Mine is a pretty standard story. I have lived in a Christian home my whole life. I was never completely immersed in it, but I accepted it as true. I don't think my family ever identified with a particular denomination - we've gone to Presbyterian, Evangelical, and Vineyard churches, in that order.

I always felt that whenever I prayed, I wasn't getting any response whatsoever. No voices, not even an emotional nudge. I figured there was something wrong with me. Over the course of high school, I became more and more depressed for a variety of reasons, and God was keeping to himself. I knew that if my parents had been members of a different religion, then I probably would be too. Eventually, I realized that I didn't see a difference between Christianity and any other religion, as far as truth was concerned. The creation story didn't stand up to scientific views of the origins of life, and the life and philosophy of Jesus didn't really look all that great. In retrospect, I can see that during my last two years of high school, I had been living as if no god existed. Around my eighteenth birthday, I realized that I really had no reason to believe anymore. If God wanted me, he would have to give me some reason to justify my faith.

No reason ever materialized, and over the months following my eighteenth birthday, I read a lot of the Ebon Musings Atheism Pages. Now I can't imagine any other outlook. I got to college in September, and shortly after arriving, I joined the Campus Freethought Alliance. However, no one in my home town knows about my atheism, mostly because I think I know how my mother will react. She's very sensitive and very devout, and I'd hate to throw her into depression. It's got to be done, but I'm waiting until after Christmas in order to avoid interactions with extended family and general religious holiday awkwardness.

I'm back at home for Thanksgiving, so I'll be going to church tomorrow. Some of my best friends are there. This isn't going to be easy, but at least now I have a support base at college.

Comment by: Anonymous for now | November 24, 2007, 8:06 pm

Hello whomever,
I'm Steve. I was raised a fundamentalist Pentecostal, and remained so until about six years ago. The sect was a particularly odious one, preaching that all humanity deserved to be tortured eternally for being imperfect, but did not believe that salvation could be assured, so everyone walks a major tightrope trying not to piss God off. (Additionally, they don't like to talk about certain topics, so just *what* they think pisses God off is unclear much of the time.) They also subscribe to biblical inerrancy, e.g., Eden, the Flood, Lot, Jericho, all of Jesus' miracles, Revelation. No metaphor, just what did (and will) happen.

Given that, I guess it was unsurprising that I was later diagnosed with clinical depression. Of course, they believe that obtaining professional help for such things is merely a sign of insufficient faith: God is the only source of happiness.

At the time, I was trying to figure out what was going wrong, so I spent a lot of time in prayer. But, perhaps unlike most pray-ers, instead of asking specifically to be made happier, most of my supplications were for guidance and direction: "What should I do?" "How can I get closer to You?" Several years went by. The thought of God's nonexistence never occurred to me; the whole time, I thought there must be something wrong with me, that I couldn't detect any answers to my prayers.

Some time later, I was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkin's disease). After an initial misdiagnosis allowed the tumor to grow unchecked for an additional five months, I was in really bad shape. I prayed, though I don't think my heart was really in it. (Death was not looking at all unappealing to me at that point.) My family, however, was praying like the dickens. My mother in particular said that Satan was trying to bring me down, but God would prevail, additionally stating her firm belief that God would show me His power by healing me so fast that the doctors would be baffled by it.

So, I was put on a very strong course of chemotherapy (which my nurse said would have killed someone her size). After a few painful months of that, I distinctly recall one meeting with the doctor: he said, looking at an x-ray, that the treatment was going quite well. Mom: "Better than you expected?" Doctor: "Very good, like I expected." (emphasis definitely present in his voice)

By this time, I had no idea what I believed. I couldn't fathom either God's existence or his nonexistence. Then, by sheer coincidence, I happened to befriend an atheist. I had no idea he was an atheist until we discovered our mutual enjoyment of informal debate. Naturally, the topic turned to the supernatural. He didn't really have anything other than the basics (if God was the first cause, where did God come from; the argument from evil; etc.), but I couldn't even find any responses to those that I liked.

I had just gotten internet access for the first time around then, so I started to look there. Specifically, I had heard of a book called "The Case for Christ", so I searched using that phrase. The third hit was an essay called The Case Against The Case For Christ. I don't think I even got the whole way through it. A year earlier, I knew nothing of atheists outside of the church's straw men. Now, for all intents and purposes, I was one.

Then, I started reading more writings by atheists, and I was blown away by how much more correspondence to reality I saw, compared to the apologetic literature I was used to. After briefly looking at Unitarian-like groups and finding them lacking, I began to embrace the term "atheist", and I guess the rest is history.

--

Well, after all that, I guess I really don't know what to say to someone in the middle of a process that may or may not bear any resemblance to my own. My deconversion was driven by events in my life directly contradicting Jesus' words in the Bible (see Matthew 21:21-22). What was so obvious to me about other religions was also true of the one I grew up with. The only suggestion I have is to test your faith. The only reason holy books say not to put their deities to the test is because the writers know how miserably they'd fail. If there were a true religion, it'd tell people to test it every chance they got. Truth doesn't fear investigation, only falsehoods do. Best of luck in your search.

Comment by: Bechamel | November 24, 2007, 8:32 pm

I was raised in a Christian family, a long line of ministers. I formally "accepted Jesus as my savior from sin" at age 16. At age 18, I went to a conservative Christian college, where I met my husband. After getting some additional education, we were ordained as evangelical ministers. Specifically, as officers in The Salvation Army. Following 11 years of ministry, we resigned so that I could get my Ph.D. When I entered graduate school 11 years ago, I was still pretty much an evangelical Christian but I had slightly liberal leanings in some areas.

By the time I finished graduate school, I was a liberal Christian. I mostly just shared my views with my husband, and with my kids as appropriate. I knew that most other believers in The Salvation Army churches we attended would find my ideas perplexing, perhaps even heretical.

In the past six years, my liberal views kept shifting until I had slipped into pretty much of a deist position. This past summer, I began reading some atheist literature and realized that atheism made much more sense than theism. I'm theoretically open to the possibility of deism, but such a god makes no difference in my life, so I've settled on atheism.

I should add that last summer's plunge into considering atheism was difficult. I had accepted a Christian worldview for my entire life. I knew no other way to think about life's Big Questions. Once I got over the shock of de-converting, though, I was relieved psychologically, emotionally and intellectually. It's pretty easy to slide from evangelicalism to liberalism, even to deism. It's that last step, that letting go completely of all notions of God that can be tough. If you can endure it, though, it's a worthwhile step to take.

I no longer live life wondering if I'm measuring up to God's standards. I don't live life hoping for a better world after death. I live life to its fullest now, because it's the only life that I'm certain I'll have. I'm not going to waste it speculating on heaven or gods or hell. I'm going to enjoy it. Freedom is far better than the false security of faith.

