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Goodbye Jesus

What Killed Your Faith For Good?


Lilith666

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Genesis 3 was it for me,

 

Once I realized that, the rest of the Bible fell apart in a hurry.

I wish it was that easy for me but it took 25 years of struggling and doubt until I finally tossed it away for good. And if you wanna hear something funny about Genesis, that chapter you cite (the 3rd one) actually was written BEFORE the 1st one! The whole thing, both old and new testaments, is nothing more than manipulative nonsense.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I am afraid I can't kill it. It just keeps twitching and kicking...........

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Note: I started a fresh thread rather than post in my previous topic because it is very much a different experience of deconversion, perhaps it was a major contributor.

 

I watched a documentary on religious cults derived from Xanity and I noticed that something that was clearly a cult was able to exhibit the same things my church told me was a result of the Holy Ghost Anointing, such as causing people to fall on the floor, blabber gibberish and writhe like a snake. They would say it's demons being released, and I already doubted that aspect of the church as I never received the anointing, and it always annoyed me when they would say "just let go".

 

So anyway the simple evidence that my church had false teachings was that I knew for certain that if the same behaviour can be brought on by something that clearly isn't of God, then that thing as a whole is not from God. It's not like they told him to do that, he just did.

 

Now I have known about the hypnotic nature of sermons for about three years when I began studying Neuro Linguistic Programming. After seeing the documentary I was disgusted with my church, because they are not a cult that lies about their beliefs, they believe it like all the other churches with those practices.

 

For a while I thought some of the anointing might have been a thought induced orgasm, you should see some of the women, they glow like they just had a massive workout :D The next day at the end of the service as the pastor was talking a thought came to me, I hit some notes on the keyboard with the intention of inducing a spiritual experience (there are things we can do with the keyboard) ... within seconds I was directing them all. They put it down to the holy ghost.

 

Oh, and the laying of hands, plain hypnosis. Rocking you back and forwards and commanding obedience or letting go, classic.

 

---

 

On another note there was this one time I was praying at a convention, I saw a light flash and felt like I was finally experiencing the anointing ... nope, it was someone taking a photo, totally broke me out of my slightly hypnotic state, yep yep yep, true story.

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For me it was the response of my christian "friends" to my questions about the bible, and the illogical aspects of god.

"I try not to think about that", "just have faith", "we cant understand everything, just accept it as true", "be careful where you are going with this, it is dangerous"

 

Once I realized that my "faith" required ignorance in order to keep living, I knew there was no god.

 

Once My friends knew I didn't believe anymore, I heard from exactly 2 of them in the last few months. The others just contact my wife to tell her how sad they are for her.

See how wonderful the love of god is? (As long as you love god too).......

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For me it was the response of my christian "friends" to my questions about the bible, and the illogical aspects of god.

"I try not to think about that", "just have faith", "we cant understand everything, just accept it as true", "be careful where you are going with this, it is dangerous"

 

Once I realized that my "faith" required ignorance in order to keep living, I knew there was no god.

 

Once My friends knew I didn't believe anymore, I heard from exactly 2 of them in the last few months. The others just contact my wife to tell her how sad they are for her.

See how wonderful the love of god is? (As long as you love god too).......

While it's hurtful how they reacted (only 2 of them staying in touch), it ought not be too much of a surprise if you've studied cult behavior. Their attitudes mirror it perfectly.
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I had a number of experiences and revelations that helped kill my faith.

