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Goodbye Jesus

Why Did You Become A Christian?


Cianna200

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Honestly, it all came down to one thing, I wanted heaven ( no surprise here)

I'm now dabbing into paganism and joined because I have a deep love for life. People here usually say why they became an ex christian so what's your reason for being once a christian?

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I was six years old.  I had been indoctrinated by my fundie family my entire life.  We went to a Baptist Church every Sunday and revivals whenever they came to town.  We went to a revival meeting held by Jimmy "Hooker Hiring" Swaggart and after listening to his theatrics for hours I wanted to go down to the alter call.

 

 

Because God respects man's free will.   GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

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peace that passeth all understanding and a sense of belonging to a peer group

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I was never technically a xtian in the first place. I only self identified as such and promptly ditched the label after leaving it all behind. Church wasn't a part of my life when I was a kid, and I never knew any different. The reason I even bothered with church was b/c I was dealing with some things at the time, and trying to come to terms with things that happened years before then that I wouldn't wish on anyone. I thought xtians would accept me for who I was, and I wanted a place to fit in and belong. I was in college and I was terrified of the future, and church promised a lot of things. 

 

I was basically looking for a social club, and ultimately looking for answers that were never there to begin with. I thought I'd finally found it at the last church I visited, but the shit hit the fan yet again once the honeymoon phase ended. 

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Why did I become a Christian?  fear of hell

Why did I become an Ex-Christian?  Philosophical problems with hell and Jesus' atonement for sin opened the door to considering alternative religious ideas and epistemologies.

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Christian parents. No choice.

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I guess I really wanted the idea of a spiritual life full of love…not necessarily a father figure though, more of a brahma concept - and I'd been raised in a christian country - but more of an that that is what the universe was based on.   and I wanted truth.

 

However, even as a child I delved into the mysterious…and occult. I was reading about ghosts and psychic phenomena by about 10, loved science fiction and dabbled in Dianic witchcraft at 13 and was well-versed in The Golden Dawn philosophy by 20, spiritualism and some gnosticism by 25. I've always been eclectic, even as a christian. I was considering joining the Rosicrucians and had been accepted into the order at one time. Might have been interesting!  :D

 

I never really considered Jesus a 'god'… but more of an avatar, an adept. I was a mystic…at heart.

 

Now, I'm here.

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Born into it.

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Born and raised, we went to church whether we wanted to or not. I never really questioned it, though, as we were never presented with the idea that there was any alternative way of thinking. Imagine my surprise and shock when I got into the "real world" and realized that NO ONE agrees on this stuff. Here I thought that everyone pretty much knew the truth, there were just those "bad people" who wouldn't accept it.

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I was a kid taught a little bit about the bible and I went to church but I Wasn't from a religious family. And for many years I didn't follow any of it.

 

It wasn't until my adult years did I really dive into being a Christian and I got "saved ". And the reason for that is A mix of things but Mostly Love and I felt I needed forgiveness. I felt guilty and ashamed for things and believed I needed to be forgiven and cleansed. I really did feel that conviction and surrendered. I really fell for Jesus. I felt he was the real deal and that's what I was missing in my life and he was there with open arms to love and accept me.

I was vulnerable and emotional and really wanted love and acceptance.

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Wasn't really raised in it. Believed in the bible and Jesus but that was about it.

 

In 1982 when I was 15 my crazy uber-fundy aunt gave me an end times book. It was basically a condensed version of Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth. I read the entire book in one afternoon and accepted Jesus right then because I was certain the rapture was going to happen any day.

 

I continued believing that way for 25yrs until I finally had the courage to start investigating all of the things that didn't make sense to me.

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When I was young, I watched a lot of monster movies. I knew how to defeat each one of them, but still feared they were lurking in my house just waiting to get me if I let down my guard. (How's that for a total setup for the world of Satan and demons?)  One evening watching TV with my dad, I saw an advert for The Exorcist. Here was a monster that could actually come inside and take over my body. I had never felt fear like that before, but knew from watching Jesus of Nazareth that there was only one guy who could stop them, so I picked up the family Living Bible and devoured it until sunrise. I believed and devoted myself at that point, but didn't let on to my family for another few years when I started going to church (after having a low blood pressure moment that I interpreted as a demon attack).

 

So a childish fear of imaginary monsters led me to 30+ years of wholehearted belief and conformity. I won't say it was all wasted time because I met some lovely people there, one of whom is still my best buddy. Church also got me out of my zero-social-skills-shell by constantly interacting with people, something I had feared up to that point. No idea why I was born so damn scared of everything and everybody.

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Honestly, it all came down to one thing, I wanted heaven ( no surprise here)

I'm now dabbing into paganism and joined because I have a deep love for life. People here usually say why they became an ex christian so what's your reason for being once a christian?

Have you joined a certain type of Paganism? I've been looking at Asatru lately.

 

I joined because my parents told me it was true, and I was raised in church, and when I was four my father (who I thought knew everything) sat me down and told me to turn or burn. Not in those words, but preschoolers don't really have a choice, do they?

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I don't know.

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Honestly, it all came down to one thing, I wanted heaven ( no surprise here)

I'm now dabbing into paganism and joined because I have a deep love for life. People here usually say why they became an ex christian so what's your reason for being once a christian?

Have you joined a certain type of Paganism? I've been looking at Asatru lately.

 

I joined because my parents told me it was true, and I was raised in church, and when I was four my father (who I thought knew everything) sat me down and told me to turn or burn. Not in those words, but preschoolers don't really have a choice, do they?

It's mainly Wicca but I also have an interest in Celtic paganism

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I didn't "become" a christian.  I was brainwashed from birth to believe in christianity and never question the truth of its claims.  Lousy parents...

