Why Did You Become A Christian?

[StruggleWithin]

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.

 

 

I love that last sentence!  I feel the same way!

[Idontevenknow99]

I grew up around Christianity. In-name only. In the beginning, I don't believe I was brainwashed so much as I was influenced to go the way of Christianity because nothing else was presented to me. Unlike most people here, I had a choice.

 

The indoctrination didn't come until later when I was in my mid-teens. Listening to my aunt's disapproval of me having a boyfriend and being sexual lead me down a path of misguided ideas of "purity" and abstinence. I was so heartbroken all because of a silly teenage relationship (back then it really did hurt). And I thought that I needed Jesus because of that. I thought that I was wrong for kissing boys that I liked. 

 

Also, the fear of hell played a part. I became a Christian because my fear of hell was amplified. I pretty much used Christianity's god as a moral compass for everything- relationships, strength, wisdom, school, etc. Family was broken, so I turned to faith to try to turn things around. Just a combination of things. 

 

 

 

 

 

[midniterider]

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?

 

My wife was a Christian so I became one. It was actually good times for a while.

[Ellinas]

 

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.

 

 

I love that last sentence!  I feel the same way!

 

 

Furthermore, I rather doubt whether any deity cares whether you believe in him/her either.

[Xerces]

I don't think I really had a choice actually. Folks have always been very religious, and I was raised that way. Wasn't until my teens that I started doubting and eventually stopped believing.

[seven77]

I became a Christian at 22 after several months of serious personal turmoil. At the time, I was working in a mental institution. A large group from a nearby church started volunteering and holding services there a couple times per month. I never spoke with anyone from the church but I got this really positive feeling whenever they were around. It was strange.

 

I emailed the church and ended up befriending the secretary at the time. She and I became friends. After a few months of prodding, I began attending services. It took 3 years for me to get baptized and 8 months later, my life went to shit and I began questioning it all. It took another year for me to leave.

[ax345]

I met up with very fervent Christians in college at a time when I really hadn't thought too deeply yet about life and who I was.  They were able to impress me with their beliefs, and honestly, it wasn't all bad.  For example, I once heard a group of guys at the start of a beach vacation pray to to keep focus on the girls on the trip as "sisters", and thus not to try to take advantage of them.  While I have no problem with people hooking up on a beach vacation in college, I do like the idea of people trying to see others as human, and trying to treat them right.  Stuff like that is what really got me into the faith.  Now, I have left the faith, but I have held onto a couple of nuggets like that...but in my own way, not necessarily adhering to what any church says.

[ax345]

PS - I should add that I often found people who had no faith to be the best humans, but for a while, I thought these Christians I knew in college were the proverbial s**t.

[Flutters]

The simplified reasons: I was looking for security, love and immortality.

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

I became a Christian because my parents allowed my grandparents to take me to church with them every Sunday since I was barely old enough to talk. Over the years, I was spoon-fed religion and a combination of feel-good messages and guilt trips is what led me to officially convert to Christianity in front of a large cross in a little prayer room.

 

What's funny is that I wasn't an actual Christian for the first 12 years of my life. I vaguely believed in the God and Jesus stuff, but didn't care much about it until I decided to take it more seriously because I didn't want to go to Hell to be tortured forever.

[rerics]

Born into a Methodist family, and deluded myself into believing because I was scared not to.  Ironically, it was when I was exposed to more evangelical fundamentalism that I realized it was all BS.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I was raised in a thoroughly Christian environment. I had no choice but to believe in Christianity, since that's the worldview that was touted by everyone in my immediate realm of influence. Nonchristians were spoken of as being in rebellion against God, thus insinuating that they really "knew" that Christianity is true, but were just too selfish to submit to its ethical restraints. Simply put, I was force-fed the myth and had no other frame of reference to work with. Thus, even though I went on to consider my "conversion experience" at age 15 to be when I was "born again," I really believed in Christianity for my whole life. (I never gave any serious consideration to the possibility that it may not be true until I was 29.)

[Galien]

I was a traumatised child with overblown empathy. Jesus was my hero, and I wanted to love everyone just like him. I also felt personally responsible for his crucifixion. God was the kind loving parent I never had in real life.

 

I was like a sheep to the slaughter.

[Neverlandrut]

Emotional vulnerability and lack of options as a child.

