How and Why I Left Christianity

[dirwid]

How and Why I Left Christianity

 

A few years ago, I used to be a Christian. Now I am sort of agnostic/deistic. And also antireligious.

 

To give you a background:I grew up in a conservative Christian bubble for most of my childhood. All of my friends and immediate family are Christians and most of them are Pentecostal. I don’t know any of them who don’t think the Bible is inerrant. I never (and still don’t) have any non-Christian friends.

 

Religion never felt terribly important to me, and I was slightly ashamed that I didn’t naturally feel religious in my day-to-day life like I was expected to. I would silently thank God for a pretty sunset, but didn’t feel overly-dependent or attached to God. Many people in my life would say that they relied on God for everything down to simply getting out of bed in the morning, and I found this weird because I could go a day without even thinking about God and I would be perfectly fine. I had a hard time believing that every mundane little blessing in our everyday lives was caused by God, or that God was causing good things to happen rather them being a result of our own actions or the actions of others. I secretly thought reading the Bible was boring and I would rarely read it without someone else encouraging or shaming me to read it. I rarely felt excited about my faith like other people in my life were. I couldn’t speak in tongues like some of my friends - even though I asked God many times. I did pray, but I never heard God’s voice like other people claimed to hear. For a while, I was very frustrated because of these things and I felt like God was either arbitrarily silent towards me or I wasn’t saved or I was doing something wrong. I felt like I hardly belonged, and I feared for my salvation for a while. I did everything I needed to be saved and I did truly believe the Bible, so finally I concluded that I did my part and if God didn’t accept me then that’s not my problem.

 

Now that I’m agnostic and I look back at this, I’m still not quite sure why I never became “on fire for Jesus” like most other people in my life. I was “going through the motions”, as they say. Maybe I am innately too rational to fool myself into believing I was actually having experiences with God. I don’t know.

 

By growing up always surrounded by conservative Christians, I used to always hear only their side to every religious or political argument. When I heard about what other people believed in religion and politics, it was always a warped, negative, misrepresented picture of it from someone who was against it. It was a classic case of indoctrination. When you are younger, it is forced on you. But once I got old enough, I was given permission to surf the internet on my own. That is when I started being exposed to information outside of my bubble of indoctrination.

 

I began reading countless debates on creation and evolution online, and I also tried to defend my belief in young earth creationism in the comment sections. Through this, I got a sense for the rigidity and formality of debate, learned to spot fallacies, and realized in a way I hadn’t before that I could discover truth by logical reasoning and testing the validity of various arguments. This was incredibly important in my path towards irreligion.

 

These online debate often drifted off into a debate about Christianity and Biblical inerrancy. I found myself having doubts about the accuracy and inerrancy of the Bible (not just about the book of Genesis but countless other parts of scripture). There were so many arguments that seemed to refute different passages of the Bible, and it felt like there were a bunch of leaks in a dam and I was scrambling to plug them up. Every time I found a satisfactory or at least partially satisfactory answer to a question, two more leaks would form.

 

Some arguments against Christianity seemed solid at first, but after researching them, much to my relief it turned out that they were very flimsy. So I tried to encourage myself with that thought: That all the unanswered questions I had were nothing to worry about at all, and a good answer for it would come but I just hadn’t found it yet.

 

Soon, however, I began thinking about the doctrines of Christianity many times a day, forming connections and trying to piece things together. I started daring to come up with new problems for Christianity myself and seeing if I could find an answer to them. To my horror, I found that there were whole realms of questions that led to other questions, all which I could think of few or no answers to.

 

 Searching for answers online didn’t help much either. Gotquestions.org and other sites failed me more and more often, and I started seeing logical flaws in the answers I received from them. I felt annoyed and uneasy when sites like Answers in Genesis would answer a scientific question with the Bible more than they did with science. I personally accepted the Bible, but I knew that the atheists I was debating would not, and I didn’t have much of a reason to give them as to why they should accept the Bible as well. The answers I got from Christian websites would only address part of the problem, and the main part of the problem would go unanswered. Or they would give an answer that relies on circular reasoning. Or they would give emotional reasons or other reasons that are irrelevant. Or they would simply say something along the lines of “I don’t know why this is the case, but we’ll just have to take it on faith. After all, it says here in the Bible that God cannot lie, so we can trust Him on this.”

 

However, I saw that faith didn’t work very well in debates. Atheists wouldn’t accept it and I couldn’t blame them for it, so this answer always left me unsatisfied. Faith became a topic to avoid. I was on the same side as those using faith in arguments, but I was embarrassed by them. Faith was like a currency that only had value in my little Christian bubble, and outside it, it was worthless. People who believe different religions use faith to support ideas that contradict with Christianity, and I had no answer to why my faith should be accepted but theirs rejected. But logical reasoning, I saw, was like a universally accepted currency. Logic was incredibly useful. It is what enabled every scientific advancement. It allows us to truly understand the natural world. I relied on it more in my day-to-day life than I did on God. Logic was also necessary to be a Christian, else you could not even read and understand the Bible. I was reluctantly forced to admit the obvious to myself: Logic was superior to faith and it made no sense to make faith superior to logic in special cases. This was an important step in my de-conversion.

