What Convinced You That Christianity Was True?

[Brother Jeff]

I'm just curious... what convinced you, when you first got sucked into the cult, that Christianity was true?

 

For me, it was a glorious feeling I got out in my friend Mike's car while we were reading Hebrews 4:12. That was in early 1985, and I still remember it quite well. Mike had been "witnessing" to me for a while, and I'm sure he was very excited that the Holy Spook was magically beginning to work in my life and convince me that the glorious bullshit about Kryasst was really true! The awesome power of prayer! Glory!

 

Anyway, my first reaction to Mike's preaching to me was "get away from me with that Jesus shit!" But, as the Spook of Kryasst who is also somehow magically Him magically worked on me and softened my heart, Mike managed to get me out to his car to read the Word. When he showed me Hebrews 4:12 and I read it, I felt something come alive inside of me, and I thought there really might be something to this Jesus shit! I'm pretty sure I prayed with Mike in the car that day to magically receive Kryasst as my Lard and Slaver, but shortly after we met that day in the car, I went to see the "Jesus Film", and that sealed the deal for me. I didn't get free of the cult until early 2000. And, 14 years later, I am still healing from the damage done.

 

What convinced you? Was it scripture or supposed fulfilled prophecy, the amazing story of the love of God fulfilled in Jesus, threats of Hell, a special glorious feeling, or what?

[Orbit]

I was raised with it, and got my first Bible at 7. It was never "not there", saying yes or no was never an option. Childhood indoctrination means I never chose to be a Christian, I just was one. I believed what my parents told me like any child.

 

It didn't start to fall away until high school, and that was from studying the Bible itself. I was raised Presbyterian so there wasn't much emphasis on hell, and I cherry picked the Bible to remain a nominal liberal Christian. A lifetime of studying comparative religion, and anthropology/sociology of religion made the final exit possible this year.

[TrueFreedom]

I was indoctrinated from the cradle, three times per week.

[Vigile]

Almost no one is convinced it's true.  Indoctrination, cultural or familial is first required. 

[BrotherJosh]

I was raised in it from birth. Attended Christian school K-12, church on Sundays, youth group on Wednesdays, school chapel on Thursdays, Bible studies, summer camps, winter camps, etc...Luckily, the lure of "sinning" was too much. 

[Thackerie]

Nothing. I never felt anything at all. Even when I attended Sunday School, it sounded like a lot of bull poop to me. BUT, everyone around me was proclaiming it was Truth™, so I thought I must be stupid not to see what everyone else did so I tried and tried to be a christian. I tried so hard that I read the bible through and through and took a secular college course on its history the first chance I got. And that's what led me to see the light; then I knew I was right all along and that christianity really is bull poop.

[Brother Jeff]

Almost no one is convinced it's true.  Indoctrination, cultural or familial is first required. 

 

I'm not sure I totally agree. I was raised United Methodist, but asked to stop attending church when I was 10 year old, because I didn't believe in what they were teaching. But, for reasons I can't recall now, I was back at that church in my early teens to go through the Confirmation process. *shrugs* I had some interesting conversations when I was a teenager with my fundamentalist Christian neighbors and even went to church with them a couple of time, but religion just didn't stick at that time. A few years later, when I was 19, I got sucked into the cult through the influence of a friend and seeing the "Jesus Film". I rapidly became a hardcore believer and, though I had doubts and questions from early on in my Christian experience, I pretty much totally bought into it for 15 years of my life. There wasn't much in the way of childhood indoctrination for me, and our home was not a religious one. We went to church most Sundays when I was young, but neither one of my parents ever has been very religious. I think we went mostly for the social aspect of it. 

[Vigile]

 

But, for reasons I can't recall now, I was back at that church in my early teens to go through the Confirmation process.

 

 

I'd bet my eye tooth that those reasons are indoctrination.  You don't see Saudi Arabian immigrants showing up at Methodist churches feeling the need to get confirmed.  Nor do you see Thai, Vietnamese, etc... 

 

I got sucked into the cult through the influence of a friend and seeing the "Jesus Film".