[wanderinstar]

I was desperately searching for the truth about life aged 21 after a bad break up with a long time boyfriend and while suffering severe depression. My best friend was a christian and I had always been trying to convince her it was a false religion but she was the one who loved me and helped me through the breakup so one night I prayed to any god out there to show me the truth. That night I saw Jesus in a dream and upon waking I was convinced he was the Son of God and converted. I really believed it was a vision from heaven. Turns out it was just a dream as Jesus failed me multiple times over and if fact was never there for me at all. I was vulnerable at my time of conversion, looking for a rescuer. Got sucked right in and lost 15 years. 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

I was desperately searching for the truth about life aged 21 after a bad break up with a long time boyfriend and while suffering severe depression. My best friend was a christian and I had always been trying to convince her it was a false religion but she was the one who loved me and helped me through the breakup so one night I prayed to any god out there to show me the truth. That night I saw Jesus in a dream and upon waking I was convinced he was the Son of God and converted. I really believed it was a vision from heaven. Turns out it was just a dream as Jesus failed me multiple times over and if fact was never there for me at all. I was vulnerable at my time of conversion, looking for a rescuer. Got sucked right in and lost 15 years. 

Sounds like an opportunistic infection.

[traveller2]

I was a lonely fucked up teenager.Got into new age things in very early nineties... 'searching'.Had always been deeply spiritual and was motivated by a desire to be able to get assurance that gud would hear my prayers.I read an evangelical book called 'power for living' by jamie buckingham and it explained i was missing a key part ie repentance and asking jesus 'in'.Year later n theological college I learned that 'asurance' is a particulalry scottish christian difficulty lol.And being a scot myself I certainly had it big time.So i prayed the siners prayer and bang went nearly 20 yrs.

i was also brainwashed and indoctrinated that gud would heal me and that the church was just amazing and would heal me too.By the time i started to doubt that part i was too afraid of gud and back sliding.So I kept going and plunged further and deeper in beliveing if i really committed and studied and worked at it with prayer and fasting etc i would get the healing I wanted;have some sort of ephipany.

 

what a waste of my youth!

 

it was all fucking lies told just to keep a movement from folding in on itself.

 

When i think of all the young people just starting out their adult lives right now who themselves are getting suckied into all that charismatic shite, thinking it is the best thing and the answer they have been looking for, that 'gud will heal you' and 'we will love you' ,I feel so so sorry for them.So many bright lights getting extinguished for utter lies.They really do like to prey on the young and vulnerable and as soon as they have you locked in they dump you and all the promises of help and healing go too.'They' are too busy looking for the next poor bastard to convert.

 

for me the roots go deeper though than just this.The seeds were sowed in my childhood.i honestly think now that i was looking for a father figure,certainly mentorship and a sense of family.again these were promised or intimated constantly but again never happened.Just alot of coldness from male and female bitches and miserable trapped bastards.

 

I kinda slipped thru the net in high school probably as my parents were respecatble and successful.Mentoring and guidance programs for economicaly deprvied kids in high school that were operating at that time (late 1980's United Kingdom) might have been beneficial however like i say i slipped thru the net and in my home the social snobbery that existed might have prevented engagement anyway.I honestly think if i had had a strong, present father figure at the time i might not have converted.

 

In this last year I have played about with this metaphor quite a bit and its been helpful to me to make sense of what happened.Hpw i exchanged one family with very distant autocratic parents who in actual fact were mostly not there or uninterested....for another family with a supposedly strong father figure who was equally hard to communicate with and utterly distant but just as angry and belligerant.Even the doctrine of sin can blend into this metaphor ie that i am sinful/contaminated by sin and devoid of goodness and then that it is my own fault.Its very similar to how i felt as a young man and the christian church has the perfect matching doctrine to perpetuate that.My expereince of the 'living' church was similar ;distant,spiteful individuals who the only time they express intimacy is to tell you some spiteful shit gud told them about you or some critisism they have ,which if you just address then they will love you easier or more.Actually sitting here typing about this metaphor is really hard as i see how real it is.

 

i still somtimes wonder if charismatic churches in the USA give the same expereince.Alot of literature etc that i studied painted a rosy picture of such churches and then and now i do wonder if all this was a nasty british version of north american christianity which never quite worked.i am not sure why i think like this and it may be an indication of a bit deeper deconversion to go or deeper acceptance of reality.Nothing much i have read on here makes me think that charismatic chrisitianiy works any better in the USA tho some people struggle with the loss of the social/freindship aspect of church when they deconvert and my heart goes out to those folk.For me it was easy to walk away as they were pure cunts.It was not a disbelief in gud that caused my deconversion as i mentioned recently in a thread but just my expereince of horrible people who were christians that made me finally give it up.

[dona_priscilla]

I never converted, either. It's hard to question when they get you young. Given my temperament, I am almost certain that I would have never accepted religion if I had been given the choice later in life. I never had the courage to try to convert anyone, which made me feel inadequate and guilty very often. Everything sounded like bullshit when I tried to think of what to say to a hypothetical non Christian. Deep down I knew it did not make sense but when everyone around you tells you 4+4=5 you begin to think your're the crazy one.

[dona_priscilla]

It wasn't lost on me back then that the "holy spirit" was partial to "broken" people: the sick, depressed, in crisis... Of course my critical thinking skills were not mature enough to see the opportunistic nature of evangelism. So predatory.