How Long Have You Been Out Of Christianity?

[ogilvy]

well i dont think i'm really out yet. i havent thought it all through. but i stopped going to church about 12 weeks ago.for a few months before that i was getting a nagging feeling about God being cruel. theres a drought where i live, and i felt awful driving past cattle in bare paddocks. cows havent sinned. even if they had, depriving animals or humans of water as a wake up call is just plain cruel, to me. how could that be? God is mean to be loving. thats not the actions of a loving being. and then there's hell, and the horrible things God did to people in the old testament. when i would start looking thru the bible for somewhere to start reading, i kept coming across horrible rantings of God about the cruel things he was doing or would do to his 'children' and their enemies. i would have to quickly shut the book and put it back on the shelf.

i dont know why it took me 20 years to think of the question, but i thought, 'wasnt it cruel of God to create the world, knowing that the majority of humans would end up in hell?? he didnt have to create. it only benefits a minority.' i ased my pastor and he couldnt give me any reassuring answer. i put the question on some christian forums, and it just seemed to make people get nasty. nobody could satisfactorily address the issue except non christians, and a couple of christians who honestly said they didnt know, that it bothered them too.

anyway i came to think, theres a problem.....if God's cruel, then it doesnt make sense to say hes kind and loving. thats a contradiction. if the bible is true, then he is cruel. if hes not cruel, the bibles not true. if hes cruel, the bible doesnt make sense to say God is kind and loving and that we should be too. the implications are horrific to me. i no longer think of them. i put it out of my mind and stay in a limbo kind of state. but i do enjoy not HAVING to go to church.

[ogilvy]

i havent actually de converted, i dont think. i've stopped going to church, praying and reading the bible. i hae serious doubts now about the bible being the infalllibe word of God. i dont think Christianity makes sense any more. but i find it hard to believe that it actually doesnt make sense. i'm a bit in shock about it. its only been about 3 months i've been like this.

[Grandpa Harley]

Takes a while to get over the withdrawal... 20 something years isn't an easy thing to walk away from...

[Sophronia]

well. I was only "in" Christianity for about 3 1/2 years, though much of that time was spent backsliding. been officially "out" since july last year.

[bellsybop]

Around a half a year.. not long enough though!

[Guest ComfortablyConfused]

I started de-converting last (late spring). I would consider myself evangelical or non-denom Christianity. I'm not really sure because I didn't consider myself a non-christian for about 3 months after I stopped believing the bible. I finally considered myself Agnostic in early July while taking philosophy and geology classes durring last summer. So I guess it's been around 8 months.

I remember telling one of the youth pastors at my church. I was the only gothic/hippy christian she ever met so I guess she thought I was really cool and wrote a story about me for one of those corny teen bibles. By the time this bible was published, I had de-converted. I had lunch with her to receive this new bible and to confess that I no longer was a Christian. She tried to use some ancient apolagetics about how wonderful the human eye is and some other Michael Behe crap. I didn't want to argue with her because it wasn't important and I liked her. I just let her talk and let myself disagree while smiling and knodding. This was only like 2 days after I realized I was an agnostic/atheist so I was still too shell-shocked to debate.

[mentalhh]

About last march. Almost a year now o_0.

[Guest yolanda]

Technically over a year ago. But I spent about a month in a SB church. Just canceled my membership. Had to have one last stint at religion. Now I go to a UU church.

[Coolhermit]

Since I had my awakening in 72 I tried to fit into christianity - travelling all the doctrines, spent 20 years ostracised due to a universalist leaning - then my eyes were opened to the plain fact (in the text of the "New Testament" itself) that the whole Jesus is God idea came from Saul/Paul's private personal revelations (like all the other religious cults) - from then it was an easy matter to let Christianity slide into the sluice.

 

Unlike many here, I'm no atheist, nor do I find atheism a reasonable stance for myself as I've enjoyed 35 years plus of supra natural mystical experiences ever since I gave away all I had to find and follow God.

 

Did I find God? I don't know. But I spend my life enjoying the presence of **** (whatever he/she/it is)

[Guest GlitterSno]

I have been out for 4 years. At the very beginning it was tough, but was SO thankful for this site. It truly was a BIG help. (Thank you everyone!)

Now that time has gone by, I no longer feel guilt, no longer fear hell, no longer feel a desire to be in church. Once you get to that stage, you are good to go! It is amazing how little you really know about yourself once you take away religion. I had to learn about myself and see what I really liked and disliked! instead of what would Jesus do, it was.. holy shit, what do I do?? I feel better about myself now and I kinda like who I am. I know I am not as much of a jerk as I used to be.. lol

[LtJayson]

I've been out of the church scene for only 8 months, and left Christianity as a whole probably about two months ago (can't pinpoint a date). It is FREEING for sure! Still have trouble with this or that, but that is the beauty of deconversion!