Comment by: the chaplain | November 24, 2007, 9:27 pm

Dear whoever it concerns,

I was catholic for all my life until I got to high school. I was involved heavily, but that was just more going threw the motions. I had several reasons why I de-converted, one I thought if the story of Noahs ark wasn't true than how much of the other parts of the bible could be true? I also became an existentialist which didn't fit with the normal patterns of christianity. Another thing is i saw how fake people at my church were, and how much of it was just going threw the motions. I think the final straw for me was when my Aunt had Lymphatic cancer, and when I prayed it didn't seem to do anything, what did do something was science. That is why I believe in god, because there is evidence for science while there is none for god.

Comment by: Craig | November 24, 2007, 9:33 pm

I was a member of the Church of Christ for a large stretch of my adult life. Picture fundamentalism, then picture something to the right of that. I did not grow up in that religion; I was born in Mobile, Alabama, the heart of the Southern Baptist bible belt.

Though exposed to church as a youngster--Sunday School occasionally, Easter, Christmas, and New year midnites MANDTORY, I came to the CoC as an adult, primarily as a boon to my fiancee, soon wife. That circumstance was important, because it was the source of neverending struggle for me. The Baptist tradition I had grown up in was such that it was understood that while our belief system was best, it was possible that other Christian pathways to God could lead one to salvation. The Church (of Christ) held no such understanding. To them, there was only ONE TRUE CHURCH andit was properly called the Church of Christ. Anyway, thru high school, I was on a mission to find out whether any religions held any truth ( I had been warned by an elder member of my mom's church (AME), that those folks at that fancy prep school to which I had received a scholarship, would do all they could to get you to reject God, but "don't you let 'em!" I Did not tell him that he had nothing to fear on the God belief, but that whole Jesus story made no sense to me, and as DESPERATELY as I wanted to believe it, my logical mind could not wrap it self around it.

Right after High School, I had an epiphany while watching a totally unrelated movie, that JESUS WAS INDEED THE SON OF GOD AND THAT HE HAD COME TO SAVE MANKIND. It was this revelation (there were no voices or anything, just an overwhelming internal sense/conviction that I just "knew" it to be so. On the strength of this conviction , I was able to get together with my future wife. We were both convinced that it was God's will that we be together--she had just prior to meeting me decided that despite all of her upbringing and preachments, she would be open to dating/marrying "outside the Church, while as to myself, had she met me a week before my epiphany, and told me of her intention to remain virginal until marriage, my conversation with her would not have gone past "Hi." So, since all churches were valid in my view, and she could not join my church, I elected to join hers.

She had three brothers who ministers in the Church and all of her family were members of this exceedingly small church group. Right away, there was trouble: I was told that I could not "join" "their" church, but that I had to be "added" to the "LORD's Church" by means of baptism--this despite the fact that I told them that I had just been baptised (by immersion in water) in the Baptist church not more than a month ago. They told me that the church of "John the Baptist" was not the same as the Church of Christ and that I needed to become a member of the "body of Christ" to be saved. I should have known what I was in for then, but hey, I was in love and knew that God wanted us to be together, so if these folks wanted me to get wet again, I would do it for her. And so I did.

Now, lest someone tries to trot out the "No True Scotsman" argument, (You were never REALLY a Christian), be advised. MY personality is such that I never half-step anything--I ALWAYS jump in with two feet! I figured that If I was not seeing things their way, there must have been something wrong with ME--most probably that, as they suggested, I had not "studied the word with an open heart, diligently seeking the truth". I had to admit that I had not read the entire Bible--just most of the so-called "New Testament." I just decided to follow their lead, become a member, attended sunday school,two sunday church services, Wed. bible class(which I lead occasionally seven years later), Brother's business meetings (women were not allowed to attend or contribute to these meetings where the church's business was conducted), Passing out tracts on Sat mornings and afternoon (these were similar to Chic Tracts, complete with dire warnings of fire and brimstone hell for sinners and false christians alike)

Fast forward 18 years: After divorcing, and gaining the freedom from the obligation of attending that church, and after YEARS of NEVER receiving satisfactory answers to reasonable questions ("where did the other people whom Cain feared would kill him come from?" Why is it that there were two versions of creation? Why was it that the serpent was the only one who spoke the truth (they did NOT surely die in the day they ate the fruit, instead living some eight hundred or more years afterward--the did become god-like knowing the diff between good and evil? Why was god often referring to himself as "WE" and "US"? etc.), I decided to revisit the Bible, thinking that If their was any magic in it, I would become a true child of god after completely reading it. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Because the church focused on the New testament, I had never read a lot of the Old Testament apart from what was presented in sunday school and bible class. Oh, the horror!!! After reading about slavery (I'm a Black American Male), where god gave SPECIFIC instruction for the sale, perpetual ownership, and permission to beat the slave almost to death, I could no longer accept any of the book as being from god, but clearly as writings of men bound by that culture and that time with NO connection whatsoever with divinity. I also saw tht god behaved much like a third grader who had just been given a gun and a badge "you will RESPECT my authoriTIE" (kudos to SouthPark) Right bout then, I discovered on the internet a website called INTERNET INFIDELS and after months of reading there, I was able to face the fact, that I was no longer, merely agnostic, I could even call myself an ATHEIST without fear of god's retribution.

One unfortunate aspect of this liberating experience, though is the fact that the more I remember those christian days, the angrier I become--not at god, but at myself! My intellect refused to buy most of the non-sense, but despite the cognitive dissonance, I had true faith that I "would come to understand it better by and by!"

Sorry for the length of this post, but when I started, I didn't realize there was so much to the story!

TheMightyThor

Comment by: TheMightyThor | November 24, 2007, 10:06 pm

I haven't taken the time to read the rest of the comments (though I certainly will soon), so I don't know if my story is the same as the others, but...where to begin?

My parents are missionaries at Youth With a Mission (YWAM), and my whole life I was raised up in with a very narrow POV. Now, lots have people have said "that must be it - you're rebelling" but that is no where near the case.

I remember very clearly the day that I "gave my life to the lord" and I was 8 at the time. I was always raised as a christian, but it was at that time that I realized that just because I was raised around christianity all my life, that does not make me a christian. So I dedicated my life to the Lord. From that moment on, I did everything in my power to make sure that I adhered and followed and served as I thought was best. In high school I helped lead our bible group, I went on numerous mission trips throughout that time, and even played lead guitar in a youth worship band. I practiced what I preached and as I am a knowledge nerd, and love knowing as much as I can about everything, I poured all that energy into studying the bible, apologetics, and also why my particular brand of christianity was the right one. I was devoted to say the least, and I knew what I was talking about (or so I thought)

Being raised in the environment that I was, I was exposed to lots of Young Earth Creationism, and the idea of seeing the bible as the literal word of God. I was raised around the teachings of "Dr" Baugh and the Creation Science Museum. The school I went to until my 10th grade year was a YWAM school called "Christian Heritage School (CHS)" - and the senior field trip was generally a trip to Paluxy so that people could see this "museum" and view the hoax that is the human footprint in a dinosaur footprint.