 

Same.  You don't see immigrants from non christian countries getting sucked in like this. The message that influenced you likely had seeds planted back when you were too young to question them. 

[mymistake]

I was indoctrinated from birth.  However I said the sinner's prayer for the first time at age 6.  It was at a Jimmy Swagger revival and he convinced me that I wasn't yet a Christian and needed to say that prayer.  He could be so theatrical when he wasn't fucking hookers.

[Vigile]

He didn't fuck hookers.  He just wanked while they were in the room like a good xian.

[midniterider]

I'm just curious... what convinced you, when you first got sucked into the cult, that Christianity was true?

 

For me, it was a glorious feeling I got out in my friend Mike's car while we were reading Hebrews 4:12. That was in early 1985, and I still remember it quite well. Mike had been "witnessing" to me for a while, and I'm sure he was very excited that the Holy Spook was magically beginning to work in my life and convince me that the glorious bullshit about Kryasst was really true! The awesome power of prayer! Glory!

 

Anyway, my first reaction to Mike's preaching to me was "get away from me with that Jesus shit!" But, as the Spook of Kryasst who is also somehow magically Him magically worked on me and softened my heart, Mike managed to get me out to his car to read the Word. When he showed me Hebrews 4:12 and I read it, I felt something come alive inside of me, and I thought there really might be something to this Jesus shit! I'm pretty sure I prayed with Mike in the car that day to magically receive Kryasst as my Lard and Slaver, but shortly after we met that day in the car, I went to see the "Jesus Film", and that sealed the deal for me. I didn't get free of the cult until early 2000. And, 14 years later, I am still healing from the damage done.

 

What convinced you? Was it scripture or supposed fulfilled prophecy, the amazing story of the love of God fulfilled in Jesus, threats of Hell, a special glorious feeling, or what?

 

You crack me up, sir. :-)

 

I'm not sure what the initial reason was that made me take the plunge. The ex-wife being Xian was the catalyst though. Maybe it was my subconscious wish to keep the nookie coming in or a genuine interest in something I had never tried. I too felt the Holy Spook of Endorphin Release move through me on numerous occasions while reading the bible, praying or singing in church. Though the Holy Spook is not quite as good as pharmaceutical opiates it still keeps you going for a while if you don't consider that it may only be a chemical reaction and not actually Jesus. Belief is powerful.

 

Probably that 'feeling' is what convinced me of Jesus' reality. Getting divorced and not returning to church was like pulling out the IV from my vein. Funny how Jesus just disappears when you dont think about him. Almost like he wasn't real to begin with. Yet the rest of reality remains.

[amateur]

It definitely, for me, began with familiarity of xianity and the beliefs of our church, which my parents didn't push on us or strongly endorse at all, but it was all familiar to me.  So then, when I went thru a very hard time in my early teen years (very normal things that a lot of pre-teens and early teens go through, which I now know that I'm an adult) I found a little posted thing from our church that said, "God is greater than every problem I have."  Fine, I thought, I can't think of what to do with my problems, so god can solve them.  So I started praying and telling god he could have my problems to take care of, and I talked about it with god.  The rest of that school year wasn't great, but over the summer I got ideas of things to do that would make my school life better and I began immediately practicing them when the new year started.  So of course my life improved and I made some friends and people quit being so mean to me.  I learned to fight back verbally when necessary, and I learned to be more friendly when necessary.  At that time (I was a young teen, remember!) I attributed this to god answering my prayers for help.  Of course, now I know that it was me spending the summer thinking of ways to improve things, become more friendly, AND I was entering a new grade in a new building where two different schools merged together, so half the students did not already know me.

 

I don't regret any of that, as my life definitely improved with the new school year, and for the rest of my school years. But I did spend about five years really believing it was god, and now I know it was just me and my own natural maturation over those young years.  It's also funny now to think that god "helped" me by teaching me to fight verbally!  I also got into punk rock a couple years into this, and I never had trouble reconciling that with xian faith, because punk got all my anger and angst and violence out in a very safe way.  This was the late 70's, so it was the really good punk, even when Sid Vicious was still alive (well, Sid being a "good" punk musician is arguable, or maybe not as he sucked as a bassist, but I'm only trying to give you a sense of timing here).  I've dropped the xian faith, but I do still enjoy the Sex Pistols.