  1. Having watched countless documentaries showing many historical truths that contradicted the bible.
  2. Knowing how evolution works, and then hearing the lies told about it in the churches.
  3. Not being "filled" with the holy ghost and falling on the floor when being prayed for.
  4. Knowing that the paranoia about freemasonry being about devil worshippers was absolute BS.
  5. Knowing that the interpretation of the Bible being preached by the pastor was being treated blindly as absolute truth without actually exploring the facts.
  6. Not seeing the fruits of the spirit by the pastor's immediate family, or even completely in the pastor.
  7. Seeing that the claims of faith healing weren't true as my illnesses weren't healed and there was no justifiable reason for them being denied.
  8. Learning about the occult, it's mentions in the bible that people ignore and it's relation to different aspects of christianity and society at large that are often demonised by the church.
  9. The lies being told about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Being a trained sex and drugs advisor put me at a clear vantage point to know truth from lies, and being a musician with a knowledge of the occult I felt they were just speaking garbage.
  10. The paranoia about just about every digital technology considered to be bringing us to the end times, like id cards and the false information spread about verisign that the leaders blindly believed.
  11. False prophecies being given by so called prophets at the church, worst of all when a recent prophet claimed someone in the church was practicing witchcraft and was going to die in 3 days if they didn't repent. Sounded like cock a doodle to me.
  12. The insistence on following a leader's interpretation over exercising sound judgement.
  13. Exploitation of the bible to extract 'tithes' that have absolutely nothing to do with what the bible said, and totally contradicts Jesus' command to leave all your possessions and wealth and to live by faith, accepting donations when given but never trying to provoke them on impulse like the beggars that the Bible itself speaks about.
  14. Misuse of language regarding love and faith, misreading everything and failure by all senior leaders and preachers to even acknowledge the original meanings of the scriptures.
  15. Mispronunciation of Jesus by many which indicates that most branches of the church today do not derive from Jesus, otherwise everyone would have passed down the correct name to the congregations, suggesting that at some point there was a mass drive to teach the Bible by people who did not inherit from any direct lineage of Jesus' teachings.
  16. Blind acceptance of the scriptures being the "selected" books, despite the fact that the early church was incredibly diverse, had many differing beliefs and that the first standardised collection of books happened over 100 years after Jesus' alleged death (or resurrection), purely for the sake of resolving the different beliefs into one rather than following Jesus' command or teaching sound judgement.
  17. The reality that if the bible was true and all people were judged as harshly as ministers would have you believe, and also that baptism was the only way to heaven would mean that God created a world where people were unfairly damned by never having heard of Jesus.
  18. The false notion that simply hearing that "Jesus died for your sins" constitutes as being given a fair witness for being judged for not accepting God. That is stupid because no person should be expected to blindly believe another man's testimony of the entire Universe without a sign of having authoritative knowledge or proving their testimony to be true. That is just unfair and unjust.
  19. The fact that God hardened people's hearts, then punished them for it is not a just God.
  20. The fact that God makes it impossible to know he exists, and judges people for it. Why create a world like that? as it doesn't make any sense to create a world to judge people for things they couldn't possibly know and could never find out in their lifetime. In a sense that would mean that they are being judged for susceptibility, which is an asinine purpose of existence.
  21. The idea that he created us for the sake of living in a world that appeared to have no God according to the description of God's inspired word, with the intention of only telling a small nation of His existence, to keep his faith to themselves so that nobody else in the world could learn about Him and His purpose, only to burn them for all eternity for not believing the things he made to not believe.
  22. The fact that my church blindly preached the end time revelations despite the fact that the idea of it having literal meaning was only thought up by a guy who was known to be a fraud who added his own notes in the his bible translation to lead people to believe what he wanted them to believe.
  23. The imprudence of God in creating a word that is so difficult to come to one single interpretation. Doesn't sound like an all knowing God at all.
  24. The pointlessness of testing people by having them live a life that doesn't involve living, but telling people the good news that they are free to live in bondage and be limited in operation. Sounds like an oxymoron to me!
  25. The fantastic message of Unity in the Bible that has proved to be unsustainable, and that God did not create a world where his word could be testable for people in the future to accurately discern. Add that to the fact that preachers claim the word/spirit interprets the word, yet everyone who preaches this comes to a different interpretation.
  26. The uncertainty of faith healing. Even Jesus lacked the power to heal a village due to a lack of faith, indicating he did not have the full power of God that he claimed to have. This suggests that Rameses could have stopped the plague simply through disbelief, and also that the end time prophecy could also be avoided through disbelief.
  27. The paradox of prayers being answered when conflicting prayers are asked suggesting that God it limited in operation and that in being unable to immediately answer a prayer indicates incompetence.
  28. Links made between sin and health, making claims that Jesus never had colds, therefore we should not have colds if we live righteously. But occasionally suffering from illnesses himself that he claimed were attacks by Satan, but he fought it with prayer, so can we. WTF?
  29. The fact that people are prayed for, have these spiritual experiences, then go back into the "world" and do everything they did before. Clearly it had no effect on them.
  30. The many people who have had mental illnesses that could not be solved by prayer, and many times their paranoia would extend to fears based on end time revelations and obsessions with the fear of devil worshippers infiltrating TV and popular culture. I always felt something was wrong when I saw that.
  31. The pointlessness of Jesus' existence, since everything he said he saved us from didn't change a thing. People still "live by the law" and works rather than faith. Love is only simulated in most people who lack any sense of empathy, but try their best to live by the law. Then I see people outside of the church, or in things like the Unification Church (which is trying to unite all world religions to end religious conflict) producing people who exercise characteristics of love much more than other Christians. This challenged my idea of the power of the holy spirit, since everything about them contradicted my teachings on the word of God yet they exercised it far better than we did, suggesting something is phoney about the word of God (IMO).
  32. The realisation that I am not a christian through choice but through circumstance, and as soon as I began to trace the source of each of my beliefs I realised that a belief can be blindly accepted that should be tested and verified before being accepted.