So there is the background - as to why I changed? Well in high school (after transfering to a public school) I finally was exposed to the theory of evolution and real biology. I fought hard against that, studying the "science" of creationism (which I found pretty much only amounts to arguments against evolution - not science by any means) and the one sided view of evolution touted by the likes of "Dr" Baugh (wonder why I went there first? ha!) I thought I proved my point, but I still had nagging questions which I chose to ignore....until college.

It wasn't until I went to college and took some more science classes that I was forced to own up to the idea that the earth wasn't as young as I thought, and that all these people that I had listened to all my life were either 1.) ignorant and easily misled, choosing to hold onto anything that might justify their beliefs whatever the consequences or 2.) they had flat out lied to me. Either option I didn't like, and shortly after I accepted that yes, what I had grown up believing on evolution and most science was wrong. It wasn't much longer that I had to very closely examine everything else I believed.

It is amazing how stepping outside of your comfort zone and examining what you believe with an open mind can bring to light things that you wonder how you ever missed

Satan - really, does that even make sense? God's most magnificent angel, someone who had stood in god's presence, and knew better than anyone how powerful god was, thinking he was better than god and believing he could win in a war against him? How about Job? - Didn't jesus say in the new testament that "Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God" - The whole book of Job is about a test, a wager. How about the whole friggin character of god found in the Old Testament vs. the character of god found in the New Testament - the angry, unforgiving, genocidal god vs. the turn the other cheek god... Or how about the idea of being a "sheep"? How could any being such as god want his people to be compared to sheep - an animal that will blindly follow - could a powerful intelligent being really want followers this blind??? I have "common sense" arguements coming out the wazoo after taking an objective look at what I believe!!

All that said, it was simply a matter of looking into other religions, and asking myself a serious question: "If there is no tangible, verifiable evidence of any sort of creator, should I believe in one? If I can't answer exactly how the earth was formed, or where everything came from, should I fill this void in with some supernatural explaination or be content with 'I don't know."

It was a scary change, but one that I am infinately more comfortable with now (7 years later - I made this decision at 19) than before. I am extremely content with the idea that I won't live forever (if you're dead, how can you care? ha!), or the idea that this is all there is (it has infact led me to do my best to live life to the fullest, and even to justify my moral code and why, other than "god says so", I shouldn't go on a killing spree or steal for a living!).

If there was to be a god out there that is intelligent and supreme, I cannot fathom that he would be happier with a person who blindly followed him, wasting what in that case would be "god given" abilities of reason and objectivity, compared with someone who searched and found no tangible evidence of his existence using the abilities that god would have given them. (that is of course presupposing that there is a god).

That said - faith is to me one of the most ludicrous ideas I have come across - why would god ever want someone to follow him blindly without question and without evidence? It simply does not make any sense.

Wow - sorry, that was long and indepth, and even off topic. Nor is it very well put together grammatically. I hope all those things can be forgiven, as I am in a rush now have people arriving to do some serious drinking....hooray for holidays! ha!

-Luke

Comment by: Luke | November 24, 2007, 11:08 pm

My background is based in the churches of Christ, a conservative Christian denomination heavily weighted in the Southern United States. It belongs to the "Restoration Movement" or "Stone-Campbell" group of denominations and has its earliest roots in the Presbyterian and Baptist churches. I was raised to be a "second mile" believer as the son of an elder (bishop or pastor). We went to church services every time the doors were open and only a serious illness was an acceptable excuse for missing any event sponsored, including socials and recreational activities. We were taught the Bible from an early age - we memorized key passages, noteworthy chapters, genealogies and trivia. I was baptized at 12, and re-baptized at 16 out of concerns that I might not have understood what I was doing at such a young age. I led worship, preached on the "teen nights", knocked doors, had Bible studies with my friends and was the mainstay of my youth group. I attended church camp and eventually taught Bible and served as a counselor there for a number of years.

Although I considered being a preacher for many years, by the time I graduated I had decided to pursue a "vocational ministry"; e.g., to go to a Christian college and prepare myself to evangelize while supporting myself. Again, in college I was a mainstay of the "good kids", leading worships and nightly devotionals, Bible studies and taking every advanced Bible course I could work in around the requirements of my degree. I can count on one hand the number of times I missed daily chapel. At one point a group of like-minded friends and I had a desire to hold our own worship services in a smaller group in order to share a more intimate form of worship - but to avoid offending anyone, we held them an hour before worship times and then attended the regular services afterward. I was married soon after college to a "good Christian girl", and we were both heavily involved in our local congregations. I began spending a lot of time on Internet message boards and newsgroups, witnessing to others on the newsgroups, answering questions and engaging in debate with unbelievers. I published a number of apologetic web pages that gained some notoriety, and was asked to be a guest on a conservative Christian radio show in California, where I answered questions and debated unbelievers.

I wholeheartedly embraced the doctrine and practice of the church of Christ. My divergence from the churches of Christ actually came as a result of my attempt to better defend its doctrines. I had no major crises of faith, because I was living as a "good Christian". Like most members, I didn't spend a lot of time in evangelism initially, so I was never given an alternate possibility to many of the credos I had been taught all my life. When I did begin evangelizing, I tended to witness to people who had little exposure to the Bible and a lack of investment in the doctrines of their denomination. I didn't spend time questioning methods or reasoning because it was presented as pure common sense; the natural outcome of logical reasoning. Our teaching consisted heavily of defeating "denominational doctrines", so there was no encouragement to question my own. "The Truth" was laid out for me clearly, in outline form and with expected objections already addressed and finalized. It was a convincing presentation, and I never hesitated in my belief that I was in possession of the transmitted will of God.

That changed when I began to get even more serious about my Christianity and decided it was time for me to take the gospel to the "lost" in a more aggressive environment than the "friendship evangelism" I had long practiced. I found very quickly that there were a host of others, equally indoctrinated in their own creeds, equally fluent in the Bible and just as convinced of their own validity. And disturbingly enough, with arguments that were as convincing as my own.

It caused me to do some real reflection, engage in years of denial and eventually ended in a serious bout of study. It helped me learn the history of my denomination, the stated intents of its leaders. It caused me to examine the way I looked at scripture. And the interaction with other faith communities helped me to see the way my own operated. It wasn't an easy task, and the conclusion wasn't any easier to bear. I weighed my faith system in the balances, and it was found wanting.

When I came to a point of divesting myself of my theological history and embracing the mainstream of evangelical Christianity, a new concern rose. If I was wrong about my denomination, might I also be wrong about Christianity as a whole? The research and meditation began again, and the same problems arose. There were the same appeals to authorities that the other side did not consider valid. The same duplicity in application of hermeneutic principles. The same inconsistencies, the same flawed logic. I pondered deeply over the apparent lack of direction in the New Testament scriptures to believers, the stark contrasts to the Old Testament, the inconsistencies, inaccuracies and dubious interpretations.