 

I went back to my family's natural agnosticism when my mom died when I was 18.  God wasn't helpful with any of that.  Punk rock has always remained helpful to me.  I'm 50 now and still enjoy getting out my aggression and anger in a safe way through that old music.

[Brother Jeff]

 

 

But, for reasons I can't recall now, I was back at that church in my early teens to go through the Confirmation process.

 

 

I'd bet my eye tooth that those reasons are indoctrination.  You don't see Saudi Arabian immigrants showing up at Methodist churches feeling the need to get confirmed.  Nor do you see Thai, Vietnamese, etc... 

 

I got sucked into the cult through the influence of a friend and seeing the "Jesus Film".

 

Same.  You don't see immigrants from non christian countries getting sucked in like this. The message that influenced you likely had seeds planted back when you were too young to question them. 

 

 

I see your point but... I don't know where childhood indoctrination would have come from. All I can remember of religion in our home was occasionally reading Bible stories in our living room. And, at 10 years old, I ditched religion for about three years. I strongly suspect that the reason I went back to church for Confirmation is that my mother was good friends with the pastor at the time, and she probably wanted me to do it. She may not have given me a choice about it, but I just don't recall. My mother was and is wonderful and awesome, but she was definitely a "my way or the highway" parent. And when I met my friend Mike at college when I was 19, I was totally turned off by religion. I was mentally ill as hell by then and was too busy partying my ass off to have any interest in God or religion. Mike had to work long and hard to bring me into the faith. I was not an easy sell, but I turned out to be a very enthusiastic convert once I got sucked in. I just don't see where indoctrination comes in...

[Brother Jeff]

It definitely, for me, began with familiarity of xianity and the beliefs of our church, which my parents didn't push on us or strongly endorse at all, but it was all familiar to me.  So then, when I went thru a very hard time in my early teen years (very normal things that a lot of pre-teens and early teens go through, which I now know that I'm an adult) I found a little posted thing from our church that said, "God is greater than every problem I have."  Fine, I thought, I can't think of what to do with my problems, so god can solve them.  So I started praying and telling god he could have my problems to take care of, and I talked about it with god.  The rest of that school year wasn't great, but over the summer I got ideas of things to do that would make my school life better and I began immediately practicing them when the new year started.  So of course my life improved and I made some friends and people quit being so mean to me.  I learned to fight back verbally when necessary, and I learned to be more friendly when necessary.  At that time (I was a young teen, remember!) I attributed this to god answering my prayers for help.  Of course, now I know that it was me spending the summer thinking of ways to improve things, become more friendly, AND I was entering a new grade in a new building where two different schools merged together, so half the students did not already know me.

 

I don't regret any of that, as my life definitely improved with the new school year, and for the rest of my school years. But I did spend about five years really believing it was god, and now I know it was just me and my own natural maturation over those young years.  It's also funny now to think that god "helped" me by teaching me to fight verbally!  I also got into punk rock a couple years into this, and I never had trouble reconciling that with xian faith, because punk got all my anger and angst and violence out in a very safe way.  This was the late 70's, so it was the really good punk, even when Sid Vicious was still alive (well, Sid being a "good" punk musician is arguable, or maybe not as he sucked as a bassist, but I'm only trying to give you a sense of timing here).  I've dropped the xian faith, but I do still enjoy the Sex Pistols.

 

I went back to my family's natural agnosticism when my mom died when I was 18.  God wasn't helpful with any of that.  Punk rock has always remained helpful to me.  I'm 50 now and still enjoy getting out my aggression and anger in a safe way through that old music.

 

I crank up AC/DC when I get really stressed. My awesome Bose headphones have taken the abuse well, but I'm not so sure about my poor shredded eardrums... Probably not really a very good idea to crank up AC/DC really loud for an hour or so, lol... 

[Vigile]

 

 

 

But, for reasons I can't recall now, I was back at that church in my early teens to go through the Confirmation process.