 

I had liked to point to creation as the proof that God existed, but I realized that it told us nothing about which god (if any) created the world. Christianity didn’t really have any advantage over other religions. I realized that a great way to show yourself whether or not some argument in support of a religious claim is valid is to think of what other religions say about the matter, and ask yourself what logical reasons you have to think Christianity is correct about the issue and all the other religions are wrong. If you bring up Christian claims of miracles, supernatural experiences, or words from God, then just consider its equivalent in some other religion. If you don’t consider a Muslim’s supernatural experiences as evidence for their claims, why shouldn’t yours be rejected in the same way?

 

I felt like I knew Christianity was logically true somehow (else I would reject Christianity) and I was grateful for being born into a Christian family so that I could grow up knowing the truth. Yet it scared me that in the 2000 years Christianity has existed, there were still no answers (that I could find) to some of the basic questions such as the problem of evil and others. You’d think that if there were good logical answers, everyone would be using them and I would have found them. I was terrified when some of my Christian beliefs could be logically forced into a corner where there were only two options: Believe in spite of the evidence to the contrary or admit the Bible is not perfect and Christianity is built on a foundation of sand. There was a growing pile of things that forced me (because of my indoctrination) to choose the first option, and this required me to have more and more faith that I was still right and all the answers were just hiding somewhere. With anguish, I started seeing that irreligion was winning over Christianity.

 

I quickly became scared that I was losing the faith. I didn’t know if I was still a Christian or how anybody could know for sure that they were. I became afraid I would go to hell. I was afraid of my parents and friends finding out. I was afraid of people asking me about something that would force me to tell them about my doubts. I wanted to remain a Christian. I still wanted to believe in the Bible, but it was becoming difficult. I became depressed thinking that I might be going to hell for having doubts about the Bible, for not letting myself just stop asking questions, and for not being able to take everything on faith. I saw that praying for more faith wouldn’t solve the problems with Christianity – It would just sweep all the problems under the rug. I started constantly praying in my head, “Forgive me of my sins, God”.

 

With all these thoughts about going to hell, my questions turned to the concept of hell, and that opened a whole can of worms for my faith. Thinking things through, I finally realized how evil and senseless God would have to be for him to send a person to hell. I realized the double-standards God has between the rules that he expects us to follow and the ones that He himself has to follow. It seemed that God could do whatever He liked and it would still not be considered sin.

 

I began to see that Christianity essentially blackmails a person into making a low-information decision to follow Christ. It appeared like religion prevents a person from thinking critically about many things - keeping them in a self-perpetuating way of thinking that is almost unable to correct itself. I fully realized that truth is something that must be tested and shown to be true through research, discussion, and lots of logical reasoning - not something logically indefensible, unfalsifiable, and must be believed by blind faith and threats. I tried to console myself with the thought that Christianity only resembles a scam by some sheer coincidence.

 

I used to think along the lines of “It sucks that a place like Hell exists, but that’s just the way things are”. But finally it occurred to me that God chose to create hell and set up all the rules that we follow, and being omnipotent, He could have chosen any number of other ways to set up His world.

           

              I thought that if God really loved us and He was omnipotent, He would have never created hell. But if somehow you can defend that He would, He could have made it temporary and bearable or He could have made it so that humans would never end up there. But if somehow you can defend this as well, God could have simply never created us. With the vast majority of humans supposedly going to hell, that seemed like such a terrible tragedy beyond words. I felt like it would have been better if humans never existed at all than for even one person to have to experience that barbaric, merciless punishment for any reason. What could be more important to a loving God than caring for his creation’s fate? For what could He possibly consider all this tragedy to be a net gain? For his glory. That’s it. God wants to be worshipped forever by a small, questioningly-chosen subset of his creation. This seemed to me like the most selfish, hateful act imaginable. 

           

              Now to me, Christians were always the last people on earth who would try to justify sin. But when asked questions about hell or God’s terrible atrocities in the Old Testament, you could watch even a sweet old Christian lady transform before your eyes into an apologist for murder, torture, hate, rape, slavery, and abuse. But only in specific cases – namely, when it was God doing it or ordering it. At this point, it seemed to me like God was the ultimate hypocrite.

I began thinking about the way God set up the rules for us:

 

•              God determines what is sin and what is not sin. He makes many things to be sin so it is easy to sin, even accidentally.
•          God gives everyone (or allows everyone to have) a sinful nature. A sinful nature ensures that you are tempted to sin and will sin at least once in your life.
•          God decides the punishment for sin – hell. Due to the above two points, everyone is guaranteed to sin so everyone’s default destination is hell.
•          God thinks it is a good idea to create man even with all the cards stacked against them like this. He doesn’t give them a choice of whether they want to be born into this world or not.

 

A loving, omnipotent God would not set up everything so that hell is the default destination, I thought. If He loved us, He would not create hell. But if somehow you can defend this, he would at least set up the rules so that it is nearly impossible for anyone to go there if they didn’t want to go. God’s gift of salvation, the loophole to escape from inevitable torture after death… Maybe having this option available to everyone justifies the way God set up the world for us? And as shown above, God created the problem to begin with (because of the way He set up the rules and the way He created us), but does this loophole actually fix the problem?

 

I began considering the way God set up salvation:

•           Killing Jesus was needed to enable all-forgiving God to forgive us.
•           But this doesn’t actually mean we are forgiven:  God made sure that His forgiveness is conditional – depending on whether or not we accept this wonderful offer to solve the problem that He created.
•           And don’t blaspheme the Holy Spirit – the omnipotent and merciful God is unable or unwilling to forgive that.
•           In order to be saved, we have to believe God exists. If God exists, He makes His existence unprovable and requires us to go against what our rational minds tell us by forcing us to believe a huge collection of myths and legends without a shred of evidence. He calls this belief without evidence “faith” and chose to make it the backbone of the Christian religion. Why would God give us rational minds if they tend to lead us to reject the existence of God and therefore cause us to be damned? Why would He give us rational minds if He loves us and wants us to go to heaven?
•           Not only does God give us no good evidence in support of His existence, He allows there to be plenty of evidence that leads us to believe that the Bible is wrong about many things and that God doesn’t exist. Many Christians say that God is testing their faith through this. But why would He want to do this? What is valuable about blind faith? Doesn’t God know that by doing this, He is gambling with our eternal destiny? Again, if God loved us, why would he make it hard to go to heaven?  
•           God chooses to give us the gospel message in a book written by mere men rather than a book written directly by himself. This causes rational people to question whether it is actually from God and this in turn causes them to go to hell.
•           God allows there to be many competing religions in the world and does nothing to make His religion seem any truer than any of the other religions. This causes a person’s eternal salvation to come down to the chance that they will choose the correct religion. Again, why would a loving God choose this?
•           God causes people to be born in a situation (geographic location, for example) where they will live their lives without ever hearing the gospel message and go to hell for no thought of their own. Why would God choose this?  
•           God chose to make his plan for salvation dependent on a person’s ability to understand His gospel message. Yet God chooses to create people who are mentally incapable of understanding it. Why would God choose this?
•           God allows his gospel message to message to be distorted. This can cause people to go to hell. Why would God choose this?
•           God does not spread the gospel message himself. If He did it Himself, it would simultaneously solve the problem of there being no evidence for God, the problem of His gospel message not being heard, and the problem of His gospel message being distorted. But He doesn’t do this. Why? Nearly everyone would go to heaven if He did this. Isn’t that what He wants?
•           God lets Christians and non-Christians alike to sometimes die young. If He wanted more people to go to heaven, He would go to great lengths to allow non-Christians more time to make a decision to become Christian.

 

 

If before we were born God gave us a choice about whether or not we wanted to be born and we knew the following:

•           Endless torture would await us by default
•           We most likely wouldn’t find or accept the loophole in our lifetime

….Then I don’t think anyone would choose to be born into this world.

None of these things make any sense or have any reasonable answer if you are looking at them from the perspective that Christianity is true and God is omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, perfectly just, and merciful. However, all of these points DO make an astonishing amount of sense if you consider them from the perspective that God does not exist and Christianity is an ingenious self-perpetuating scam. Suddenly I began thinking that things in Christian doctrine aren’t just the way they are because that’s the way they are, but they actually serve the purpose of keeping people dependent on the faith and spreading the scam.

 

For example, verses like John 15:5, Jeremiah 10:23 and Matthew 4:4 demolish a person’s sense of control and self-esteem and leave them dependent on Christianity. Verses like Hebrews 6:4-6 keep them fearful of leaving the faith. Verses like 2 Cor. 10:4 and Matthew 12:31 discourage them of even thinking of leaving the faith to begin with. Verses like Proverbs 22:6 and Ephesians 6:4 encourage Christians to indoctrinate their kids while they are vulnerable to that sort of thing, thereby spreading the scam. Verses like Mark 16:15 also serve this purpose. Verses such as 1 Cor. 3:18-20, 2 Cor. 10:4, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 55:8-9, James 1:6, etc. encourage Christians to reject “human reasoning” in favor of faith in God and His wisdom - thereby preventing you from questioning the Bible. It suddenly makes perfect sense why verses like Luke 4:12 and Deut. 6:16 would tell you not to put God to the test, when putting God to the test would lead to the salvation of many people if God actually existed and answered prayers. You are encouraged to be like a sheep and to have the faith of a little child. The concept of infinite reward is a bribe to draw them forward in hope of gain, and the concept of infinite punishment serves as a threat to push them forward to avoid loss. Conflicting statements about what is required to be saved are probably unintentional, but nevertheless they serve the purpose of setting a believer down the path of ever increasing devotion to the faith just to be sure of their salvation (I know because this was my situation at one point).