My loss of faith in Christianity was the end result of this effort. It was not casually or even easily accepted. I spent many years in an effort to disprove what I'd discovered and many more years in abject denial. I spent hours in agonized prayer and meditation with a desperate plea to have my faith restored. At more than one point I reinvested myself in a number of pro-Christian books and materials in an effort to purge doubt from my mind. I reinvested myself in people of faith and in acts of service. I put my queries before hundreds of committed Christians in an effort to find the missing key; the solution to my faith dilemma. But my faith did not appear to be salvageable.

I stand by my conclusions on the basis of four simple principles: a) There is no evidence for the existence of the supernatural b) the Bible does not appear to be an inspired document c) the nature of the Christian God is contradictory and nonsensical and d) Christianity simply makes more sense as an evolved belief system than it does as a divine revelation

Comment by: Bill1324 | November 25, 2007, 1:29 am

My church didn't go in much for that sort of thing. I remember when I was in Berlin, in the army, we had an RAF chaplain from the Church of England come down to do services for us few Episcopalians so we weren't stuck with the "hymn sandwich" of the General Protestant service at the base, and someone asked if he'd preach on such things. He didn't want to, because they weren't in the tradition of the Church and were mostly "politics and wishful thinking".

However, I do still remember being confirmed. The bishop wasn't tall or imposing, but he was a presence, especially fully robed, and he had a way of saying the words of the confirmation that resonated. I can still hear him saying, with his hand on my head, "unTIL she COME... UNTO ... Thy everLASTing KINGdom!" I felt something then, something I thought of as Christ for a long time.

Now? I expect it was theater, nerves, adolescence, and expectation. It certainly didn't last, and it never recurred. But I've felt much the same thing in distinctly secular surroundings.

Comment by: The Ridger | November 25, 2007, 8:20 am

My father is an evangelical free pastor. I was raised very conservative and fundamentalist. I had creationism shoved down my throat. I even studied to be a minister. I am now 39 years old and have claimed to be atheist for only a year now. I do not think that I made the decision to be an atheist. You either believe or you don't. It took alot of inward reflection on my part to realize that I just didn't buy it anymore. I really did not believe, no matter how I tried. Man, did I try! I really did try to believe. I started going to a local "full-gospel" church. Never missed a sunday. I played the guitar for them. I listened to the sermons. I even talked to my pastors about my disbelief. They gave me a modified version of Pascal's wager. There were no satisfactory answers. So recently, I decided to not fool myself anymore. Now I claim to be a "conservative atheist". Like I said, there really was no decision to become an atheist. I just started calling my belief system what it really is. I don't think anyone can just decide to believe or not to believe. If I could do that, I would still be a christian.

Matt R, I never could get into "speaking in tongues". I never felt sincere about. It always felt fake when I tried it.

Comment by: Robert Madewell | November 25, 2007, 12:02 pm

I was a conservative evangelical for 30 years, from the time I accepted Jesus in a Presbyterian Sunday school class in third grade until I began re-examining everything in my life in my late 30s. I attended a bunch of churches, including Calvary Chapel, Bob Schuller's Crystal Cathedral, Chuck Swindoll's EV Free church and several other non-denominational institutions. All of them focused on literal interpretation of the bible and many of them emphasized End Times theology (the belief that the rapture of the saints and Jesus' Second Coming is imminent).

My deconversion was birthed in a midlife emotional crisis, but it outlasted that and eventually became an intellectual dilemma that lasted 5-6 years. As I researched, it became clearer and clearer to me that everything I'd been taught about religion, and accepted without question, was probably bogus. What kept me clinging to Christianity was those "spiritual experiences" that were mentioned: I had had several instances where I felt that god answered my prayers, filled me with the holy spirit and even given me a "miracle."

For several years I could not get past those experiences, which seemed to be "proof" of god working in my life. Two things changed my mind:

1) I watched The God Who Wasn't There and heard someone (Richard Carrier?) mention that if unverifiable spiritual experiences are true, all religions must be considered equally true. That's because people from various religious backgrounds (Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc) all claim to have had spiritual experiences. This really struck me, because I'd never considered it before. Why should MY spiritual experiences be "more true" than a sincere, believing Hindu? Could I be so arrogant as to conclude that only spiritual experiences involving Jesus were valid - and other spiritual experiences were actually encounters with Satan and his demons? No, after some weeks of struggle, I concluded I could not be that arrogant. Religion was either all true, or none of it true.

2) I re-examined each spiritual experience I could remember specifically. There were plenty of "god-incidences" (i.e., I prayed for light traffic on the freeway and there were few cars on the road) but I realized that most of them could easily be ascribed to coincidence and confirmation bias. Over 30 years there were surprisingly few specific incidents that I didn't feel I could explain in this manner. A couple were very dark, desperate times in my life when I cried out in prayer and felt comforted and peaceful afterwards. I even felt that god spoke to me personally, though I never heard an audible voice. Then my therapist at the time told me about something called "self-talk." I realized that the calming effect of prayer could easily be this phenomenon, and that my subconscious was possibly supplying the "voice of god" in my head.

I decided to put this theory to the test. On several occasions over a month or two, I prayed sincerely, asking god to speak to me unambiguously and clear up my confusion. I deliberately tried to keep my own subconscious mind quiet, so I wouldn't be inadvertently supplying the "answers from god" myself. On each of these occasions, I got no response from god. Sadly, I eventually concluded that I'd been talking to myself, calming myself down, all those years.

While deconversion is difficult and heartwrenching, it's also freeing. The "sad" news about solving my own problems was also incredibly liberating! I had the power to overcome those "dark nights of the soul" inside of me all along. That's empowering, and much of the joy that comes with throwing off the blinders of religion is similar. Good luck to you.

Comment by: Karen | November 25, 2007, 1:01 pm

Matt R,

Did you have any "religious experiences"? For example: strong emotional experiences, "speaking in tongues", altered states of consciousness.

Yes I have, twice. Ironically, both of my "religious experiences" happened decades after my deconversion, and did not in the least affect my lack of belief in God. I am a neurobiologist by training, and I have reason to think that such experiences are completely natural phenomena of the brain, not the supernatural phenomena they seem to be. (Shameless plug: I'm writing a book on this subject, which, if I can get a publisher to take it seriously, might with some luck be in print about a year from now.)

