my decision. So, I was always nervous and felt guilty for never being a strong believer. I tried my best to follow the path of God but it wasn’t enough. I called myself a backslider all the time in my head hoping that God will come and give me his grace. Instead I drove myself crazy most nights. I couldn’t go up to my family and ask for help so I prayed for a solution. My friend’s family wanted me to confront my parents and tell them that they were going to hell if they don’t accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. While, also, embracing the idea that I might be homeless afterwards. These people weren’t even going to take me into their house if this happen. They preferred that I walk the streets of Chicago apostatizing. I was sixteen years old and didn’t know any better. But to them I was a soldier for God who needed to pay his dues for His cause. This depressed me to no end, and so, I started to smoke weed to relax. I’ve kept up this habit till now and I get hell for it. When I stopped being a Christian I told my friends-- who were believers --that it has brought more peace than Christianity has. I use to get called a backsliding druggy loser because I couldn’t manage my life and let Christ work through me. Sometimes I would get so angry and would want to point out these people’s flaws. I wanted to tell them that they lacked Christ’s compassion and forgiveness. Inform them as to how intolerant they are being when Jesus was a tolerant man in the face of ignorance. But none of this registered in any of their heads. They normally quoted scripture and said that Jesus would bring down a sword between father and son, etc. One day I broke down and cried because I was tired of it all. I was tired of judging myself. I was tired of other’s judging me. I wanted to be happy but at the same time I wanted to go to heaven because I didn’t want to do anything wrong in the eyes of the lord. I had to make a decision. I went up to my father and explained to him what was going on. What amazed me the most was how wrong I was about my father because I normally was told by Christians that Arabs are intolerant. My father told me that it is part of his religious duty as a Muslim to respect both Jews and Christians. This experienced began to open my eyes to the world that was around me. I began to study profusely and diligently about the world and the cultures that inhabit it. I started to read philosophy and other religious texts in order to gain a better understanding as to why people were the way they were. I wanted look into my background and see what history had said about my people. Being a Palestinian I sat through lectures, sermons, and debates, as to whether or not my ethnic background was real or fake. And believing that was nothing wrong with the current Israeli occupation. But as soon as I broke through my chains I wasn’t going to hold back anymore. I found out that there were Palestinian Christians that still live in Palestine and who agree that the Israel government is notorious for advocating sectarian violence and needs to give back land that they took from the Palestinians. I tried to explain this to some of my Christians friends at the time but all I heard was that I was wrong. That God is going to kill most of the Jewish population because they were atheist. They would mention the Illuminati theory and the Rothschild lineage and how Jews secretly wanted to take over the world. I was amazed when they called me a Nazi because I had disagreed with them. They couldn’t identify their own anti-Semitism instead they labeled it upon me This was one of many experiences that I collected over the years. Besides being called a Nazi I’ve been called a terrorist because of my views on the war at Iraq and Afghanistan. These Christians who often like to label me are people who I’ve known for years, and yet, they’re willing to condemn me so easily and unremorsefully. “You know your God is manmade when he hates all the same people as you do” – Unknown I don’t know who said that or where I got it from. But it’s true. I’m not in the place where I want to be at in life but I’m as hell happy that I didn’t continue on the road that I was heading. My overall philosophy at this moment is to help humanity not to waste time condemning it. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eugene39 Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott That is one of my favorite quotes also. You have certainly gotten to see the bad side of Christianity. I'm glad that the conversation went well with your father, as that sounds like a turning point in your life towards it becoming better. Thanks for posting your story and welcome to Ex-C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Wow, fundies have done a 180 on the whole Jewish thing since I was in. Same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow my ass! What an astonishing story and how incredibly brave you are for facing your father like you did. Your dad sounds like a genuinely good person but that could have gone much differently had he been any less. Welcome to the board! You have such a unique insight--can't wait to see more from you around here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Welcome from me, too, abysmal! I'm surprised that Christians were so anti-Israel. The fundies I met pretty much all were pro-Israeli and paid no attention to the persecution of Christian Arabs or Armenians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Its very good to have you here! Welcome!! The deeper and deeper you dive into religious studies, what you will find is what we all here have discovered- they all have questionable origins and dubious claims. I cannot say authoritatively that there isnt a "right" one, but my level of confidence, for myself, in saying that they're all BS is extremely high. You're on a journey all your own, and we wish you the best! Lookin forward to seeing you on the forums! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmohammad Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Great story, thanks so much for the detailed post. Everybody is so different, with different reasons for "de-conversion". It's great to think that you've come to the point in your life that you realize religion is a farce. Not just christianity, but every religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raoul Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Welcome and thank you very much for sharing your experience. It's amazing to me how so similar so much of our (all of us) stories are at least in some aspects. When you said they called you a 'terrorist' among other things, that brought back my memories of my 5 or 6 year battles with the religious right wing fundies on various blogs. When I, like you, criticized the wars and gave FACT after FACT about the lies, all they did was call me a Muslim sympathizer and Jihadist. I even had some of them try to track down where I live for who knows what reason. And the thing you wrote about embracing humanity and not judging - that's exactly what I decided once I threw off the chains of this crap they call Christianity. Ironically, the entire time I tried to be a Christian I would, at least subconsciously, look at the so called 'non believers' behavior in similar actions and probably marvelled at how they came through things much better, psychologically at least, than any of us so called 'believers'. With many of us, when crap happened, it was 'god testing us' or 'god trying to teach us something'. With them it was simply 'shit happens, get over it and move on' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaiser01 Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Welcome to EX-C, i too am outspoken for palistinian rights and i have often times debated fundamentalist in the past about it, their arguments can get quite ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carolorado Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 You do have an interesting perspective. It is good to hear from non believers born into different religions. We all find freedom when we truly let go of God myths. Then we are allowed to be free thinkers. One thing that always bothered me was the right wing's reason for being so pro-Isreal. It says to me: "We will protect Isreal until we starve. We gotta keep those Jews alive so Jesus can come back and make 'en convert or they are all gonna die for not immediately worshiping him. We know 2/3rds of them are going to hell to burn forever and ever with Muslims and atheists!" If you read that in a novel you would stop reading because it is so utterly stupid and reflects insanity. Unfortunately, it is reality for right wing Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaiser01 Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 You do have an interesting perspective. It is good to hear from non believers born into different religions. We all find freedom when we truly let go of God myths. Then we are allowed to be free thinkers. One thing that always bothered me was the right wing's reason for being so pro-Isreal. It says to me: "We will protect Isreal until we starve. We gotta keep those Jews alive so Jesus can come back and make 'en convert or they are all gonna die for not immediately worshiping him. We know 2/3rds of them are going to hell to burn forever and ever with Muslims and atheists!" If you read that in a novel you would stop reading because it is so utterly stupid and reflects insanity. Unfortunately, it is reality for right wing Christianity. The christian do or die defense of Israel is not even really biblical. It wasn't until the 1830's that people actually started trying to see Israel and something special. Even Jesus himself states that he will take away the divine spirit of importance from the jews and give it to ALL nations of the earth. The thing that interest me about dispensationalist philosophy is that it considers Christianity to be the interruption to God's plan, even though Christianity is the only way to heaven. The real plan is all about the jews and their story at the end of the world, Christianity almost has no purpose in the "end times" scenario viewed by most dispenastionalist. Isreal having land given by God isnt biblical either, that which was given to Moses was fulfilled literally with the conquests of Canaan by Joshua. The jews were told they could keep Isreal for as long as they obeyed until the son of man would arive and ALL nations would become God's chosen people. The Christian defense of Israel is based on nothing but poor theology and sensationalism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abysmal Posted July 14, 2012 Author Share Posted July 14, 2012 You people are wonderful and I appreciate all the comments that were said here Im glad Ive found this place Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raoul Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 You people are wonderful and I appreciate all the comments that were said here Im glad Ive found this place Stop repeating what each and everyone of us says probably at least once a day around here. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpudd1n Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 Hey Abysmal, Your extimony fascinated me, thank you so much for sharing your story. As a christian, I was against the occupation of Palestine by Israel. Regardless of what the bible or other christians around me said, after reading an independent article by a correspondent on the background to the conflict, I could not see it as anything other than ethically wrong. But I have seen both sides of christian opinion on the matter. I grew up with a mother who was ashamed of her own jewish blood and had a rather derogatory attitude to the jews, who then in later life became involved with Jews for Jesus and obsessed by the end-times. She once actually told some co-workers of her that if not being jewish made her unlike them, then she was glad. Except that she is, technically, jewish (lot of girls in my family). So growing up, being jewish was not something to be proud of. Apparently. Though now it is. Don't bother trying to work that one out- I gave up a long time ago. However, I also have an aunt who is so obsessed with how special she is as a result of being jewish and a christian, and so obsessed by the end-times, that she jets off to Israel repeatedly every year in order to "keep tabs on the situation". Does she give a shit about the Palestinians? Hell no. Why worry about some muslims? Their demise is all part of god's glorious end-times plan. As far as Israel goes, of the christians who do support Israel, they only do so seemingly in a bid to force Jesus' hand and have him return sooner rather than later. All of which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. But anyway, I'm rambling. Welcome to Ex-C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norton65ca Posted July 16, 2012 Share Posted July 16, 2012 the evangelical obsession with Israel and it's fanatical blind support for zionism in the face of overwhelming evidence of the brutal occupation and apartheid-like regime was one of the catalysts for my deconversion. The notion of a chosen race I could no longer swallow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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