 

 

I'd bet my eye tooth that those reasons are indoctrination.  You don't see Saudi Arabian immigrants showing up at Methodist churches feeling the need to get confirmed.  Nor do you see Thai, Vietnamese, etc... 

 

I got sucked into the cult through the influence of a friend and seeing the "Jesus Film".

 

Same.  You don't see immigrants from non christian countries getting sucked in like this. The message that influenced you likely had seeds planted back when you were too young to question them. 

 

 

I see your point but... I don't know where childhood indoctrination would have come from. All I can remember of religion in our home was occasionally reading Bible stories in our living room. And, at 10 years old, I ditched religion for about three years. I strongly suspect that the reason I went back to church for Confirmation is that my mother was good friends with the pastor at the time, and she probably wanted me to do it. She may not have given me a choice about it, but I just don't recall. My mother was and is wonderful and awesome, but she was definitely a "my way or the highway" parent. And when I met my friend Mike at college when I was 19, I was totally turned off by religion. I was mentally ill as hell by then and was too busy partying my ass off to have any interest in God or religion. Mike had to work long and hard to bring me into the faith. I was not an easy sell, but I turned out to be a very enthusiastic convert once I got sucked in. I just don't see where indoctrination comes in...

 

 

You got it from your culture if it didn't come from home.  You grew up in Texas, right? 

 

You didn't grow up and become a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, you became a member of the religion you were surrounded by and which permeated your culture on all levels. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

Chalk me up as another one raised in Christianity. From the cradle up, I was in church three times a week and had family members pushing religion when not in church. It was pounded into me constantly, and there was never any other view presented as a viable option. I wasn't "convinced" by real evidence, but rather I was conditioned by indoctrination to believe. The indoctrination was so thorough that I didn't have any doubts about the the truth of Christianity until I was 29.

[Ellinas]

I was softened up by a nominal Anglican upbringing and turned to fundamentalism as it offered a more structured, definite belief system that actually offered answers.  The answers may be such that I now see them as b*ll*cks, but at the time...

 

Why Christianity as opposed to anything else?  Because that's how I was brought up.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Combination of the default cultural respect given to Christianity, an avid belief in monsters (I was 11 and lived in my imagination rather a lot), an advert for the Exorcist to provide the fear-factor, and the Jesus of Nazareth series that showed me he could keep me safe from demons. Devoured the Bible for a couple of years, listened to radio preachers, considered myself a believer from when I picked up the Bible, later an extra jolt of fear from low blood pressure that I thought could be demons, went to a Nazarene church to make my belief official.

 

In retrospect, a silly childish decision, but one that had life-changing results (mostly from a uber-shy wallflower being thrust into an accepting social group for 30 years).

[Brother Jeff]

 

 

 

 

But, for reasons I can't recall now, I was back at that church in my early teens to go through the Confirmation process.

 

 

I'd bet my eye tooth that those reasons are indoctrination.  You don't see Saudi Arabian immigrants showing up at Methodist churches feeling the need to get confirmed.  Nor do you see Thai, Vietnamese, etc... 

 

I got sucked into the cult through the influence of a friend and seeing the "Jesus Film".

 

Same.  You don't see immigrants from non christian countries getting sucked in like this. The message that influenced you likely had seeds planted back when you were too young to question them. 

 

 

I see your point but... I don't know where childhood indoctrination would have come from. All I can remember of religion in our home was occasionally reading Bible stories in our living room. And, at 10 years old, I ditched religion for about three years. I strongly suspect that the reason I went back to church for Confirmation is that my mother was good friends with the pastor at the time, and she probably wanted me to do it. She may not have given me a choice about it, but I just don't recall. My mother was and is wonderful and awesome, but she was definitely a "my way or the highway" parent. And when I met my friend Mike at college when I was 19, I was totally turned off by religion. I was mentally ill as hell by then and was too busy partying my ass off to have any interest in God or religion. Mike had to work long and hard to bring me into the faith. I was not an easy sell, but I turned out to be a very enthusiastic convert once I got sucked in. I just don't see where indoctrination comes in...

 

 

You got it from your culture if it didn't come from home.  You grew up in Texas, right? 