I think most devout religious believers come to their beliefs for emotional, not logical reasons. It often starts as indoctrination in childhood, but, even without that, some people feel an emotional need in adolescence or adulthood that belief in God seems to satisfy. These emotions are the substance of what most people describe as "religious experience". What most interests me are what those emotions are and where they come from. My book is not the first attempt to answer those questions. If you can't wait for mine, I recommend M.D. Faber's "The Psychological Roots of Religious Belief" and Lee Kirkpatrick's "Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion". I think I have something interesting to add to their ideas, but theirs are in print :)

I posted part of my own deconversion story in another thread. At the risk of some redundancy, I'll expand on it here.

My mother was Catholic, my father protestant. My mother took my 3 siblings to the Catholic church, while my father took me to his church. Their thinking was this: for my mom to be a good Catholic in a mixed marriage, she had to raise all the kids as Catholics. But to spare my dad from having to go to his church alone, they would bend that rule and let him have one kid to raise as a protestant (me).

As a child, I probably felt closest to my dad when we were going to or from church together, since I had his undivided attention then. I admired him greatly and believed everything he told me.

In high school I started to realize that there were other religions in the world, that they were, for the most part, mutually contradictory, and that they could not all possibly be true. The concept of an omniscient, omnipotent and all-loving God seemed in stark conflict with reality as I saw it, mainly because of all the meaningless suffering in the world.

When I was almost 16, I had ceased to believe Christianity was true. I was not quite an atheist yet, although within another year I would be. I felt that my church attendance was an act of dishonesty and hypocrisy, a feeling I now attribute, ironically, to the example my father set as a man of integrity. With some trepidation I decided to tell my parents I would not be going to church anymore.

My trepidation was justified. They told me I was too young to make that decision, and that they would force me to go to church. I told them that they would have to chain me to the pew. They insulted my intelligence, and it became ugly and stressful for all concerned. They never kicked me out of the house, though, and aside from our conflict over religion, they were good and decent parents. Eventually we reached a state of peaceful coexistence by just avoiding the subject. At his most magnanimous, my dad even went so far as to say, "you gave Christianity a fair chance, but it just didn't work for you."

My atheism has been a sore spot between me and my parents ever since. They never really accepted it, and have become less magnanimous about it as they approach senility (as I discuss in the other thread).

But aside from that unpleasantness, my life without belief has been gloriously better than it was before my deconversion. I was always interested in science, even as a believing child. Now I embrace it fully as my complete world view. Science opens up marvelous vistas of beauty and wonder that the devout avoid, deny or distort in their desperate efforts to protect their cherished beliefs from the relentless erosion caused by reason and evidence. It is truly sad just how much of the natural world they are missing or fail to appreciate.

I could go on and on about the joys of atheism, but you can read that in the other posts here and in Ebon's collection of links to deconversion stories under EbonMusings.org. Of course, it is not all peaches and cream. You must adjust to the idea of there being no god who loves and protects you. But neither must you tremble in fear of him, struggling to guess what it is he expects of you, wondering what sin you committed to deserve the bad things that happen to you, crying out in despair for your prayers to be answered when they usually seem to be ignored.

Best of all, you get to live your life in honesty and integrity.

Comment by: jack | November 25, 2007, 2:03 pm

Not surprisingly, I see a lot of my own story in those posted above. When the scales are lifted from one's eyes, only willful self-delusion will keep one blind. For a long time, I tried to keep my eyes close.

I was born as a human being and then raised as a Roman Catholic. My church was a college town church in the '70s; we had no choir, we had long-haired young folks singing folk for "God". There was no reason for me not to take at face value what my parents taught me. The people were friendly, the lessons all about love -- "God's" toward us, our toward "God", ours for everyone, ... you get the picture. Catechism was pretty much a free-form affair, or so I remember it now, all these decades later. When the very friendly caretaker of the church grounds died (I had to have been around seven years old), I went to his funeral, saw him in his casket, mourned his death. He looked peaceful in his casket; a man of "God" gone "home". I saw everything through the lenses of my religion. And yet...

As I got older, I started to ask all the questions you'd expect a kid to ask. E.g., "If God is all-loving and all-forgiving, why does He allow evil?" More often than not, there was no good answer. Often, the answer was basically that "God works in mysterious ways". Now, as a kid I certainly had a high IQ (fwiw). I read at a college level when I was in the third grade of elementary school. I grew up with books. So, I started to seriously wonder why it was that the adults could not give me direct answers to my innocent queries. My faith began to feel less secure. I asked "God" for personal signs, but they never seemed to manifest. I was told to take on faith -- to "just believe" -- the story of Doubting Thomas; to take it as a proxy for my own experience. My credulousness was expected. But as I began to approach adolescence, my questions became more pointed, my skeptical mindset more obvious. My father revealed himself to be more a Catholic out of sentimentality than belief; in truth, he seemed a disheartened agnostic to me. My mother, who converted from her Seventh Day Adventist faith to my father's, just wanted to have peace in her home, and she thought religion was needed for that. My father avoided or repulsed conversations with me when the topic of theology/religion/faith came up. My mother tried to woo me with more and more vague metaphysical answers that failed to move me. At some point, I stopped going to church.

And then my father enrolled me in a Roman Catholic High School for boys. Let me make something clear at this point: 1) I was a highly sensitive child with undiagnosed ADD (not ADHD), 2) I was very smart but unsocialized due to a shyness that had been developing over the years, 3) I was slight in build and effectively girlish in temperament. So, the boys were cruel to me. And the priests were cruel to me (as to other 'queer' boys). When the abuse got bad enough, I went to the principal of the school, who happened to be the priest at my parents' church. I laid out the facts, told him what was happening, told him about my lying on the floor with horrid stomach cramps every morning because I feared the other kids and my teachers. I was sobbing, breaking down (quite literally, I was having a nervous breakdown), filled with pain and in dire need of some understanding, some kindness, some of "God's" love. After I had said my piece, the priest leaned forward, actually steepled his fingers, and asked rhetorically, "Have you ever thought that maybe God is punishing you for your sins?".

Years passed. Bad things happened. For a long time, I did in fact believe that "God" was real, and "He" was cruel, spiteful, hateful, jealous, and a bully. Sometimes I believed that I must be evil or too flawed for "God"; I thought it was my fault that I was so miserable.

As time passed, I got into all manner of alternative woo-woo stuff. Some of it, however flawed, began to answer old questions for me. My education began to fill itself out, and I learned more and more about the questionable history of the Bible, the roots of the Christ figure (Dionysus, Adonis, etc.), the way the Church had spread out and conquered by force. And the more I learned, the more I saw clearly that there was only one thing behind it all: humankind; not "God". Wherever I looked, I saw the face of humanity, of human beings, limited in time and space, locked into their epochs and ineluctable limitations. Wherever the light of science, of technology, of discovery, of growth penetrated -- there was where the ignorance and superstition was scattered and shown for what it was.