 

There are dozens and dozens of other conclusions I came to about Christianity and religion in general, but it would take me forever to write them all down. Most of them have to do with Old Testament laws, a few New Testament verses, details of God’s actions and overall plan for the world which contradicted with His supposedly perfect nature, contradictions in the Bible, God’s inaction today, the deliberate unreasonableness of most Christians, blatant misinterpretations of the Bible by Christians in order to avoid having to accept the obvious falseness or evil in particular verses, etc.

 

With zero evidence in favor of Christianity, an ever-growing mountain of evidence against Christianity, and a convincing alternate view of what Christianity is actually about and how it even exists, I eventually found it impossible to believe any more.

 

 

This deconversion that I had did not occur immediately, but occurred gradually over a period of almost 2 years. It was partially my fear of hell and my fear of what the Christians in my life would say if they found out about me that made the process take so long. By the end of that time, I considered myself to be irreligious. Then I soon became antireligious. My morals and politics have changed here and there for the better with my rejection of religion. However, I am still in the closet about all of this, so I still try to pretend to be Christian. It can be a really unpleasant business.

 

Now I see everything that happens today as perfectly explainable by natural causes. I find it very silly to believe that some god must have been involved in the events of the world in order for us to be able to explain why something good or something bad happened to someone. The world looks the same as it would if there wasn’t any god at all and if the world just operated on its own. The laws of nature don’t attach any significance to whether a bolt of lightning strikes a tree or if it strikes a person. Only we do, and I don’t need religion to cope with that. Because there is no God directing my fate, I am fully responsible for making this world a better place. It is no longer forbidden to apply reason to subjects like morality and politics, and because of this, I have a method to improve the world rather than being dogmatic and stuck in the past. I consider that a good thing.

 

I’m sure I could think of a lot more to say if I took the time, but this post is long enough already.

Thanks for reading!

-         -     dirwid

 

 

 

 

[JenniferG]

3 hours ago, dirwid said:

"Faith was like a currency that only had value in my little Christian bubble, and outside it, it was worthless… Logic was superior to faith and it made no sense to make faith superior to logic in special cases."

 

I remember as a teenager being in awe of the Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (KJV)  My pastor preached that this verse is what Christianity hinged on. Of course, I had no clue what it actually meant, but I thought it was the most beautiful and profound words I had ever heard and read. This, I had decided was the foundation of my belief in the whole ball of Fundie wax! However, when I turned 50, doubts began to work their way  into my mind  and I finally took the plunge 4 years ago. I refused to suffer a minute more of abuse from the pulpit about how fucking bad, evil, disobedient and sinful I was. I refused to take communion, walked out of the church, never to return again.  It took  me decades to work out that the whole thing was a delusion. "The Truman Show" movie did it for me!

 

I like Ex Pastor Dan's (fellow Xtian member)  interpretation of Hebrews 11:1 Now Faith is the ABSENCE of things hoped for, the RECOMPENSE of things not seen.”

"Faith is not evidence; it is what you use when you don’t have evidence. Hebrews 11:1 is evidence of nothing more than delusion." said Ex Pastor Dan.

 

Well thought out article, Dirwid! I enjoyed reading it.

[MOHO]

4 hours ago, dirwid said:

   Now to me, Christians were always the last people on earth who would try to justify sin. But when asked questions about hell or God’s terrible atrocities in the Old Testament, you could watch even a sweet old Christian lady transform before your eyes into an apologist for murder, torture, hate, rape, slavery, and abuse.

 

@dirwid,

 

The entire post was well thought out and you obviously put a great deal of time and effort into it - over a period of time. The questions in the bullet points were so spot on that I copied them and squirreled them away for later use. Not to plagiarize but to present to those who question my deconversion - whatever may be their intent. They reflect everything I have asked myself and others, over the years, and are organized in a useful manor.

 

Regarding the part of your post that I quoted above: I have often heard people refer to xianity and the three (one ?) gods/men/super-humans (whatever) as kind, loving, all-knowing beings who's only purpose is to love their creation. Mrs. MOHO,  a scream'n fundy in her own right, will contradict them in a manor that leaves no grey area regarding her feelings. She has often said that god/jesus is more vengeful and hell bent on punishing "those sinners" than worrying about being loving or forgiving or showing grace or compassion.

 

So, welcome to Ex-C and I hope to "hear" more from you...

    - MOHO (Mind Of His Own)

 

She will say this with a gleam in her eyes which conveys that she has a direct line to god and will tell him EXACTLY who to punish and that he/they will vanquish her entire list of enemies - especially those who question xianity, criticize The Donald, or have done ANYTHING to her personally.