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In honest retrospect, it was a complete collapse of my lively hood that forced me to completely reject my core beliefs of the time. It forced me to be brutally honest with myself, whether I wanted to or not. Maybe I just had a weak faith that couldn't sustain me through those points in my life. But when the alternative was placed right in front of me , I was angered and terrified by it. So I became disillusioned with the whole thing and had to go somewhere else.

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That is sad and so typical! 2 "friends." I would not even consider them friends.

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That is sad and so typical! 2 "friends." I would not even consider them friends.

The two that still want to remain in contact really do care, even though they are hopelessly deluded by their beliefs. The myriad of others that used to call, text, FB, and spend time with me are the ones that piss me off. None of the time we spent, the conversations we had, or the relationship we tried to grow means anything to them now that they know I am a heathen. I guess they never really did care about me, just the idea of interacting with another believer like they "should".

My family,(mom, dad, brothers and sisters) are the only ones that truly seem to care for me just the same as they always did, even though they are scared for my eternal soul.

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@BDPApostate: that's how you know who your real friends were. And to be honest I always knew who my real friends were in the church, which is why she was the first person I told I was leaving.

 

Funny, I think we always know who are actual friends are, because they are actually friends who share their secrets with you, share intimate problems and express intimate thoughts.

 

p.s. beLIEf lol

 

Funny how the Bible says, the double minded man is unstable in all his ways, when double mindedness denotes self deception, so with christianity requiring self deception I guess it judges itself quite harshly. Man I feel sorry for them all, in a not so condescending way. Only I can't pray for them, so I guess I can just hope that they'll stop praying and finally start to open their eyes (oh what a mighty good pun ;)).

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was all gung-ho for Jesus and promoting a particular missionary/evangelist who was a great storyteller about thousands of miracles that god was doing through him because of his obedience (including raising the dead several times). I was convinced, especially because of his men who also said that the gospel was working miracles for them too. I promoted him around the world, and people sent me audio and video of him preaching that I would then digitize and make available on the Internet. One morning I watched a video series of him in Germany, which was standard thrilling preaching from him, though his translator had trouble keeping up with him (he has a Louisiana accent).