One day it became a simple fact for me: there is no "God"; nor "gods", "spirits", "ghosts", "demons", etc. The world is a breathtakingly beautiful place as it is, even as it can be a devastatingly uncaring place. The love I have now in my life is real, messy, genuine, a work-in-process, irreplaceable and special in every way. My life is flawed and difficult to deal with at times. It is a human life. I value it. I value the lives of others. How could I not, when I know what mine is worth? Without "God", without the sometimes clever, sometimes foolish interpretations of "God's Word", I have become a far more ethically conscious person, and wholly responsible for my choices in a way completely distinct from those who feel the final arbiter and maintainer of justice and morality laid out "His" rules in this or that so-called "holy text" -- typically with all manner of faulty logic, questionable history, dubious quality, and all-too-human myopia.

What is beautiful in religion is human, what is wrong with religion is human, what is true and false in religion is, in the end, human.

Comment by: Moody834 | November 25, 2007, 3:07 pm

I was raised as a Luteran, but my mother has catholic but actually called herself a Spiritist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritism - pretty big here in Brazil, largest proportion and number of followers in the word)

In a sense, all this religion around me probably hasted my skepticism. At about 16, I was a believer, but I felt I knew little about that which I should believe. Moses, Jesus, God, Abraham, Noah. I always had thirst for knowledge, and there were a lot of names and I thought I should know more about them, so the logical step would be to read the bible.

It was a painfull and slow reading, I didn't like the style of writing at all, but I pushed on. The first few books where more than enough to show me that this book was written by humans, and with no divine guidance whatsoever, and thus was irrelevant to my search for more knowledge of god.

With that splinter in my head, I then realized that the organized religions apparently did more harm then good (Inquisition, anti-Condom, Cruzades, Galilei and all that) so if there was a god, it probably would not want to be seen with these guys, so I considered organized religion irrelevant too. But I was still a believer.

I then obvioully stopped going to church. My parents were OK with it, since the reasons I gave them seemed inescapable, and I probably knew more about the Bible and their religion then themselves. But I still believed in a god. I was a deist. But this was before the internet, and I didn't even know such a word existed.

I then studied Electronics, and then Computer Science. My hunger for knowledge and my access to the internet showed me that Science gave us answers that not only seemed much more plausible, they were more beautifull than the best tales of the most creative mind could ever think off. I was an agnostic.
(On this subject, I recommend you watch Cosmos, Carl Sagan, 1980)

I realized that one day people thought a lighting strike was god's wrath, but only because they didn't know what it was. It than became obvious that the questions of the universe, life, and everything, did not need a god to be answered. The fact that we don't yet know the answers to some of these questions was what held my belief in a god for so long. But like lighting, I figured that just because we don't know them, doesn't mean the answer was god.

The answer could be 42. I then realized that 42 and god had about the same amount of probability of beeing true. I was an atheist.

Comment by: Petrucio | November 25, 2007, 6:18 pm

About religious experiences, I had 2 very intense "supernatural" experiences.

The first happened when I was a believer. A maid was working at the appartment and tryed to jump off the balcony, but passed out and collaped with half her body inside and half outside. I was alone at home, and dragged her in, and called the neighboors for help.

When she woke up, she wanted to jump out the window, and talked with an almost male voice and had a lot of strenght. Scary stuff.

We then learned she had been drinking and drugging the night before. I think that experience came just from the drugs and her head, not anything demonic or supernatural.

The other "supernatural" experience was a sleep paralisys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis). Luckylly, by my curiosity, I already knew what it was before it happened; when I woke up, I could see the room and I knew I was fully awake, but could not move a muscle, and I saw a zombie on top of my chest, looking at me.

This is one of the most scary situations you can find yourself in. Luckylly for me again, I like to be scared by stuff I know to be false (horror movies and stuff), so I just stood there and tryed to enjoy my hallucination, but even then it got too scary and I tryed to break it.

But if you don't know what that is and are religious (and maybe even if you aren't), that experience would surelly be marked on you as evidence of "something else". But it's simply a usefull function we evolved to avoid hurting ourselves in our sleep, that sometimes fails to shutdown on awakening.

Comment by: Petrucio | November 25, 2007, 6:35 pm

Interesting to read of so many former fundamentalists' stories! Mine isn't nearly so exciting. My parents were Presbyterian when they met, but because my father was divorced,the church refused to marry them. They weren't fundies before that, but afterward they were more concerned about the church community than the actual dogma. They joined a Southern Baptist church, and I was raised in that denomination.

Church was just church; no one got worked up over the scriptures except the preacher, and no one bothered to read anything beyond what the Sunday School lessons or preacher asked us to; we took the offered analysis at face value, and there was never a real different opinion available - people attended a variety of protestant churches, but usually because of personal or political differences among members, not so much because of the dogma. As far as I know, I think we all agreed on the major, and most of the minor, views of the bible.

About the time I turned 13, we got a new youth minister who later became our church preacher; a nice young man who spoke of the love of Jesus and how to apply that to our lives. I felt called to be baptized at 13 and was happily active in the church, but never with the fire of fundie. The preacher went to the Seminary school for his degree and was gone for a little over two years. He came back to guest-preach one day; it was all hellfire and brimstone, we deserve hell but if you believe...!! Well, needless to say I was crushed, and quickly pulled away from the church. I think my parents figured it was just a phase; I still went on Sunday mornings, half-hoping for something to hit me, but no good.

Since then, I've looked everywhere - other protestant versions, catholic, wiccan, native american, generic new age with the crystals and all - finally landing on buddhism. Now, I call myself an apathetic agnostic, only because it's hard to disprove something if you can't get outside the fishbowl to observe. And I just don't care if there is a god or not; it doesn't affect my life either way.

Comment by: wwyoud | November 25, 2007, 9:07 pm

My personal story of deconversion from Christian fundamentalism is mirrored by many others here. It was basically an intellectual journey that was ignited by a deeply emotional betrayal from a “man of God” that was very close to me.

That was about five years ago and upon reflection, things had started to fall apart before they had gained emotional poignancy. But I had buried them in the cause of maintaining cognitive consonance as I am sure many believers do daily. What follows are the relevant portions to a public forum of an undelivered letter that I have penned to give to family members who might need a detailed description:

"As the general facts that are available and known pertaining to my teen and preteen years will show [7 years], I was a sincere believer in the religion of Christianity, or more specifically the fundamentalist, literal Bible brand of Christianity that is most prevalent in Appalachia.

The first doubts reached my mind when I was seventeen and at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes adventure camp that was [my local church’s] gift to me. The fakeness of these "spiritual leaders" was apparent to me from our first prayer meeting. It seemed ridiculous and silly to me to "pray" for something as meaningless as performance in a sport. Like the Almighty Creator of the Universe cares about Joe Blow's free-throw percentage - give me a break.

I buried these doubts and went on in my apparent walk with Christ. At nineteen or so, I started to realize the functional nature that supernatural concepts served. I realized that all forms of afterlife beliefs were construed to 1) satisfy basic animal survival instinct and 2) in negative versions of an afterlife, to satisfy human ethical cravings for justice.