 

 

[JenniferG]

Mrs. MOHO is somethin' else! LOL

[Geezer]

I was a member of the Church of Christ. They are extreme fundamentalist & they take Bible literalism to absurd levels & that makes them extremely legalistic.

 

Therefore, my faith was dependent upon the Bible being totally inerrant & fully inspired. In other words for me to retain my faith the Bible has to be literally true & historically accurate.

 

I discovered there are two fields of religious scholarship. One being apologetics & the other one being the historical critical approach to scripture. Apologist interpret scripture but historical scholars fact check the Bible for accuracy.

 

Reading historical scholars such as Bart Ehrman, Robert M Price,  Richard Carrier, & David Fitzgerald among others convinced me the Bible is neither historically accurate or literally true. It is a collection of myths, legends, folklore & Jewish midrash.

 

There is no historical Jesus & Marcion rather than Paul probably wrote the Epistles. And if  Constantine has not made Christianity the official religion of the Roman  Empire, for political reasons not religious ones,  Christianity would not likely have survived.

 

Bart Ehrman noted that he Bible has been edited, redacted, & portions completely rewritten more times than there are even words in it. The authors of the Bible are unknown, there are no eyewitness to anything written about in the Bible. The names Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John were simply names the emerging Catholic Church assigned to 4 of the more popular but unnamed manuscripts of the 50 or so being considered. The list of biblical problems is quite lengthy &  I've only noted a few.

 

I found Karen Armstrong's book A History of God to be most informative. 

 

I firmly believe education is a must for anyone considering leaving their religion. Those leaving their religion need to know exactly why they are leaving or they will never be certain they made the right choice.

 

Oh yeah, welcome aboard. 

[dirwid]

@JenniferG

Thanks for reading and for the kind words! 

 

I didn't think of Hebrews 11:1 while writing my post... Should've included it because that verse is a doozy!

 

 

@MOHO

Thank you!

 

I'm glad that you found the bullet points useful. Feel free to use them however you'd like! 

For the record, everyone is free to use whatever I post on this site in whatever way they want.

 

Also, I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. MOHO. Does she know you are not a Christian anymore?

 

@Geezer

Interesting!

I didn't know there were that many gospels being considered originally. But somehow I'm not really surprised.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

[Guest]

That was quite the story Dirwid. And it was so well said that I hope you don't mind if I also copy and paste a few notes for myself to use when or if people ask my why I abandoned my beliefs. My deconversion happened a lot quicker as Richard Dawkins did all the thinking for me and all I had to do was read his book and have my mind blown apart, lol. 

Welcome to ex-c, it's a good place to be. 

-TS

[MOHO]

@dirwid,

 

Also, I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. MOHO. Does she know you are not a Christian anymore?

 

I came out back in 2014 but "ducked back in" due to the incredible family pressure and tension. It's just me and Mrs. MOHO in the house but you wouldn't believe the pressure!

 

Anyway, based on the comments I make, refusal to pray at meals and personal moratorium on entering the sanctuary when I do attend Mrs. MOHO's church, I'd say there is little room for doubt that I am not "on fire for Jesus".

[Tsathoggua9]

Excellent and fascinating post!  Welcome aboard!

[ObstacleChick]

This is a very well thought out post, and it is obvious you spent a lot of time and effort exploring your options and questions throughout your deconversion process. I understand what you are saying - the concept of salvation/hell was the point that troubled me the most but made it most difficult to leave fundamentalist Christianity. My rational side said it did not make sense, while my emotional side was terrified of eternal damnation in hell - and worse, of damning my children to an eternity in hell when I chose to leave religion and take them with me.

 

 

"I began to see that Christianity essentially blackmails a person into making a low-information decision to follow Christ."  This is a statement that resonates with me completely. I grew up in a Southern Baptist home, and I probably would have gotten through that less scathed and would have had less emotional torment leaving religion, but I was tremendously indoctrinated in a Christian school (founded under the template of Bob Jones University - many of the teachers had attended BJU or Pensacola Christian College and our Science and Religion curricula were from BJU Press). Students were thoroughly indoctrinated with young earth creationism, the doctrines of salvation/sin/grace/hell/etc. I must have prayed the salvation prayer dozens of times, just to make sure I was "saved". When I went to college at a secular university, I took a history of Christian thought course which shook my world, learning how the Bible was written, canonized, etc. I wasn't willing to leave Christianity yet but chose a kinder, gentler version that did not focus on salvation and hell - it was mainly about being a good person, helping others, social justice, etc. In college, I avoided any courses that would expose my lack of knowledge about evolution (I had none, only young earth creationism doctrine) - I was embarrassed enough that it took me a decade of marriage to finally admit to my husband that I had never learned about evolution, and I learned it on my own. He was shocked and asked how with all the science courses I had taken (and working in science) I had avoided learning about it, and I told him that I had avoided biology courses (which I loved the most) so that my ignorance would not be exposed. Anyway, my agnostic atheist husband went to church with the kids and me because it was non-threatening - no religious indoctrination - until on a trip to Mexico while touring Chichen Itza ruins, it struck me that the ancient Mayans throwing a bunch of virgins and athletes into a pit to drown as sacrifice to the gods was no different from Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. Basically, god(s) is/are mad and blood must be shed for atonement. I was sick to my stomach, and at that point I started a 10 year "break from religion". After a decade break, I was watching science shows with my husband who is passionate about physics, astronomy, etc., and decided to start reading more about skepticism, science, etc. Fear of hell still lurked in the background, but finally I decided that fear of hell is no rational reason for ignoring legitimate questions about a religion (or any other topic for that matter). So now I am an agonistic atheist (but still in the closet to my fundamentalist family members though they know I'm not a hardcore fundamentalist and haven't been for some time). My "coming out" needs to be natural and organic so that I can preserve my relationship with people that I love. I won't try to convert them as each person needs to have their own journey. But I will be there to answer questions if asked.