 

Then I put in the video of him preaching in America right after he came back from Germany. He spoke at length about how a coven of witches had come to the service in Germany to challenge the power of god in him. He said his translator stopped being able to speak, and that the main witch was grinning at him. So he said that he lept down from the platform and confronted her, and there was a tremendous battle of energies between them until she was finally blasted against the heavy glass doors of the auditorium and fell unconscious with the rest of her coven. He said that later they got up groggily and came up on their knees in repentance. The church ate this up and were cheering. I was sitting there stunned, because he had made up the whole thing based on a German translator who had trouble keeping up with his southern accent.

 

That was the first slap in the face that started me asking god why he hadn't given me a clue about this guy lying before. Everything the guy preached was biblical, it just wasn't true. Also, why were his men claiming the same things? I had trusted them as a check and balance to his claims. Then it occurred to me that this was standard behavior in a cult. They want to fit in desperately, and won't question the leader. I hadn't questioned him because it was all *supposed* to be happening, according to the scriptures. So began much prayer and seeking, but this time it wasn't something that my mind could respond to with a scripture verse. I wasn't going to settle for less than an answer from god. I didn't get one.

 

So I began revisiting the questions I had shelved over the years, like where is hell in the Old Testament? I asked Jewish family members, do you have a hell? They shook their heads. That was the 2nd slap in the face emotionally. Over 30 years of solid belief and I had never heard that the Jews didn't have a hell. How then could Christianity be the fulfillment of the Jewish faith? Then all the time I spent in intercessory prayer that resulted in nothing, despite several biblical promises that I'd see an answer. Loads of things started pouring into my mind that were inconsistencies with the promises of Jesus, and with the brutal character of god in the bible.

 

On it went for about a year, until I searched on "ex christian" and found this website. A month later I posted my deconversion story and made it official. What a load off my emotions and mind! It's been such a fun ride since then, learning to sing and perform Sinatra-style jazz, writing a book, no more invisible war with invisible creatures of light and darkness, no more shame for being human, enjoying lust instead of seeing it as an attack, seeing opportunities and enjoying the world instead of looking for the next life where I can be a slave to Jesus (HA!).

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I went on for many years trying to be a xtian. I believed, but always had "questions". My older brother at a young age (15) became a fundamentalists. He bought the whole thing , hook, line and sinker. He became an "expert" on the bible, including getting a bachelor's degree and a master's degree at a bible college. For years i would submit my questions to him and he always had an answer. But the doubts I had just kept coming back and increasing. So I read The Evidence that Demands a  Verdict by Josh MacDowall, a Xtian apologist. But things just didn't seem right no matter what Xtian author I followed. 

 

One day I ran across a book entitled "The Dark Side of Christianity". The title didn't exaggerate; Xtianity's history is dark, indeed. Good gawd! How dark can it get? That was it for me. Together with all the many things about which I had doubts, this book was the straw that broke the camel's back. I made a decision to do my own research of Xtian history. As I said it was dark, indeed. The rest was pretty easy. The fallacies and intellectual dishonesty, and all the other reasons that have mentioned in this forum just came pouring out. Even though there are times in the middle of the night (when the boogy man will get you) when I would feel a little scared about whether god was gonna get me for having the temerity to think, I know that I could not force myself to belief that foolish myth again.  Bill

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I fell at first. Mad at God. Couldn't reconcile things I knew to be true with faith. Went completely athiest. Then in my mid 30's I went back to school and studied a lot of philosophy. That was when I examined God again and came to a different realization that is non Christian. In fact, that still small voice came back and helped in discrediting my old religious beliefs. It was weird when that voice I knew as God as a kid returned and started discrediting the faith I'd attached to it. Then again, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, especially when the first time I'd heard that voice it started by discrediting the rapture theories that I'd been fed with in the Pentecostal churches I'd grown up in. So, that's how I got to where I am no longer a Christain. I do not believe that I need a man's death to save me, nor do I think that God cares about many of the valuations mankind thinks God cares about. I do believe that there is something that transcends understanding there, but it is not contained in any doctrines of man. Man can only poorly describe the indescribable. This is what I think are the true false idols. Mankind tries to humanize God in their minds and thereby limits God within the limitations of comprehension to the true nature of existence.

