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Goodbye Jesus

What Killed Your Faith For Good?


Lilith666

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I'm not sure that there was a moment that killed my faith for good, but I vividly remember the moment when I realized that the adults in my life, particularly my father who was a pastor, were full of shit about God.  I was probably in about the second or third grade and they'd always talk about giving part of your allowance to God and how they'd give some of their income to God in the offering plate.  There were all sorts of stories in the Bible about offerings to God and they usually involved killing and burning a lamb.  In my vivid imagination I figured the smoke must go up to God in heaven where he'd be able to recieve it.

 

So of course I asked about the money in the plate and whether they burned it or not.  They kind of blew off that question by saying that's not how things were done anymore.  I continued to press the issue and reluctantly they told me that the money goes to pay for the church's bills and those bills included my father's salary.  It didn't make sense to me how my father giving me money to put in the offering that ended up going back to him amounted to "giving money to God."  It was the first time I started wondering about this God they kept talking about, whom I never actually could see and who never actually spoke back when I prayed.  I already realized the Santa Claus and the Easter Bunner were BS stories that adults told to kids to manipulate them.  The God story started to sound like another even more elaborate hoax.  It wasn't until sometime in college when I became completely convinced of it.  I don't know that there was an exact moment either.  I do know the moment when it started.

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Guest r3alchild

It was a series of over a few years that I slowly broke away from my faith.

 

I think one of the biggest blows was almost marrying a girl which I assume had borderline disorder. Basically she was abused several times as a child and then had this disorder as an adult, plus hours upon hours of prayer didn't make a damn bit of difference, for her to get better she'd have to go through the same tough times as every other BPD person. I had the hardest time accepting that a loving god would more often than not allow the ones who suffer the most to have the most psychological afflictions.

 

That combined with the errors in the bible, the truth of evolution, the ineffectiveness of prayer, the fact that religious feelings are experienced regardless of beliefs, the grandeur of the universe, ancient near east copies in the bible, etc...

This was the base I left too, 6 years after I was a christian I suffered mental illness. I started seeing how my mental illness was effecting my thinking and when I prayed, begged god to help me know if my thinking about him was right, he never straitened up my mind so I could be sure my mental illness was not effecting my faith.

 

I just got more and more sick, but the thing that hurt the most was my christian friends would say " its your mental illness that is giving you doubts about jesus" I cant even describe in words the hoplessness when people make you think your own mind is screwing you over and you cant trust yourself.

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sad.png I am pretty sad now.

(((hugs))) I don't know if this will make you feel better, but when i left the church & I was still a christian, doubting & looking outside of the cult for answers...

even before we left the church, for about a 2-3 year span I think I cried every single day. I was just so devastated by it all.

 

It really does get better, but it's like you have to go through the storm of emotions to get to the other side. The anger phase was good...that's when things began to look up for me.

I got PISSED at those mfers.

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sad.png I am pretty sad now.

 

You're going through a bunch right now and if you can afford it professional help might be worthwhile.

 

I think many of us here were sad at first when we lost our faith.  I know that I went through about a year of going through the motions with prayer and church going, hoping that god would reveal himself to me.  When I finally stopped believing I was pretty depressed for a while, but now days (after I learned to cope), life is far better without the constant disappointment that god isn't listening to me, instead I accept life as it is and its better. 

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It is so incredibly arrogant for Xtians to refuse to believe people who have lost faith after hearing their reasons. The Xtrians hear agonizing extimonies of desperate pleas to god for help over long periods of time with nothing but silence in return. No person who has half a brain could doubt the sincerity of the exchristians' prayers. Reading descriptions of them, one must feel the intense pain and despair if he/she has any feelings left. But this heartless monster of a god does what? Sarcastically smiles down at the sufferer?  He denies the prayer while granting a prayer from someone who wants a good parking space? Grants the prayer of one football team over another? Denies nourishment for the starving children who fight for their lives? None of this matters to the Xtian. It must be the exchristians' sin than is blocking communication with the almighty. Whatever it is, it cannot be god's fault, because he is perfect; it's the exchristians' fault. 

 

Well, you Xtians are half right. God is neither perfect nor is god at fault. God isn't at fault because he does not exist and never did. You are at fault, you Xtian ignoramuses. You are the ones who took advantage of us when we were young and vulnerable to  pressure us into believing in your myth, a myth that you could not possible know for a fact to be true. But you were willing to lead us down the path that caused us to lose our freedom so that you could further promote your myth. By so doing you thought you were going to enhance your belief which was hanging by a thread. But it doesn't work, does it? Your belief still hangs by a thread whether you admit it or not.   bill

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It was a lot of things for me. What really tipped me over the edge, though, was the idea of Hell.

 

Like, I get that God supposedly doesn't send us there, but we send ourselves there and God saves us. But obviously there was something wrong with this plan. If it was really true, wouldn't more people be Christians opposed to other religions that I believe would still cause their believers to go to Hell? As much as I wanted to believe Heaven existed, even more than that, I was utterly disgusted by the idea of Hell. More people would end up there than Heaven - a LOT more.

 

It didn't work. A perfect God wouldn't design this... and for what? To be worshiped? Isn't that the whole reason he made us to start with? To be worshiped? How does the fact that more than 50% of his greatest creations burn in Hell for eternity glorify God?

 

Although my deconversion was a process that happened over the course of 5 or 6 months, I do believe that was the thought process that truly turned me into an atheist.

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The number one reason was the doctrine of hell. I'm fairly conservative and was even more so at the beginning of my questioning phase, but absolutely NOTHING could ever justify this monstrous concept to me. I couldn't accept that 95% of the entire world population was headed for this unspeakable fate for the "crime" of simply being born.

 

The problem of evil and suffering. I tried approaching this from a universalistic point of view, but it doesn't explain why a so called loving god would knowingly and willingly impose, or allow this condition on his creation.

 

The Christian attitude towards gay people. I joined a forum about 7 years ago and was blithely unaware for quite a few months that I was interacting mainly with gay men as there wasn't a section on the board initially to post what gender you were, so I assumed that I was on there with mainly other women. It was only about 6 months later when the board changed and the people listed their gender, that I realized that I was on a board with mainly gay men. By then, what I'd seen had been far from what I was led to believe about gay people. After much investigation, just before I reached the questioning phase 5 years ago, I had already come to the conclusion that being gay wasn't a choice but that people were born gay. I've personally seen the anguish that gay people have said they went through when they discovered that they were gay and were unable to change their orientation.

 

The fact that Christians simply cannot agree on any one point of doctrine, whatsoever. Ironically enough, it was them that pushed me further away than anything posted by an atheist or agnostic. I came to this website as a questioning Christian. Not only am I not a Christian anymore, but I'm more agnostic than the day I first came on here. I wouldn't be surprised if I finally end up a full blown atheist like most others on here. It's not what I envisaged when I started really questioning Christianity. My intention was to become a better Christian, not a non-Christian, but I can't just unsee what I've seen over the last 5 years.

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Tangentially germane: Did you guys see this HuffPo piece? It's yet another "Things Christians Should Stop Saying," but it's sparking some interesting comment discussion.

 

One of the most telling things I've been seeing crop up in the comments is (to paraphrase) this plaintive little whine: "But but but if Jeeeeezus isn't the only way, and there isn't any Helllllll, why would anybody be a Christian?"

 

Why indeed. Why fucking indeed.

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Tangentially germane: Did you guys see this HuffPo piece? It's yet another "Things Christians Should Stop Saying," but it's sparking some interesting comment discussion.One of the most telling things I've been seeing crop up in the comments is (to paraphrase) this plaintive little whine: "But but but if Jeeeeezus isn't the only way, and there isn't any Helllllll, why would anybody be a Christian?"Why indeed. Why fucking indeed.

What he's saying is what liberal Christians say, and that seems to me to be "we don't really believe the Bible, but we want to believe in Heaven and God and Jesus, so let's just all be nice." If you don't believe the book, why bother with the religion at all? I didn't understand this when I was a fundamentalist, and I don't understand it as an athiest! I guess I'm glad I wasn't raised in liberal Christianity, because I may not have had any reason to reject it. It was when I realized that it wasn't inerrant that I threw it away.

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Guest r3alchild

Tangentially germane: Did you guys see this HuffPo piece? It's yet another "Things Christians Should Stop Saying," but it's sparking some interesting comment discussion.

 

One of the most telling things I've been seeing crop up in the comments is (to paraphrase) this plaintive little whine: "But but but if Jeeeeezus isn't the only way, and there isn't any Helllllll, why would anybody be a Christian?"

 

Why indeed. Why fucking indeed.

I read that link and I got the impression that the writter was saying, "come on christians be honest and stick to the facts, however jesus is still a lovely guy."

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basically it was the culmination of the actions of a lot of the people at the church i used to go to, the actions of people affiliated with the faith, inconsistencies and things not adding up in terms of doctrine, and trying to reconcile said doctrine with what people have done to others in the name of that faith (indirectly speaking). there's no way around it, the hypocrisy is something i can't accept. i figure you either walk the talk or shut up.

 

my last day there was the straw that broke the camel's back in a long series of events. fortunately i was never a member there, so i biked over to the church and tied up some loose ends later that week on my day off work. after that, i quietly slipped away. funny how the people who supposedly thought i was so great and "so nice" suddenly drifted away and ignored me. even funnier is how a couple people from the church called me only to fish for gossip to spread and recruit me for a choir at some church i've never heard of. neither one of them succeeded, and i probably won't ever hear from them again. hardly a loss as far as i'm concerned.