 

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

[DanForsman]

I can only imagine that Mrs MOHO must be one incredibly beautiful woman! Now that I have that out of the way I want to say that this is a terrific and heart felt piece dirwid. As you indicate there are so many problems with Christianity and just one lifetime to discover (let alone write about) them all. If we had been born in a Muslim country we would have focused all this energy on noting similar problems with Islam. How crazy is that? I'm so happy to hear that you were able to free yourself using your (God given) mine. I think you'll find that you've just begun the best part of your life. To me it's at least as amazing that the human mind (including our own mind) is not what we thought it was, as it is that our religion is not what we thought it was. Anyhow congratulations; clearly you have found the fire you lacked as a christian.

[BobCu]

"A few years ago, I used to be a Christian. Now I am sort of agnostic/deistic. And also antireligious."

 

You threw out the ridiculous Christian death cult. Congratulations.

 

Anti-religious. That's wonderful.

 

Deistic: Not good.

 

Agnostic: Not good.

 

We know things these days. We know a magic god fairy was never necessary for anything. The god of the gaps has run out of hiding places. There is no excuse to pretend a god fairy might be real or a god fairy was required to magically start the universe.

 

Hardcore atheist is the way to go. 100% certain magical beings (Easter Bunny, Zeus, Allah, God) are childish and totally impossible fantasies.

 

I explain why magical beings are impossible at http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com

 

If you ever decide to completely throw out the god bullshit that's a good thing. It's an acceptance of reality. I like reality because it's interesting and because it's real.

[dirwid]

@BobCu

 

12 hours ago, BobCu said:

Hardcore atheist is the way to go. 100% certain magical beings (Easter Bunny, Zeus, Allah, God) are childish and totally impossible fantasies.

 

If we are fair, I don't think anyone can be "100% certain" that some type of powerful immaterial being (a "god") does not exist. I'm not sure that we can be 100% certain of anything for that matter. I just think an individual should choose the most reasonable/probable explanation for what they observe and when they don't know what the most reasonable explanation is, admit that they don't know and then strive to find out.

 

I am not perfect in this aspect and I don't claim to be. Currently, I have doubts about whether evolution could be unguided. When I was a Christian, I researched the topic and came to the conclusion that life was too spectacular to be a product of unguided evolution. These doubts about evolution still linger from my Christian days, and I still need to thoroughly research the subject again without the blinders of religion. Similarly, I also have doubts that human consciousness and abiogenesis could be convincingly explained without some kind of intelligence involved. Right now I don't believe in any god from any organized religion, but based on my previous conclusions about these topics, I somewhat grudging am forced to admit that I have to believe in some sort of impersonal higher power. But I don't claim to know for sure that this higher power exists. That is why I said I am "agnostic/deistic". These doubts are the only things preventing me from going all the way to atheism.

 

The way things are going for me, I can see myself becoming a complete atheist in the future. This will not happen until I thoroughly research evolution, consciousness, abiogenesis, and other topics again from a naturalistic perspective and ask myself if the arguments I hear in support of these propositions are reasonable. I strive to not accept any belief just because of the social pressure of many other people believing it (after all, many people believe Christianity is true, but as we know, it is not). I want to apply reason to everything, and naturalistic explanations for the world should go through the same test.

 

So sometime I need to get around to seriously researching these things. 

 

12 hours ago, BobCu said:

We know things these days. We know a magic god fairy was never necessary for anything. The god of the gaps has run out of hiding places. There is no excuse to pretend a god fairy might be real or a god fairy was required to magically start the universe

 

Yes, there is an overwhelming trend throughout history that people believe a god is behind something they don't understand... only until science shows that a god is not needed as an explanation. If you extrapolate this trend, you will arrive at atheism. But I don't accept this as a valid argument for atheism, because an extrapolation is based on the assumption that the trend will continue. Given the track record of religion vs science, I'd say it is reasonable to expect the trend to continue, but this is still an assumption, not firm, conclusive evidence.

 

But I guess you wouldn't consider it to be an extrapolation, but rather as something that you know from conclusive evidence. And again, I need to research things myself and see the conclusive evidence. I don't want to take anyone's word for it.

 

12 hours ago, BobCu said:

I explain why magical beings are impossible at http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com

 

From what I can tell of that website, it is full of edgy one-liners and quotes, name calling, anger/emotion, and very little real, meaty logic. It's the kind of site that completely turns me off, even if the gist of what is being argued is something that I agree with.

 

I would say always evaluate individual claims individually. Try to stay away from blanket statements - tempting though they may be. 

 

12 hours ago, BobCu said:

 

If you ever decide to completely throw out the god bullshit that's a good thing. It's an acceptance of reality. I like reality because it's interesting and because it's real.

 

You are very condescendingly implying that I do not care about reality.

[dirwid]

@TruthSeeker0

Thank you, and feel free to use my post in any way you'd like! 

 

@Tsathoggua9

Thanks!

 

@MOHO

I wish I could say that I'll pray for Mrs. MOHO, but that wouldn't make much sense, haha. I hope she changes her mind about things though.

 

@ObstacleChick

Thanks! And thank you for sharing your story as well. I wish I could give you advice about coming out to your family, but I am in the same boat as well. We'll make it through!

 

@DanForsman

On 8/23/2017 at 10:24 PM, DanForsman said:

clearly you have found the fire you lacked as a christian

That is actually very accurate now that I think about it!

Thanks!

 

 

[TrueArrow]

I used to make people reborn by them praying out loud for the baptism of the holy ghost upon themselves. I did alot of christian works if God did not accept you to be saved, as it is in the bible that he isn't willing that any should perish but all would come to repentance, and then he rejects you when he said he shall in no wise cast out who comes to him, then understand why I'm leaving christianity because it's jesus that doesn't seem ever to have the holy characteristics as described about him in the bible, and being with jesus was getting a bit dangerous to me, and i live surrounded by christianity, but they don't love their neighbor as they love themself the whole thing all together made me sick. So if jesus is conditional unconditional love religion of almighty God when his love is to be unconditional, not based on brain washing and obedience (If you read the definition of Agapeo love it is supposed to be your dad for crying out loud not great king of condemnation.

[BobCu]

On 8/31/2017 at 0:56 AM, dirwid said:

@BobCu

 

 

If we are fair, I don't think anyone can be "100% certain" that some type of powerful immaterial being (a "god") does not exist. I'm not sure that we can be 100% certain of anything for that matter. I just think an individual should choose the most reasonable/probable explanation for what they observe and when they don't know what the most reasonable explanation is, admit that they don't know and then strive to find out.

 

I am not perfect in this aspect and I don't claim to be. Currently, I have doubts about whether evolution could be unguided. When I was a Christian, I researched the topic and came to the conclusion that life was too spectacular to be a product of unguided evolution. These doubts about evolution still linger from my Christian days, and I still need to thoroughly research the subject again without the blinders of religion. Similarly, I also have doubts that human consciousness and abiogenesis could be convincingly explained without some kind of intelligence involved. Right now I don't believe in any god from any organized religion, but based on my previous conclusions about these topics, I somewhat grudging am forced to admit that I have to believe in some sort of impersonal higher power. But I don't claim to know for sure that this higher power exists. That is why I said I am "agnostic/deistic". These doubts are the only things preventing me from going all the way to atheism.

 

The way things are going for me, I can see myself becoming a complete atheist in the future. This will not happen until I thoroughly research evolution, consciousness, abiogenesis, and other topics again from a naturalistic perspective and ask myself if the arguments I hear in support of these propositions are reasonable. I strive to not accept any belief just because of the social pressure of many other people believing it (after all, many people believe Christianity is true, but as we know, it is not). I want to apply reason to everything, and naturalistic explanations for the world should go through the same test.

 

So sometime I need to get around to seriously researching these things. 

 

 

Yes, there is an overwhelming trend throughout history that people believe a god is behind something they don't understand... only until science shows that a god is not needed as an explanation. If you extrapolate this trend, you will arrive at atheism. But I don't accept this as a valid argument for atheism, because an extrapolation is based on the assumption that the trend will continue. Given the track record of religion vs science, I'd say it is reasonable to expect the trend to continue, but this is still an assumption, not firm, conclusive evidence.

 

But I guess you wouldn't consider it to be an extrapolation, but rather as something that you know from conclusive evidence. And again, I need to research things myself and see the conclusive evidence. I don't want to take anyone's word for it.

 

 

From what I can tell of that website, it is full of edgy one-liners and quotes, name calling, anger/emotion, and very little real, meaty logic. It's the kind of site that completely turns me off, even if the gist of what is being argued is something that I agree with.

 

I would say always evaluate individual claims individually. Try to stay away from blanket statements - tempting though they may be. 

 

 

You are very condescendingly implying that I do not care about reality.

