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Goodbye Jesus

My Story Of De-conversion


Guest AutumnDaysGirl

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Guest AutumnDaysGirl

I went to church sporadically as a small child. My parents were not church-goers, but they did believe in god and they raised me to believe in the basic Judeo-Christian ethics - don't lie, don't steal, put others before yourself, etc. When I met my husband, his family were the kind of Christians that were in church every time the doors were opened. I didn't become a Christian until after dh and I were married 3 years. We were basically going to church to please the in-laws and because our best friends were also going there. At one service I was under such "conviction" that I was going to die and go to hell if I left that church without giving my life to Christ that I couldn't get "saved" fast enough. Dh and I went to church off and on for years, but gave up going when our dd was born with cerebral palsy. She is highly susceptible to getting colds that can and have turned into pneumonia so we try to keep her away from large groups of people. Because I stayed home to take care of dd, I didn't have friends anymore and couldn't attend church. I was lonely and depressed that dd had been born so severely disabled. While channel surfing one evening I ran across a man who was saying that god wanted everyone to be well and he could and would heal us. That man was TV evil-angelist Kenneth Copeland. Thus started my 13 year decent into the hell that is called the Word of Faith movement. I might still be a Christian had I stayed with the Independent Baptist beliefs that you can ask god for anything in prayer, but you probably won't get it. Your expectations aren't really high as a Baptist. Anyway, I immersed myself in the WOF movement completely. I watched ALL the WOF preachers, bought thousands of dollars worth of their tapes and books, tithed to their TV ministries, and even gave "love" offerings to help build their mammoth hi-tech TV station/ministry buildings. I confessed the so-called healing scriptures over my dd three times a day, seven days a week. But nothing happened, dd wasn't getting healed. The WOF answer was that I wasn't doing something right because god is always right. I didn't have enough faith or I had some unconfessed sin in my life or it just wasn't god's time and I needed to keep believing. Now, a sane person would probably have had a wake-up call that this was all a bunch of bull after a couple of years, but not me. Two years ago, I finally got fed up with this crap and was just pissed off at god enough that I decided I would find out what the truth was about the WOF movement. Naturally, I found out the WOF preachers were nothing but a bunch of greedy, money-whores who prey on people who are lonely, naive, sick, dying, or stupid. I felt like such an idiot for believing this crap for so long. I couldn't understand why god would have allowed me to waste so many years of my life believing for my dd's healing that was never going to happen. It was then I started the journey to finding out the truth about god and the bible.

 

I knew that the bible said to ask anything in Jesus' name and it would be done so the father would be glorified. How much more glory could god get than healing a child who was severely brain damaged? There wasn't any surgery or medicine or therapy to heal or even help her. The brain doesn't spontaneously heal itself so healing her would have pointed to only one thing - god healed her. But, it never happened even though I asked, believed, had the elders of the church pray and anoint her with oil. I also knew that the bible said god couldn't lie and nothing was impossible for him. The only conclusion I could come to was that the scriptures about asking for anything in Jesus' name and it being done were lies. Which meant god could and did lie. Everything in the bible was suspect at that point. At this point I started frequenting xchristian and agnostic/atheist sites where I learned about biblical errors and contradictions - things I knew, but chose to ignore because god's word was inerrant. I lean more toward agnosticism because no one can prove with 100% accuracy that there isn't some kind of creator of the universe, but I do know the bible and it's two completely different, but equally schizophrenic OT and NT gods are man-made stories and myths. I've also been able to make peace with and accept that my daughter will never be mentally older than a baby, she'll never get married and have children, and there isn't any heaven where she'll be freed from her disabled little body to run and play and be free like other people. This is the only life we get and dh and I are trying to make her's as filled with love, comfort, and things she enjoys (watching TV and being pushed in her wheelchair outside) as possible. It's been a long road, but I'm finally living my own life, putting my immediate family and myself first. I no longer feel responsible for how other people are living their "sinful" lives because I couldn't convince them to get "saved". To be honest, I didn't much care for these selfish, opportunistic using asses who just took advantage of and used me anyway!

 

It's good to be here with all of you. :grin:

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Guest Yams What I Yams

Hi ADG. I don't really feel qualified to give a substantial response to your story, having just posted my own deconversion piece a few days ago, but I wanted to say hello. I think a lot of people on this forum followed a similar path to yours. Many of us started looking at what the Bible claims God is all about and then found our experience of Christianity to be something totally different. It doesn't make sense to a lot of us that God is apparently capable of anything and yet chooses to do nothing. It leads us to one of two conclusions, neither of them favourable: either God willingly ignores his "children" and lets people suffer or he simply doesn't exist (or, I guess, whatever the Bible says about it is wrong, which raises big questions about what else the Bible says). No matter what, the typical platitudes about God working in "mysterious ways" or in ways that are "beyond our understanding" just don't cut it. At a certain point those answers become a real cop-out.

 

I also think the fact that so many of us tried our best to make Christianity work speaks to our sincere desire to connect to something beyond ourselves. The Christian God had a pretty easy audience here and it still fell apart on us. Makes you think.

 

Thanks for your post. Good luck on the journey!

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That's quite the story Autumn!

 

I wish I could meet you and talk to you for a loonng time about stuff. You must have learned a lot after discovering that it was all bullshit.

 

Welcome to our safe little place.

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Welcome ADG! I am a former WOFer, too, though I wasn't involved as long as you were. For a while, it served as a dose of positivity to counteract my normal negative mindset, though after a while I, too, got caught up in the BS that I wasn't doing something right.

 

Glad you made it out! Welcome to Ex-C!

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Guest revpo

WELCOME

I am glad you got out of the evangelist money sucker business, there are so many out there its sickening to see all the young and old being taken for their money. I always laughed when B. Hill came on and the miracle cure being hit on the head or torso fall backwards, and then scream I am cured<what a joke>.

The bible is a fable, and if you ever read t. paines the age of reason he has the best writings on it.

Live life your own way not what others want you to do, stay away from organized religion, its always fear, and lies..be your own self...

 

Welcome again

 

revpo :close:

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Hello, and welcome to our little corner of the web! Sounds like you've come to a much healthier way to deal with life. It is really awful how the TV preachers take advantage of those who are sick, know someone who is sick, have financial, emotional, or family problems, etc. The weak help given is "Pray and believe! Have faith! Declare victory! Send money!" Especially the money plea. I'm waiting for the day when more people are like you, and realize the bunk that these preachers spew, and stop watching/tithing/supporting the programs. Let 'em go belly up, it would serve them right.

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