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I've been thinking about the thing that was the death blow to my faith since I joined this forum, and I think I finally pinpointed it. It was losing my virginity (outside of marriage, of course). It was then that I realized that most of what I'd been told in church about sex was complete bullshit. I didn't run out and become an atheist that day, but that's what pushed me to scrutinizing my faith in Christianity and the Bible. 

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I had a mental breakdown about 8 years back.  That's what pretty much finished me off.  However in a strange sort of way I still believe in God (I don't believe there can be any real morality without God - and note I said God, not religion!).  I might even start reading scripture again.  However I don't expect this to really change anything.  If it does, I'll let you know.

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For me it was a gradual crumbling of my faith as I started to learn to think for myself and not just accept everything I was told. It all started when I did a degree in 1999 which taught me critical thinking skills.  I did my best to push aside the lingering doubts and cynasism over the next 7 years or so. It didn't help that I was starting to hear rational arguments from people (thanks to the Internet) that I'd never come across before because I had always surrounded myself in a Christian bubble, associating only with fellow Christians. One day... around (about 2006) though I realised I was in denial. I just didn't believe this crap anymore.

 

Here are a list of things that lead me to that point:

 

  • Prophecies being made by evangelists and church leaders were not coming true
  • Miracles were not taking place in my town even though I was hearing amazing stories of things happening in remote out of the way places overseas.
  • There was a lack of unity within Christianity. If the Holy Spirit is involved, why are there so many denominations? Why can no two Christians agree on anything? Why does one person preach one thing and insist his understanding is thanks to the Holy Spirit while someone else contradicts it, but claims the same thing?
  • The bible could be used to argue any point you want, because you can always find some scripture to back up your belief, thus why there is so many denominations and cults.
  • God had not done anything of any particular note in my life for around ten years. (I realised my faith was all based on a few things from way back, which I can now see were not miracles but inevitable outcomes)
  • Certain biblical advice was bad advice and did not work in reality, eg blessing your enemies.
  • Certain biblical contradictions, absurdities and inaccuracies could not be justified without a lot of silly mental gymnastics, reinterpreting, retranslating and lots of ridiculous excuses.
  • Bible prophecies were not eventuating even though people were insisting the end was near. (even more disturbing was the Paul in the bible believed the end was eminent)
  • Much of the bible was clearly ancient man's ignorance and prejudice, certainly not God's wisdom.
  • Vital Bible promises were empty, eg. see next...
  • Demons were not fleeing in the name of Jesus as the bible promises they will (have they developed an immunity to that name over the centuries?)
  • Christians so much wanted to believe in miracles and God that they saw every silly little thing as a miracle, an answer to prayer, God leading them etc etc.
  • Prayer had no obvious affect on anything. Mind over matter and positive thinking were more effective.
  • If you took off you rose-coloured Christian glasses, you found that the God of the bible was actually a pretty nasty, malevolent being.
  • A life in Christ did not make me happy. Strong, healthy, real (not imaginary) relationships did.
  • I did not see a lot of peace and joy in my Christian brethren like the bible promises there will be.In fact I was in leadership in the later years and found out for myself just how unremarkable the lives of these people were. Many of them were weak in faith and needed other Christians for support.
  • Too many hypocrites in church. All holy and pious at church but just like every other non-believer the rest of the time.
  • Not once did God ever try to reach out to me when I came to the end of my tether. No amount of begging God for a touch was working. God never even laid me on another Christian's heart to give me a call or a word of encouragement.

By the way, I always had good experiences at church and with fellow Christians in general. My deconversion never had anything to do with ill treatment or anything like that, although seeing all the hypocrites there were in church certainly did!

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Did a trusted Xian authority tell you something that struck you as false or hypocritical? Did a bible verse jar with your rationality/set of ethics? What ultimately decapitated your X-love?