Again, I buried these doubts and went on for about another year. Sometime, when I was about twenty, I had a spiritual crisis for I realized that using the definition of Christianity that I was raised on, or more accurately indoctrinated with, I was not "right with God." I tackled the situation from an intellectual standpoint with as much ferocity as I could muster. I was going to decide once and for all the truth of Christianity.

My reasoning was that since my quest for God was sincere, He would lead me to the truth. First stop on the library list: evolution and creation.

I read books from both camps with an open mind, but slowly and surely, the more reasoned, rational, and evidential arguments offered by evolutionary science won.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a keen judge of a person's intelligence, and as much as I wanted to believe in a literal creation that the Bible told me of, all the authors that wrote on such matters revealed themselves to me as less intelligent and more illogical than the authors of mainstream science who wrote of evolution.

[…]

Some people have brought it to my attention that they think answered prayers are “proof” of God’s existence; ergo meaning that the particular god of their religious tradition is real and the truth.

Years ago when I was a born again believer, I prayed constantly and consistently. At times I would pray before a hard test, before an anxiety producing situation, or I would offer a small utterance to God when my truck would not start – the normal kind of things that prayers are spoken and thought for. There were many times that I was certain that I had made that A on a test because God had helped me focus, or that I didn’t falter speaking in front of class because He had helped me, or that my truck only started because of some small invisible divine spark. That’s proof enough isn’t it? Surely God exists because God helped me through these things, right?

Obviously now as an atheist I do not pray and the difference is nil. What accounts for this? Why do so many people think God is a telepath? Why did I think God heard and answered my prayers?

As I realize now, and as many atheist authors have pointed out, prayer is an overt manifestation of human beings’ persistent perceptual bias of selective observation. We “count the hits and ignore the misses.” Psychological literature calls it “confirmation bias.”

When I was a Christian, when good things would happen that I had prayed for and wanted, I classified that as an answered prayer. When things didn’t happen the way that I wanted and had asked God about, well, that must just be His will or He is testing me.

What I know now is that I was merely misperceiving purely random and natural events. Both good things and bad things happen to me now as an atheist at exactly the same rate as they happened to me as a born-again. Prayer was (and is) simply an illusory perceptual lens with which to view events.

[...]

These things being said, I do understand the psychological roots of the prayer motivation. There are things as biological creatures that we simply cannot control. Prayer is the attempt to control events and circumstances that are otherwise out of our hands.

When someone says to me that they will pray for my safety or that they will pray for my happiness, etc, I really do appreciate their motivation. The fact that prayer is empirically vacuous and demonstrably ineffective in no way demeans the sincere motivation of the person that believes in and offers the prayer. That person, although they couch the wish in superfluous language, still actually means well and I sincerely do appreciate such sentiment, although I harbor no delusions as to the effectiveness.

Comment by: Simeon Kee | November 26, 2007, 1:37 am

I grew up in a Catholic family with a devout born again mother. I went to church every week and after a summer Bible camp I attended in 7th grade, considered myself born-again.

After college, I became fascinated with astronomy, primarily with the discoveries of new planets. As a hobby, I started studying the universe, black holes, supernovas, etc. Then intelligent design and creationism started rearing it's ugly head. At the time, I unknowingly was in the "Old Earth Creationism" camp, thinking that the universe was set into motion by God at the Big Bang.

I wanted to clarify to myself what I believed about the creation of the universe, so I read the Bible, and read more science. It's then that I realized what a piece of junk the Bible is. I also learned that everything I though I knew about my faith was completely wrong.

I seemed to be hit with this revelation from several other angles at the same time.

Comment by: I Am Mine | November 26, 2007, 11:44 am

Hi Matt, it's hard to concisely list all the reasons I had for deconverting when each one could take up pages and pages, as Ebon has so aptly shown. My story here is longer than I'd like for a comment but shorter than necessary to really describe what I experienced. Please feel free to ask for elaboration regarding my spiritual experiences if you like.

I was “born again” as a child of about 7 or 8 years old (with occasional reconversions, just in case it didn’t stick the first time) and I grew up to be an enthusiastic Christian who had been raised in a Christian home by devout parents (who also founded and pastored our church, which was nondenominational with a Pentecostal-type flare).

I did have spiritual experiences, most of which were invariably tied to highly emotional states of mind and I realize now, that they were also tied to my desire for love and acceptance at a time when I had no close friends and had had a particularly painful high school experience that stuck with me for years afterwards. As described by other posters already here, these spiritual experiences were also often in church meetings involving a particular style of preaching, usually spoken with quiet intensity that usually addressed something that I felt I was struggling with personally (usually not feeling close enough to God, or wanting to feel his presence or needing his direction, etc), or during worship time when I actively (and sometimes literally) cried out to God for his love, comfort, direction, and also to praise him for all the wonderful qualities I believed he had as the Bible instructed me to do.
I spoke in tongues, sometimes imagined I'd felt God's presence, fell down during laying on of hands (this was always either an active decision or helped with a little push to the forehead), believed I had accurate “words of knowledge” from God occasionally when praying for others and even believed that I’d been healed (a week after being prayed for and for a condition that I learned a decade later, often resolves itself suddenly, no prayer required). A few times I had perfect strangers pray for me about very specific things that they couldn’t have known about me, but looking back now, I know they were actually pretty common problems for someone my age and I also ignored the (wrong) “words of knowledge” given by other people also purporting to have heard from God about me.

Still a devout Christian, I began an undergraduate degree in biology in my early twenties and at about the same time my older brother, who had also been a devout Christian, began to question his own faith. I had to ask him to stop telling me about everything that he was learning as I didn’t know how to respond and had no explanation or justification but knowing that he had found reason to disbelieve woke me up a bit. Years later in my late twenties, in spite of knowing that my brother’s faith had been so shaken by his questioning of it, I was finally ready to consider that as I faithful Christian, I should be able to answer such questions. I thought it only right that if the Bible was true and God and Christ were indeed who I’d been taught to believe they were, that these beliefs should stand up and be shown to be true.

With the objective of strengthening my faith, I allowed myself to ask questions I’d never asked before and to warily include evidence from secular sources. I realized how biased and false most of the things I’d believed about the world as told by creationists were and I finally allowed myself to look at the evidence. I learned that evolution is astoundingly supported by evidence from all over the world in multiple fields of study, that evidence overwhelmingly shows that the earth is extremely old and that there was and never could have been a global flood as described in the Genesis account.