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Welcome, Milesaway! Yeah, no loss there, it sounds like to me too. I've noted more than a few times on here and in my personal experience that if someone's not part of the "in" crowd at a church, often their presence or absence is all but invisible to the group. For an organization that is supposedly informed and infilled by a divine presence, churches certainly seem as prone to cliques and favoritism and gossip as any group of high school girls.

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Welcome, Milesaway! Yeah, no loss there, it sounds like to me too. I've noted more than a few times on here and in my personal experience that if someone's not part of the "in" crowd at a church, often their presence or absence is all but invisible to the group. For an organization that is supposedly informed and infilled by a divine presence, churches certainly seem as prone to cliques and favoritism and gossip as any group of high school girls.

thanks, Akheia! :) I'd say what little xtian faith i had to begin with died before i left for good. i noticed the people at the church i used to go to had their cliques, and i'd seen how petty, two-faced and elitist they could be towards others. there were times when their venom was directed at me, and damn it hurt! since i don't wanna derail this thread, you're more than welcome to PM me. :)

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It was one thing after another, but what really helped me break free was going to the university. I frequently visited the library there and began reading about things like evolution, philosophy, mythology, arguments against christianity, etc. At the same time I searched for info online (this site being one of them). All of that showed me what a load of appalling lies the bible is, and now I'm a freethinker smile.png.

 

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reading Hitchens. specifically "god is not great".

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have no clue what to believe anymore, let's just say I believe that there is something, but I have no clue what. Before coming to exchristian.net I was seriously questioning the actions of Christians, especially after being indoctrinated by the religious right. As I grew older and moved different places I would notice most Christians were assholes (no offense intended) and then I noticed God's lack of answers to Unselfish prayers and when I would meet "heathens", they were the nice people.  Then when my father passed I started really questioning. Then I came here and as much as I want to believe in God, the fact is the old testament is warped, extremely warped. Sacrifices, sexual immorality (from God's so called chosen prophets) etc.  Mainly I have tons of questions.

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It was a lot of different things over a period of time.

One being that my mother blamed demons for things she said that upset me.What I mean about that is,she would say something over the course of my childhood that really caused me a lot of pain,and then say demons were making me depressed when it was something she did.

 

Also,when I would pursue god just for god,for the relationship,and he wasn't there...I thought he was there before,but I guess it was just my brain tricking me.

 

Hearing people give me gliches answers.

 

Having to go through very painful situations on my own.

 

Some Christians being assholes.

 

One of the main things was that it says everyone was born for a purpose,and god is good and loves everyone and is a caring father.What caring father would let his children starve,like kids in Africa,who did nothing,didn't ask to be born,when he has the power to fix it?No one should have to pray for that to happen.

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Ah,I meant cliche answers.lol

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Though my doubts started with seeing inconsistencies in the Bible the undermined the belief in inerrancy, what really did Christianity in for me was taking a close look at the alleged Christological prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament and seeing that over and over and over again NT writers were taking Old Testament sayings completely out of context in order to twist them into something entirely different from what they clearly originally meant. Upon seeing that the prophetic fulfillments were fabricated in such an underhanded manner, I realized that all this Christianity stuff is simply made up.

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Stop reading my posts and telling my parents. This site is supposed to be confidential. You're a jerk and a jack ass whoever you are. Thanks also for hurting my folks. Good Christian actions. NOT.

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What killed my faith for good was the suffering in the world and most Christian's reaction to it.

 

People around me were praying earnestly for a new kitchen and a house with a big back yard while little kids are starving and being abused all over the world. The only answers I ever got were "God works in mysterious ways" and "with God the means justifies the end". The prayers of the rich are being 'answered' all around me while the prayers from the slums and impoverished are being ignored. This isn't a loving God at all.

 

Add evolution, cosmology, astrophysics, philosophy and a healthy dose of skepticism and say GOODBYE FAITH. zDuivel7.gif

 

That never sat right with me either. Even more disturbing is when i'd mention this to someone, i'd get similar responses with a "so what" or "oh well" attitude. It's rather dismissive, not to mention elitist when you think about it.

 

I agree with that last part. Cosmology and everything else you listed supersedes anything xtianity has to offer by a long shot. All the more reason to be done with it imo.

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Here is another thing: Let us say I am seriously pissed at some Christian and go to punch him in the face and he believes a guardian angel will stop me somehow, yet if kim jong un decides to bomb Seoul, God will let him. Where is the logic in that?

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As I think back many, many years to what started me on the path to recognizing my agnosticism, I can actually pinpoint the very event that triggered it, if not the exact time.

 

I saw someone wearing a T-shirt that read "And God said [Maxwell's equations] and there was light."

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