From Bible-thumper to a Deist

sent in by Jeff

Well, I've been reading through this site for some time now and I figured I might as well put up my anti-testimony — if not for anything else but my own sort of closure to Christianity.

I was born and raised in a "uber-church" one of those gigantic churches that doesn't claim any denomination and people have to meet in small groups to even get any sort of community going.

Anyway, I was a Bible-thumper from the get go. I remember being in 5th grade, bringing my bible and trying to convert people; I even had my own little hellfire speeches. This pretty much went on throughout my entire school years — I was always known as the Jesus freak or that crazy Jesus guy.

This all changed though, and ironically enough, it happened when i joined the army. Once I went through basic training I was almost forced to meet with people of other views and to get along with them. I couldnt just start preaching to somebody, telling them their going to hell, because these were the people watching my back, and I respected them.

Well, after I got out of the army I was already everything my former Christian self hated: I was an alcoholic, I was a womanizer, cursed like a sailor, the whole bit. Well I figured it was time to get back to my roots and try to be the Christian man I used to be, but something unexpected happened.

When I came back to the church I used to go to, just about everyone shunned me. I guess somehow my old drinking and casual sex stories had gotten back to them, andhey didnt like it one bit. I was all but told to leave by the people there.

This was when the doubts seriously began. I tried several churches in hopes that maybe it was just my old church that was like this, but for the most part I had to face it: for some reason these people that I used to call friends had heard that I was living in sin and now wanted nothing to do with me.

So I started to research my own faith, thanks in most to this site. But I was as impartial as I could be, reading this site and then going to Christian sites to see what they had to say. When it all came down to it I have come to believe that Christianity is nothing more than a country club, as long as you believe what they believe and show up to the meetings, everyone loves you. But, the second you start to waiver, you're gone and hated.

This was my starting reason to leave the faith — everything else just sort of fell in place after that. Since then Ive become a Deist, but the thing is I'm not complety stuck on it; I'm still studying other things, as I am sort of new at this. For 22yrs I did nothing but study the Bible, so now it's strange to be learning about other faiths deemed Satanic by the Christian culture (hehe).

Well, thats my speil. I hope you enjoyed it. It's not the most awesome anti-testimony ever, but hope it helps somebody in some way.