 

You didn't grow up and become a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, you became a member of the religion you were surrounded by and which permeated your culture on all levels. 

 

 

Yes, I grew up in Texas. I don't see though how even cultural indoctrination, though it may have been there, could have played much of a role. Like I said, I was totally turned off by religion by the time I was in my late teens, and my friend Mike and the Holy Spook had to work hard to bring me into the faith. I have one friend who is Buddhist who, to my knowledge, has never been a Christian believer, and he grew up in Texas too, surrounded by Christian culture. Those other religions mentioned by you do exist in the US, but they are obviously a minority compared to Christians. Christianity does indeed permeate our culture. I find a lot to like in Hinduism and Buddhism, though I don't follow the religions. And people do become Muslims here. I have heard in the news about Americans who became Muslims here fighting in Iraq and I think in Syria also for the glory of Allah. So, conversions to other religions does happen here. It's just much rarer than conversion to Christianity, and I agree that that has to do with cultural indoctrination.

[rach]

Aside from being indoctrinated in my early years, I was compelled by other people's testimonies which were usually quite emotional and the incredible passion and articulation of the ministers.  I never trusted my own judgment and never thought of evaluating the likelihood of the claims I was hearing.  For instance "you will receive whatever you ask in prayer."  I never thought in depth about how we don't receive whatever we ask for in prayer or else this world would be a much better place than it is.  I just thought, Jesus can't be wrong.  So in short I threw my own judgment and common sense out the window, because I thought my mind was not clear enough and my heart not pure enough, and I replaced my thoughts and opinions with the thoughts and opinions of those who seemed to know better than I.  Also the people I listened to, were decades older than me, and I inherently trusted their life experience. 

[Neverlandrut]

I was indoctrinated as a child. I asked Jesus into my heart at age 7. My reasons were all emotional. I was taught and believed that there was something wrong with me (sin), and trusting Jesus was the only way for god to overlook my sin so I could go to heaven instead of hell. I was made to feel like I was not good enough to god unless I accepted Jesus. From there, it was years of social reinforcement and confirmation bias that kept me believing. It was my senior year in high school before I began having serious doubts. Going to college continued those doubts, but I temporarily resolved them by accepting a lot of cognitive dissonance. 5 years into marriage and two kids later, the realization that the bible is, indeed, not inerrant sent me down a sharp, fast spiral into unbelief. I literally woke up one day and realized that I no longer believed in Christianity, and that it was impossible for me to choose to believe again. That's when I searched out people online who had been through this loss of faith I was going through. I found YouTube videos by 3vid3nc3 and prplfx that gave me comfort knowing that others had believing in Jesus as sincerely as I did, yet lost their faith. Shortly thereafter, I found this site. Many of you have been encouragements to me. Time and conversing with many of you have helped me to move on. I can truly say that I'm now free of religion.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I was raised to believe in God, miracles, Jesus as divine in some way, etc.  But I always thought the "sin and a Holy God" stuff was weird Puritanism.  Then friends witnessed to me when I was a college sophomore and had a lot of emotional needs - plus I had a crush on one of them!  Reading St. Paul at first made me resist the big "I'm a sinner" thing but then I came to an emotional born again experience.  I don't think I had a critically examined basis for faith at all.  In the year or two that followed I read various apologists on worrisome topics like "are the NT documents reliable?" plus philosophers like Aquinas on proofs for the existence of God.  Those scholars convinced me that it was reasonable to maintain full-bore faith. (I was never a Young Earth type, though!)  But as the emotional payoff waned, and other emotional/psychological crises, which had always been there, resurfaced, I had to go back and reexamined what I believed.  Step by step, its solidity evaporated.

[directionless]

I was fooled twice. I was raised as an Episcopalian, but my family rarely went to church. My mother watched 700 club and read Christian books. In college (late 80's), I gave up on Christianity due to my inability to experience any confirmation that God exists. "Failed Christian" would be a better description than "atheist". Sometimes I felt more atheist than others.