 

I wondered if any of you guys remember that moment when you realized you didn't believe anymore.

 

The straw that broke the camels back for me was a question at college.

I had to write a small essay explaining if I would want to live forever and why...

I realized I didn't.

If god forced me too under the threat of hell he was just an asshole.

That question really changed things for me. But it was asked at the right time 

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What shattered my faith for good? Falling into really nasty spells of anxiety and depression, the last one being at 19, and realizing that depending on churches that taught that my shitty mental health was a lack of faith in God or whatever.  Seriously, I'd never heard of spiritual health until college.  It's such bullshit.  I never could figure out what the hell poor spiritual health was supposed to be, or what good spiritual health was supposed to be for that matter, just that you were supposed to do spiritually healthy things like meditate, do yoga and go to church.  It was optional of course, and they'd always say "it's not supposed to be like religion!!" But yeah, it was.  I have a feeling some theocrats disguised as New Age positive "thinkers" got into the system and came up with that bullshit.  At least blasting Lady Gaga counts as doing something spiritually healthy. 

 

But anyway, I got really depressed/anxious as I'm prone to doing, and began thinking that I should start going to church again.  But I couldn't even decide whether or not God actually existed, and I could not reconcile my feminism with Christianity at all, even the liberal branches. So once I got my head screwed back on properly, I decided to write a story about a Tea Party paradise (by "paradise" I of course mean "hell"). 

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What shattered my faith for good? Falling into really nasty spells of anxiety and depression, the last one being at 19, and realizing that depending on churches that taught that my shitty mental health was a lack of faith in God or whatever.  Seriously, I'd never heard of spiritual health until college.  It's such bullshit.  I never could figure out what the hell poor spiritual health was supposed to be, or what good spiritual health was supposed to be for that matter, just that you were supposed to do spiritually healthy things like meditate, do yoga and go to church.  It was optional of course, and they'd always say "it's not supposed to be like religion!!" But yeah, it was.  I have a feeling some theocrats disguised as New Age positive "thinkers" got into the system and came up with that bullshit.  At least blasting Lady Gaga counts as doing something spiritually healthy. 

 

But anyway, I got really depressed/anxious as I'm prone to doing, and began thinking that I should start going to church again.  But I couldn't even decide whether or not God actually existed, and I could not reconcile my feminism with Christianity at all, even the liberal branches. So once I got my head screwed back on properly, I decided to write a story about a Tea Party paradise (by "paradise" I of course mean "hell"). 

 

I think I'm going to try the quote button at this post. Lol  The pages of reasons why people lost their faith here on EXchristian is exactly why I lost mine. I used to belong to a very large church. The pain, depression, financial diasters and physical suffering in the church alone, without even looking at the outside world, should make one wonder where God is?

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I really can't pinpoint any particular moment,   it was gradual.     I remember one time fairly recently I was in fits of laughter when I realised my mind picture of jesus was of a man in a spotless cream robe and had honey-blond hair and green eyes.   Typical child's picture book impression.   I was three years old when my grandmother started to indoctrinate me.   No wonder I have had such a hard time letting go.

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I just remembered a moment in church a little more than a year before my deconversion - we were attending an Episcopal church that had a lot of responsive reading.  During the Easter service, the responses were sung in a way that sounded more like chanting.  For some reason, it just sent me into a fit of giggles.  My husband asked what was wrong with me, and I told him I didn't know.  I just kept imagining a person coming to the back door of the church and listening to the service and thinking, "what the fuck are you guys doing?"  The whole service just seemed so absurd to me, when it was supposed to be sacred.  I know I did not realize that I was in the initial phases of my deconversion during that time.  