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Raised a nominal Christian, couldn't make sense of its' doctrinal weakness and inconsistency.  Fundamentalism provided internally consistent certainty, but was based on largely the same assumptions as liberal Christianity.  Hence I was a sort of victim waiting to happen...

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I was first exposed to evangelical Christianity through the pages of a magazine called Brio, published by Focus on the Family for teenage girls. I was 14 or 15 when I got this magazine, and I was very drawn to the "perfection" and "purity" of the girls within. I wanted to be like them. However, it was not until after I had my first baby at the age of almost 20 that I really started to think more about religion. I decided, after my baby's birth, that I was atheist. (Before then I had always been kind of a spiritual agnostic; raised Catholic, always interested in religions and spirituality, but committed to none of them.)

 

The reason I decided I was atheist was because I looked at my baby and knew she had not existed a year ago. Like, literally not EXISTED. I just started to really trip out on all sorts of existential shit that I'd never been forced to face before. It only made sense that if she hadn't existed in 1998, she also wouldn't exist in 2098... and neither would I.

 

However, I was in the midst of severe postpartum depression when I was thinking all of this. Some pretty severely fucked up issues with anxiety and OCD began to occur at this time also. Those things, combined with my relatively immature emotional/mental self, left me unable to accept the idea of there being no afterlife. I began to try and learn more about Christianity, because I so badly wanted there to be a life after death.

 

I spent a year and a half reading things (Mere Christianity, The Case for Christ, etc.), attending a church, learning about Bible verses (the nice ones of course), and praying my seeker's prayers. Still, I couldn't truly believe. The things I read in books? They were OTHER people's beliefs. I'd ask questions at my church and in my Bible study group, but the answers were OTHER people's answers. None of it seemed believable. I needed a PERSONAL reason to believe.

 

And that's what I was essentially saying to God one morning in May of 2001, when I was 21 years old. I was walking to my job at a child care center and praying, "God, if you're real.. if you hear me and love me... please, please give me a sign."

 

I arrived at the daycare at the same moment as a little girl named Madison. As we walked into the building, she handed me a card, because it was Teacher Appreciation Week. I opened it to find her childish scribbles and I said, "Thank you, Madison... what does it say?" She replied, "Thankful to Jesus for you." (This was not a religious daycare center.) I was stunned. This was mere minutes after I'd prayed my prayer. I was convinced that God was answering me through this little girl. I gave my heart to Jesus that moment and from there on out, I was IN.

 

I joined a different church that was much more conservative, got into Christian music, books, intense Bible study, etc. Within three years, all of my friends were Christians, I was bringing my two young daughters to church and teaching them the "ways of the Lord", I was witnessing to family members, etc., etc.

 

 

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Many reasons.  The big reason was the fear of hell.  Another reason was Jesus videos I was always being shown which always portrayed him in only a positive light and I was being taught, "if you reject this man for your leader, then you are pure evil.  How can you reject the man that bled for you?"  Another reason is just longing for a community with my parents being gone and being adopted into a new culture.  What I longed for was a community where I would be loved and the church promised that (but of course, never delivered)

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My mom cornered me into saying the believers prayer or whatever when I was four. I just did it to get her off my case but I had no interest in it. It's funny cause saying the prayer with my fingers crossed, so to speak, is one of my earliest memories. I did it again when I was probably 10 or 11 after they put the fear of hell in me at Sunday school bc I knew the first time was insincere.

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I don't remember my parents ever discussing Xtianity with me. We went to church, and my Dad said the mealtime prayer, which was pretty generic. I really don't think my Dad gave it much thought. My mother

probably did think about it, was a believer in "god" but to my memory didn't mention Jesus. It's interesting that I am not sure I could identify exactly what either of my parents believed. Until I was a

teenager I got what I knew about Xtianity from a non-denominational church. As a matter of fact none of

my parents' friends were fundamental Xtians. As a teenager I got bombarded by my fundamentalist brother.

That's when I became a Xtian. It only took me 40+ years to work my way out of that. bill

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Long story short, It was fear of hell, fear of death, fear of being wrong about god.

Also, suffering from depression, wanting to have heaven, and someone having my back.

I liked the community and it was easier for an introvert like me to make friends when there is a common denominator, but I have found that christian community seems to only exist when you are a part of the group, that isn't true friendship IMO

I would rather be alone than only bothered with because I am in a certain group or belief system.

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I'm there with the person who said that they never "became" a Christian. Instead, it was something that I simple learned as I grew up in a Christian household. I was taught the Christian doctrines as "fact" along with other facts such as facts about science, culture, etc. I had no reason to doubt it because the adults around me believed it and said it was true. By the time I learned (at approximately age 5) that there were adults that didn't believe it, I had already been indoctrinated to think that their disbelief was a kind of rebellion and wickedness. I was never convinced of the truth of Christianity or converted to Christianity, instead it was just part of my education from the earliest moments of my life.

 

The only belief system that I've converted to is Atheism. I became an atheist after Christianity made me emotionally ill with anxiety and grief. There was a time at age 25 when life was so unpleasant for me due to the mental fetters of Christianity -- hell, wrath, atonement, justification, faith, sin, etc. I was miserable, and when I saw that CHristianity was making me miserable, and that the doctrines of CHristianity were all speculative -- and therefore easily jettisoned, I "vomited" the doctrines out of my brain. I am an atheist now because I have no God belief, and I don't care whether a God exists or doesn't exist.

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I was brainwashed with xianity from birth, never considered that it might not be true, thought unbelievers were wicked and doomed.  

 

I left xianity at 15, only to go back to it twice as an adult, both times I was depressed and looking for answers (which of course never came).  This time I have deconverted properly and will never go back.

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