[Crazycatlady]

December of 2006. I have to go to church periodically with my parents, but I'm not really there (if that makes any sense).

[Justin]

I deconverted in January 2006, lasted for about 3 or 4 weeks then i reconverted back to christianity. Deconverted for good a little over a month ago and haven't looked back. I've had doubts my entire life, literally dating back as far as i can remember. Over the past 6 or 7 years i had come to realize that something was terribly screwed up with christianity but i still considered myself a christian anyway, (mostly out of fear, which is what made me reconvert back when i deconverted the first time). I was brought up in a southern baptist home and church. My parents weren't strict by the book fundies but our church was. So anyway, in a nut shell, i've been offically out of the faith for almost a month and a half.

[dunany77]

October 2007. Free at last! I was mind-fucked by people with 'good intentions' between 1996 and 1999. Then I got 'barn-agin' and spent a decade mind-fucking myself. Its good to be back in the real world. Still lots of time to enjoy life as a human being.

 

I'm having the great debate with my friend who is still xian (but not a fundi, more of a cs lewis nut). It's fun to argue against religion after spending so many years defending it.

[JernJane]

About a month and counting! A lot of re-thinking still needs to be done, but that's ok! I'm enjoying it!

[Guest singerc1]

I'm currently in the process of de-converting. I'll have to come back to this thread later because now i'm about 90% out of Christianity and 10% in. I can't seem to totally let go just yet.

[RisingPhoenix]

How long have I been out? My story has more ups and downs than the stock market. While I "converted"--that is, said the little prayer deal--at roughly age nine, I didn't start going to church again (I'd gone very briefly as a little kid) until I was about eleven. I went until I was eighteen; between all my attempts at leaving home and having to work on Sundays when I got my first "real" job, I finally "had to" stop going. I went back to church after I moved out of my home state, for a few months back in...oh, about late '02 to early '03 and again--no more than a month, tops--back in '05. I'd never really taken any pains to live out my faith, or believe in it for that matter, and started letting go of it completely about three years ago.

In other words, I've been "out" longer than I was ever "in".

[gypsy79]

About one month, but I have been seriously questioning for about a year.

[brick]

I can't remember my first doubt but I know it came sometime in my single-digit years but the fear-factory kept me inline for a few more years. At 13, while attending Catholic gradeschool, I silently asked myself during religeon class, "Do you really believe this?" and the somewhat terrified answer came without hestation, "No, I really don't."

 

The next year I went to a public highschool, and with a deep sigh of relief, having not been struck down for blasphemy and being in a less thratening enviornment, repeated the denial and have never faltered since.

 

That was 30 years ago, damn near to the month!

 

Via Con Vinho, my brothers and sisters!

[garrisonjj]

Two years today!

 

 

About 3 years now but still haunted by guilt at times.

[Exalya]

It's been... about 2-3 years, I don't recall exactly. It was a slow progression from "I'm not into religion, I'm just a Christian!" to, "The Christians misrepresent Jesus," to... "This just doesn't make any sense."

[Guest reger60]

I stopped attending a fundamentalist church at age 18 when I moved out of my parents house. It was 1980. It was only last week that I actually came out and told someone that I am an atheist. By the way, I'm new to this forum and have found it to be be very interesting and helpful. I look forward to the day that I take the time to write my story and share it with all of you.

[Legion]

Welcome to ex-C Reger and Exalya.

[PocketAces]

where to begin? the process started 4 years ago. i went through searching the many areas of Christianity. i still have a great respect for the liberal side of Christianity. i have been involved with pentecostalism, calvinism, quakerism, post-modern Christianity, and liberal Christianity before i left the faith. i became a Christian at the age of 12. and then before this year, it was a 4 year process of deconverting. church attendance, well that's been gone for years at least in the traditional church attendance sense. then last year, till this year, there was an agnostic time. that quick moment where you realize, i really don't know what i feel anymore period. than, finally i came to terms that i became atheist before i was ready to accept it.

 

so timeline? maybe a year and a half? or maybe 4 years. you pick.

[Anti-Christian]

I am an ex-c since almost a year ago. I've been a Christian for almost my whole life since I was young. At first Christianity was not that bad, and quite simple for me, but that was only me being quite ignorant of the Bible and Christians myself. In my teenage years I kept drawing further and further from my interests in Christians, knowing the only Christians I know are near-literate simpletons.