 

[BobCu]

"If we are fair, I don't think anyone can be "100% certain" that some type of powerful immaterial being (a "god") does not exist."

 

Would  you say that about the Easter Bunny? I'm 100% certain magical beings (magic rabbits and magic god fairies) are not real. This is not rocket science. Anyone who has a brain and knows how to think can figure out these things out.

 

"Currently, I have doubts about whether evolution could be unguided."

 

Sorry but that's worse than ridiculous. You obviously need to study evolution as do several million other people. Supernatural magic is not a mechanism of evolution or any other natural process.

 

"You are very condescendingly implying that I do not care about reality."

 

Sorry but I don't think you understand what reality is. Your "guided" nonsense is not reality.

 

"Similarly, I also have doubts that human consciousness and abiogenesis could be convincingly explained without some kind of intelligence involved."

 

Why do you call your Magic Man "intelligence"? Why not be honest and write this instead: "Similarly, I also have doubts that human consciousness and abiogenesis could be convincingly explained without the Magic Man."

 

There is no magic in the universe therefore magical beings are impossible. If everyone understood this obvious fact then the world would be a much better place.

 

One more thing: abiogenesis has been figured out. It's still a research opportunity but scientists know it wasn't a magical event. Of course they never did think it was magical. Scientists do not invoke your Magic Man (or what you call intelligence) for anything. They find out what really happened. It's childish not to mention ridiculous to invoke the Magic Man for anything.

 

"human consciousness" Evolution by natural selection. It works and the world's biologists knows it works.

 

"From what I can tell of that website"

 

You don't like my blog? Fine with me. I did not write my posts to suck up to superstitious people. The place is free. If you don't like it then don't come back. If you don't want to educate yourself nobody cares.

 

Religious fantasies deserve ridicule. After the 9/11 religious atrocities the time for being nice is over with. I have zero tolerance for theists and agnostics. There is no excuse for this bull stuff. This is the 21st century FFS.

[Geezer]

I like Dr. Richard Carrier's response to a believer that said, "You can't prove God doesn't exist." Dr. Carrier replied, "That is true, but I can prove the God you worship is manmade."

[mich]

Wow, 

On 8/21/2017 at 0:28 PM, dirwid said:

Because there is no God directing my fate, I am fully responsible for making this world a better place.

 

Wow, dirwid, Awesome for you that you discovered the truth at such a young age. Many are much older. And most never realize it at all.

I really enjoyed your post and can relate to a lot of it. We are all on a journey.....mostly individual. Our own set of circumstances, environment, etc that defines who we are. But it's great to cross paths with someone at a common ground. 

[Anushka]

I too had that fear of going to hell after i stopped believing in jesus. I wrote about that in my first testimony in this website and some sweet person replied saying that you cannot really control what you believe- you cannot believe in the tooth fairy even if your salvation depended on it. That cheered me up and also erased my fear of hell little by little. 

You are lucky that when you were a Christian that you didn't need God constantly like others did. Because guess what needing God constantly is a recipe for crazy, irrational and weird behaviour- I used to be a crazy Pentecostal Christian who 'heard' Jesus talk and followed the teachings of crazy Joyce Meyer. 

[BobCu]

On 8/31/2017 at 12:56 AM, dirwid said:

@BobCu

If we are fair, I don't think anyone can be "100% certain" that some type of powerful immaterial being (a "god") does not exist. I'm not sure that we can be 100% certain of anything for that matter.

Can we be 100% certain the Easter Bunny is not real? Of course the Easter Bunny is impossible, not to mention childish. There is absolutely no difference between magic rabbits and magic god fairies. I am 100% certain magical creatures are not real including the moronic ridiculous god fairy fantasy. Some people can't figure these things out including Christian bible thumpers, Muslim terrorists, and apparently you. Fine with me. Nobody cares.

[sdelsolray]

On 11/1/2017 at 9:00 PM, BobCu said:

Can we be 100% certain the Easter Bunny is not real? Of course the Easter Bunny is impossible, not to mention childish. There is absolutely no difference between magic rabbits and magic god fairies. I am 100% certain magical creatures are not real including the moronic ridiculous god fairy fantasy. Some people can't figure these things out including Christian bible thumpers, Muslim terrorists, and apparently you. Fine with me. Nobody cares.

 

Your 100% certainty seems less than 100% certain, at least to me, but perhaps you have special access to information and knowledge that I, or anyone else, do not have.  That would be, ironically, quite magical.

[Singular40]

Oh man, I'm brand new to this site - and your experience reflects my own almost to a tee. It's almost as if I was reading about myself. Those bullet points - I couldn't have said it better. The bible is it's own worst enemy. It sets itself up only to refute itself.  Christianity was the most genius religion man ever came up with, but unfortunately it wasn't genius enough..........  

[Lost]

Wow  A Wonderful post dirwid  

 

Especially, this line: "I’m still not quite sure why I never became “on fire for Jesus”. I couldn't make it either :/