I also began to read the Bible more than I ever had before and began to see many internal errors and inconsistencies for the first time and I began to realize why believers and apologists often responded to many questions not with satisfactory answers but by implying that the questioner’s faith was lacking and thus deflecting from an answer to accusing the questioner. It sunk in for the first time that my heretofore loving God, as described by his actions in the Bible, was in fact, malicious, vindictive, angry, jealous, deceptive and genocidal. The evidence for Christ’s existence was tenuous, and as told in the Bible, contrived. As a woman, I also was hurt by the realization, that the God of the Bible unfairly values men over women and I recognized the influence and effect of such beliefs in the church and society today. (I’d never considered myself a feminist until about then.)

When my mother acknowledged she’d made a few choice reinterpretations of Paul’s writing about women’s roles in the church and in marriage and my father changed his answer to a question (with geological evidence) about the Genesis flood with the admission that maybe it didn’t cover the entire globe, it reinforced how much of Christianity is just picking and choosing the bits that are convenient while ignoring all that are not.

At the beginning, I could feel myself losing faith and I fought it. I fought it with all the effort I could muster. I prayed for God to show evidence of himself unequivocally somehow. I told him my doubts and explained my confusion. If he truly was the God that I had been taught to believe in, surely he knew how close I was to losing faith in him. It should have been a simple thing to do for an omnipotent God. There was no explanation and no sign from him, and the evidence against all that I’d believed kept mounting.

Then a friend lost his new wife to a sudden illness, leaving him alone with their newborn child. We’d all prayed for her healing and God had done nothing to help. Shortly after her death, I watched the movie Alive, and finally had to give up my belief in an all-loving and all powerful God after watching people crying out to God for saving from a plane wreck only to be buried in an avalanche. God didn’t help those who cried out to him.

I realized that we alone are responsible for our lives and the choices we make and that sometimes bad things happen, and that's just how life (or death) is. I can feel overwhelmed at the beauty of the natural world and not need to thank God for it or say that it must be a religious experience. I know that evidence exists to show how the world’s religions are human constructs and am content in the knowledge that although we may not know exactly how the universe and life came to be, it is certainly not as imagined by the writers of religious texts, the Bible included.

I consider myself an agnostic some days and as an atheist other days, although I still involuntarily wince at the term. Simply saying I’m a “free-thinker” is enough and far more meaningful to me. I can still “speak in tongues” if I try and that’s okay, as I understand that glossolalia is common to many religions around the world and is easily explained by those who study human behaviour and psychology. That I can still do this doesn’t bother me, and I think it is simply evidence of a behaviour practised repeatedly until it became habitual, without any spiritual connotations.

My de-conversion process was long, difficult and emotionally draining. For a few years I was angry at having been so deceived and made to feel so guilty all the time but I’m not anymore. I finally feel happy, normal and sane. Realizing that no one is spending eternity in heaven or hell has been incredibly freeing and I value the lives of others in this world, and my own, more than ever before.

Comment by: mackrelmint | November 26, 2007, 8:42 pm

My christian story is just about the same as many posted here. The bottom line is I was born into it. That decision was made for me before the doctor slapped my bottom. My political and social views were also taught to me by the parents I had, just like 90% of the worlds population. One day I suddenly realised that none of us should hate someone due to what they believe. No one wants to even entertain the thought that their parents and relatives of the past could be wrong. We are taught to be proud of our heritage and religions, even though most of us really don't know why we believe what we do other than it must be right if our parents said so.

I always had many problems with the bible and maybe I was one of the few in my church and family who actually read the thing. By the time I was in my late teens I could no longer tolerate the OT and the hateful god who cared not one whit about anyone but the 'chosen'. I knew if I had lived in those days, I would have been the target of Yahweh and also everyone I loved. That was not a pretty picture seeing the vicious methods this god commanded to be used against anyone in the path of the hebrews.

Still, I continued on because I was really afraid to voice what I thought. By the time I was in my thirties with two sons, I began to feel the same loathing for the Apostle Paul. That was one hateful arrogant dweeb who preached a completely different doctrine and no one seemed to ever notice.

I began in earnest to take a look at secular works on the subject and I must say, I was blown away with the seemingly endless supply of information! I began with The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine and I haven't stopped researching yet. I will continue on until the day I die. I am now in my forties and how I wish I had made this decision years ago. I think I consider myself more of a Deist. I do not believe the creator meddles in our lives and does not require or demand our pathetic forced worship. Any force capable of creating this universe would hardly be petty enough to constantly scream "love me, worship me".

This is just my opinion, but perhaps we are living our own judgement, if you want to call it that. I believe the only thing ever expected or hoped for from us is that we would treat one another with respect and compassion. I think it is our duty to protect and care for this planet we are on. I do not believe in a heaven nor hell, but maybe there is a realm we know nothing about or maybe we keep coming back here until we get it right. Who knows???

Maybe this planet if for those who haven't evolved to a level of not needing a security blanket god, or those who think it proper to hate and kill in the name of their god. If that should be the case, I won't be here the next go-around! I have learned my lesson this time. lol

Comment by: Becky | November 29, 2007, 11:36 pm

Matt: Here's my two cents worth. I also was raised in a Southern Baptist home, saved as a teenager, backslid into atheism while in college, then, after having my first child, returning to the church with a new fervor. This was during the time of Hal Lindsey, so I was really into studying Revelation with an expectation of the imminent return of Jesus. Remember, this was during the 70's, thirty years ago. I studied the Bible, became a sunday school teacher, and started studying all the various theories of salvation. He delayed his return, of course. The baptist church soon grew boring and I switched to a pentecostal church. Ah, this was the answer. It was as good as doing drugs. I experienced tongues, crazy worship services, hypnotic trance-like prayer, etc...
After awhile I realized that all this belief of god working everyday in mine and my friends lives was a lie, because I was having the same problems that everyone else was having, and that other people, whether buddhist, christian, muslim, whatever, had similar circumstances. There was no magic power that was working for me nor anyone else. So our favorite verse was, "the rain falls on the just and the unjust". In other words, there really is no difference in anyone's life, it's just life.
The big breakthrough in my life was when I read Carl Sagan's book, Cosmos. It spoke to me of reason, and when he talked about the mythological belief that we are basically puppets controlled by deities from above, he spoke to me. I realized that was me. I immediately declared my atheism, and felt a freedom that I hadn't felt before.
People ask for proof that there is no god. For me, the proof is that there is no difference in anyone's life anywhere. We all experience good, bad, suffering, birth, death. Life goes on, and we either adapt to it, or we die.
It doesn't matter what your choice of deity is, you're going to have the same type of life that I, an atheist, have. I quit praying five years ago, and nothing has changed. I didn't fall into evil habits, or experience less good or bad than you probably have.
Now, I look forward to the advance of science and technology to better my life, not god. And no, god is not imparting knowledge to the scientists, so they can do this. It has come through thousands of years of research and experimentation to gain this knowledge, usually in spite of religion.
Anyway, keep searching. Truth will come.
Best wishes, Goyo.

Comment by: Goyo | December 1, 2007, 12:34 pm