 

In 2008, I went to visit an old friend. Weird things kept happening, but I managed to ignore them. Then as I was getting off the airplane after the weekend I suddenly snapped and believed that almost everybody was part of a satanic conspiracy. I thought I was as good as dead and if I told anybody else then they would be killed too.

 

I couldn't sleep very much because I could hear things constantly and it felt like somebody was trying to put thoughts in my head. I couldn't eat very much either, because I thought they controlled the grocery stores and restaurants. If a waitress smiled at me, I assumed that she had just sprinkled drugs on my salad.

 

My mother had converted to Eastern Orthodox, so she asked her priest to meet me. That priest I'm now convinced was actually an atheist, but he performed a sham exorcism that didn't impress me very much. Then he told me I needed to start going to church, so I agreed to do that.

 

Gradually as my mental health recovered I began to doubt Christianity again. After a couple of years I stopped going to church. A year or so later I mentioned my experience to a therapist and she told me that I had experienced psychosis. Over the past couple of years I've been trying to get back to normal.

[seven77]

Looking back, I realize that I was never a Christian at all. My former church was as strange one and it was the only one that I attended during my time as a believer

 

When I first began going there in 2008, it was a mainline liberal Christian church. They belonged to a very small denomination that isn't very widespread here in the Midwest, but they did not conform to the practices of this denomination and left it after a year of endless bullshit meetings in early 2010. After they left their denomination, they started to drift more towards a Messianic and/or Sacred Name policy. Every sermon was complete with a lesson in Jewish history or Hebrew language or their particular take on XYZ as it pertained to the "Jewishness of Jesus". There was a lot of talk about what it meant for Jesus to be Jewish and when they built their new sanctuary, they began decorating it with paintings and sculptures made by the inner cult (my term for the Torah-observant wannabe Jews that were a small but growing contingent within this particular church).

 

In 2011, I had a lot happen in my life and I agreed to be baptized 3 years after accepting Christ into my heart. I was going to church 2x week, doing a Bible study, and attending therapy sponsored through the church. I had been doing all of that for the past 2-ish years anyway, although my church attendance had been shoddy due to my work schedule...but in 2011, I was really committed and did all that I could to be "on fire for Christ".

 

Eventually the fire left me and in 2012, I had some family issues that made it pretty fucking clear that God/Jesus/Holy Spook were questionable. I questioned and was about ready to make a break with my faith. I had quit attending church in the winter of 2012, was no longer doing Bible studies, and had begun lurking here...but I hadn't completely given up on it all.

 

The primary thing that put the nail in the coffin for me was attending "The Truth Project" series. Up until I had attended this series, I had honestly believed that both science and faith were compatible, that a rational person could have both in their lives. I thought that my church, as divided and confusing as it was, was at least tolerant of science on some level. After a few weeks of attending this series, I saw that most of the people in the church were Intelligent Design enthusiasts who didn't believe in macroevolution and were more than happy to buy into lame arguments to please their pastors.

 

I know, this is supposed to be about what made me believe that Christianity was true. I don't believe that I was ever a Christian though. Not really. If anything, I was a Messianic Jew, for that was what was being taught at this church. Sure, we talked about Jesus, sang the songs and read the apologia, but that's not really what they believed. Despite appearances, the upper echelons of the church hierarchy were all Messianics of some sort. They were all narrow-visioned, but called themselves open-minded to avoid controversy.

 

Anyway, yeah, I struggled in the church and never really felt accepted there to any great degree. In the back of mind, I always knew that things didn't add up. Maybe it was because my family is fairly irreligious and I never went to church as a child or teen. Besides youth group and that was a bunch of bullshit pushed on me to get me to "make friends" in junior high. As a believer, I examined my faith, read commentaries, looked things up in concordances, looked at the original Hebrew and Greek, watched "Zeitgeist" and those "History of the Bible" shows on cable, and read mythology books. So I'd say, I was searching for something there in the church and having failed to find it, I left.

 

I was never sufficiently convinced.

[milesaway]

For me, it was a combination of wishful thinking and being in a bad place at the time, since I didn't grow up in it. I think I knew way deep down all along ever since I was a kid that things didn't add up with xtianity, but I couldn't put my finger on it and I couldn't understand why.