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I just remembered a moment in church a little more than a year before my deconversion - we were attending an Episcopal church that had a lot of responsive reading.  During the Easter service, the responses were sung in a way that sounded more like chanting.  For some reason, it just sent me into a fit of giggles.  My husband asked what was wrong with me, and I told him I didn't know.  I just kept imagining a person coming to the back door of the church and listening to the service and thinking, "what the fuck are you guys doing?"  The whole service just seemed so absurd to me, when it was supposed to be sacred.  I know I did not realize that I was in the initial phases of my deconversion during that time.  

Damn ... I might have said it in this thread but there was a similar thing with me four years before my de-conversion, the first time my mind tried to de-convert me.

 

The guest preacher of the youth service asked us to stand in a circle and prayed, music was playing and the prayer was very melodic and I just disengaged. Like your I could feel a sense of absurdity. It didn't help that I had watched a documentary investigating the "House of David" and "Sodom and Gomorah" that pointed out some holes in the Torah's accounts. I spent that week feeling exactly the same as I did when I finally de-converted, like there was no god. I just wan't ready at the time :(

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There were many things that led up to my deconversion but 2 main things. The first one being that even though I had been a Christian all of my life and had been seriously seeking God for over 3 years, I never had an "encounter" with him. My friends would talk about "God's presence" and would be on a Jesus high, and I felt nothing. For a long time I felt rejected by God. Then I thought he was trying to teach me something. It was prophesied over me that I would have a "break through" but that never happened. It got too emotionally draining chasing after a God who obviously didnt want me.

 

The second thing was realizing that Christianity was actually bad for me. I was a genuine, good Christian, trying to be the best woman of God I could be. I was always reading Christian books, praying, and trying to grow. But I realized that it was all actually bad for me. I was depressed, and I was not free to be myself. I was judgmental, and I was hurt from the seeming rejection from God.

 

When I finally realized that all of these things added up to it possibly being wrong, I FINALLY opened my mind to the idea of it being wrong. For the first time in my life. I really had never, ever doubted until that point. I had enough confirmation bias growing up that left NO room for doubt. Its a "miracle" that I was able to escape.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I always had problems with the logic of the story and after studying for an advanced degree in Comparative Religion and applying logic to the entire matter, it made no sense any longer. Also the hatefullness of the hardcore Christian right helped me along my path.

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There was not a single point (that I can remember now) where I realized it was all a sham but a series of bigger and bigger realizations that things were not adding up.

 

The first occurred shortly after I became a Christian. I noticed Christians were not too fond of attending all the church services, or evangelizing or acting like Christians. The next big thing was the reaction of my former pastor after I left the church. Quite unchristian. Over time I got a more knowledgeable about the Bible and it disturbed me greatly that someone who was a Christian for such a short period of time was vastly more aware of it than seasoned veterans. Soon I began to realize that the supernatural involvement of God was minute, if existent at all. As time went on, my faith moved more and more towards the intellectual side of things. I became a Calvinist and also a presuppositionalist.

 

By the time I got to Bible college, there wasn't really much that it could do in the way of teaching me about apologetics or about the Bible. I also knew a fair bit of church history so there wasn't much lurking in there either. What did catch me off guard was the realization that many doctrines evolved over time, and some that we hold strongly now were non existent at the time of Christianity and more alarmingly, there are doctrines that were argued over that most probably wouldn't know of and thus probably wouldn't have a orthodox view on (such as whether or not Jesus has more than one will being a man-god).

 

The final nails were probably these realizations though: Firstly, learning about confirmation bias. Confirmation bias explained my post conversion experience to a T. The way everything just seemed to 'fit' and how all the evidence pointed to God and so on. It was disturbing. Secondly, it was my realization that all of the Abrahamic religions employ the same tactics to explain why their beliefs are right (abrogation, harmonization and so on) and of course the fact that as a result each person is as convinced as the other that they're right. Lastly, in my attempt to prove the gospel record using Paul's writings made me realize he could have just made a whole bunch of shit up and we'd never know.

 

I see clearly now I was moving away from faith towards reason at a slow pace and as a result it was inevitable that I left. 

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