DoubleDee Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Two years today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greasemonkey Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I started having doubts when I was in my teen's; cemented in my early 20's. Haven't gone to church regularly in about 22 years. Not including Unitarian (maybe 4 times in the last decade), I went to baptist church with my grandmother for the last time in 1992. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGJ@ReligionisBullshit Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 17 years and still going strong, I dropped it almost a week after I was "saved and baptized" at a Southern Baptist Revival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Hmm... this one's tough because there was no one moment that I can say I was decidedly not Christian compared to the moment before. It was such a gradual process that I can't define a beginning for it... but I have been completely ex-Christian for about three years, mostly on the way towards it (but still held onto some sort of God belief) for five years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Almost three years now. I deconverted sometime in May '03, so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Broke Free Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I gave up on trying to believe all that supernatural crap in March of 1978; just a couple of months of before I graduated from high school. I have never once questioned my decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I'd say almost four years. It took a while to give up the Jesus bit, Jesus was god, Jesus was sent by god but wasn't god, Jesus was a superior moral man who should be honored, Jesus was a product of his time, Jesus more than likely never existed. The god thing was even more gradual. Edit: Actually, I'm still in process with the god thing. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
labratsolo Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Officially I'd say about a year ago, the gradual process began sometime in 2001, leading to a conscious declaration sometime early last year... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I was born again in 0r about 1975, at 17. Kind of backslid off and on till about 1979, then became a fundie. Spent the next 6-8 years as a fundie Baptist. Got disillusioned with organized religion and spent the next 10-12 years out of church and feeling lost and alone. In April of 2000, I gave up my faith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quicksand Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 How old are you when your in 6th grade? We'll I am 35 now. Took me a little longer to schuck off the rest of my supersitions (after a healthy study of psydeo science), but there you go. Congrats to the rest of you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryten Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Just over ONE YEAR now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadoe Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 About 20 years now, after reading the bible and realizing, "Oh my god! This is crap!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest singlecoil Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 About seven months. I started doubting in March of 05 but really fought it until Sept. of 05. I'm glad I made it out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-COG Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I've been out of the evangelical church for just over 4 years now, though I had pretty much dropped my belief in Christianity several months before I finally hightailed it out the doors. Speaking of doors...about 6 months after I left, I received a letter in the mail. There was no return address, but the writing looked somewhat familiar. Puzzled, I opened it and found it was from my former pastor. He was basically saying they'd still like to see me come back as "the doors of the church swing both ways". I laughed, thinking "Just like the doors of a saloon!" Then I grew angry; why didn't he put his return address? Was he afraid I wouldn't read it if I knew it was from him? I felt kind of tricked. I didn't bother to answer him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I admitted to myself I was no longer Xian during the Summer of 2005, though the process of skepticism and self-honesty began about nine or ten months earlier. When I look back, I realize it was most likely much longer, since as time progressed in the new millenium I started taking a serious look at my belief structure and despite some odd turns it took, I began to steadily accept, bit by bit, many points of view that were not Xian, no matter how I rationalized it to myself back then. Either way, I'm free, and shall remain so till the day I die Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 About one and a half years, but it doesn't feel that long ago. It's hard to pinpoint the exact time since it was really a gradual change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evergreen Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 About 3.5 years, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnosis of Disbelief Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 It's been 19 years since I gave up on the-living-hell-that-is-christianity (I deconverted some time in 1987, I think it was early spring of that year). It took a lot longer for me to give up completely on the idea of a god; that was a much more gradual process, though it's pretty much done at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubleDee Posted March 21, 2006 Author Share Posted March 21, 2006 My road to apostasy was short, as in time, but very intense. I spent approx 2 ½ months researching everything I possibly could that related to Christianity and spent 6-8 hours a day nearly every day. My research led me down many divergent paths, as I considered nothing to be too sacred or preposterous to research and study. It started with some questions I had about the formation of the New Testament Canon and snowballed from there. Studying ALL the things the church doesn’t teach about their history and formation, on Sunday morning or any day for that matter, was truly an eye opening experience for me. Sifting through the mountainous information on the Internet and in books proved to also be a real learning experience for me in skepticism and critical thinking. Christians, other religions and skeptics were all making claims on the validity of their “truth”, who could I believe and trust, anyone? The answer to that (is a resounding NO ONE!) led me deeper into critical analysis and checking sources on nearly everything, hence my compulsion to study 6-8 hours a day. A little over a month into my studies I sat and pondered, I can’t believe all that I have learned in such a short amount of time, If I keep all this up will I continue to believe in Christianity and God at all? My compulsion to research and study Christianity had turned into an addiction and I was powerless to stop. On March 21, 2004 I came to the conscious realization I didn’t believe in Christianity or the God of the Bible anymore. The research and studying continued, thankfully the addiction slowly abated and I reclaimed many sleepless nights. Prior to my road to apostasy I couldn’t have imagined being an apostate and would have thought it impossible to ever stop believing in Jesus and the bible. On finding my freedom from the religious tentacles of fear and lies, I considered writing about my experience in detail to help others out of the fruit-loop box. This will probably never happen as I find organizing my thoughts into writing to be a very time consuming task. This has taken me much to much time to write and my son is begging me for the computer so he can play games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I can totally relate, doubledee... I spent many sleepless nights reading book after book. That was about three years ago. As a religion major (in addition to pharmacy), I had a lot of resources and supporting profs to help me out. Of course, it took time away from my pharmacy studying... so much that my grades suffered. My addiction has waned considerably now. I am very comfortable where I am at, and if I ever find myself thinking too hard on the various issues, I just review some of the main points I learned and I usually end up letting go fairly easily. I still struggle with the God thing though... still wondering if there is *something* out there, though I am sure it isn't a personal god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I underwent my big revolution of thought in '81 and stopped going to mass around '90. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Walked out of the AoG back in 84. Quit with the Berean Society, a group of Calvinist Rushdooneyists in 87. Before the big break in 84 was in and out of damn near every denominations meeting hall, visiting, reading, inspecting, looking. So fuckin' much wasted time... kL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Officially it was sometime in august of 2004 but I had been incomfortable with christianity for a few years past before, especially about so called miracles and creation. I read and in the end I just couldn't believe anymore and let it go. No regrets! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RankStranger Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I realized by the time I was eleven that the whole christianity thing was crap. When I was 13, I got scared and tried real hard to redeem my soul- that lasted a week. So I've been god-free for either 18 or 16 years, depending on how you look at it. And my fundie parents still have no idea that all THREE of their sons are atheists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aqua Kitty Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I've been non-Christian for about 4-5 years, and an atheist for about 2 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts