sent in by William H. Pratt I grew up in church, but it didn't really "take" until I was 17. At that dramatic "turning-point" time in my life, I was very emotional, no real direction in my life, and one night when I was at home all alone, I dropped to my knees and Received Jesus as my Savior and Lord, amen. Over the next three decades, I memorized hundreds of Bible verses. I taught Sunday School classes. I collected 22 different translations of the Bible. When that wasn't enough for me, I learned Greek and Hebrew so that I wouldn't have to rely on translations (Greek, by the way, is MUCH more difficult than Hebrew). And I got to know a LOT of Christians. They're a pretty twisted bunch - as evil as any of us, but they're CHRISTIAN about it. No atheist ever fucked with me or cheated me or stabbed me in the back the way Christians did. And I really tried to ignore the blatant contradictions in the Bible, and the descripti...

sent in by mynameisnotbob I, like a good many people on this site, was born as a Christian. My parents are into it in a fairly big way- my dad is, bless his heart, a fundamentalist wacko since his semi-midlife crisis; I don't entirely blame him- he needed a release from his stressful and demeaning job, and religiousness is at least less destructive than blowing my family's savings on a sports car or something. My mom is tied up in the social aspects and the like (she actually works as our church's treasurer) even if she doesn't agree with everything. She has a wonderfully open mind and has inspired me to the same, though religion and I do not get along, it seems. My church is an unusual one; I am, or was, a Quaker, or a member of a Friends Church, as we liked to call ourselves to dodge the somewhat anachronistic connotation of the former. I still rather respect the denomination, though at this point I consider the underlying aspects of all Christianity rather s...

sent in by Phoenix So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -Bertrand Russell when i was young, my family was not religious. granted, we went to church and i attented a catholic school, but we never really discussed god too much. when i was eight, we moved to another city. a few years later, my mother had pains with her back and was forced to be bedridden. it was at this time she became closer to god. and that's when hell started. for the next few years, everything was all right. we did have some disagreements on theology, as i was a scientific child and she was now a devout catholic, who took the bible literally. my interest in other religions began to grow. we moved again, and in ninth grade i became depressed and suicidal. noticing that i didn't seem happy, mom would comment that i wasn't close enough to god. it was at this stage i began seeking the truth. in 10th grade, i had atheist and...

sent in by Cabin Fever My story probably isn't as exciting as a lot of others I've read here. And I guess that makes me the lucky one! You see, I never really was a fundie, just a fundie "wannabe" for a while. I was raised American Baptist, which is a rather liberal denomination as far as Baptists go. I don't recall anyone there ever talking about the need to be "saved", or threatening us with Hell if we didn't believe the right way. In fact, our pastor quoted existentialists like Paul Tillich about as much as he quoted scripture in his sermons. Baptism at age 10 or 11 was more of a "rite of passage", rather than some huge, life-changing event. Anyway, I did all the usual church stuff - Sunday school, choir, youth group, & poured coffee at more church suppers than I care to remember! In all, it was a pretty secure, comfortable, "safe" place to be. (Then again, it was about all I'd ever known.) And livin...

sent in by Nikki First, I would like to start off by saying that I am no where nearly as knowledgeable about the bible or Christianity as those I’ve observed on this site. I have been involved in many different faiths and sects of the Christian religion. My mother was a free spirit raised in a Catholic family. My dad was a drunken druggie who came from a drunken family. He was never around though so, that’s it about him. When I was born my Grandmother begged my Mom to have me baptized, and my Mom refused. She told my Grandmother that she wanted me to be able to make my own decision about religion. I was still raised in Catholic Tradition, that is, Latino Catholic Traditions. Latino Catholicism seems a lot more superstitious, I guess a mix of indigenous rituals of the Aztecs and the Spanish Christianity that was forced upon them. I still had family members that believed in healers, curses, and “evil eye” or “ojo” as it’s referred to in Spanish. I remember ...

sent in by Maddie My deconversion came about quite accidentally. I was happily conducting my life in blind faith, and was made quite ecstatic by the idea of gouging the proverbial eyes out of intellectually functional non-believers. I am the youngest of six kids born to missionary parents. Their only hope for all of us was that we would take up the torch of truth and become missionaries for the Lord in some exotic and distant land - Even more enticing was the idea of being martyred by spear-toting tribal people we may one day be translating the Bible for. Physical death was secondary, these heathens would thank us in heaven one day and we would receive our jeweled crowns. Like so many young aspiring Christians I went on a summer mission trip to India. I came home to report sordid stories of heathen practices and beliefs. I was going to be a great missionary! I could quite safely call myself a fundamentalist Christian (It's true, you have to be mental to think it'...

sent in by Genita City: Wichita State: Ks Country: USA Became a Christian: I was 10 years old Ceased being a Christian: I was 30.... Labels before: Independant Baptist, Southern Baptist, Free Will Baptist...Nazarene Labels now: Pagan/ Wiccan Why I joined: I was under the missasumption that "GOD" and "Jesus" DID in fact exist,That I was guilty of sin, and was condemned to roast in hell if I didn't 'serve' God- and all that stupidity... Why I left: I left because I learned that it was a hoax, a line of feces...riddled with patriarchy, hypocrisy, bigotry...that rape, abuse, molestation, and child molesters were acceptable "Wholesome Christian Activities"- in short I left because I learned the hard way that the Christian notion of "God" and "Jesus" DO not exist, and that the bible and prayer are tools for those playing the sick mind games to control y...

sent in by Casey I was adopted into a Catholic family shortly after I was born. I was an only child, and I grew up in the bush (in the US you'd call it the sticks or the boondocks). We ran sheep, and I still run about 5,000 on 7,000 acres.My mother and father were both Catholics, but as the one was of Scots descent and the other Irish, they argued a lot, sometimes violently. It didn't help matters that my mother was mentally ill, and had been institutionalised for it. My Dad tried his best, but he hadn't the skill to cope, and his beliefs precluded divorce. It was about then I started having doubts. Praying to God for some break in the endless arguments didn't work, he was twice as deaf as a post. Rain hail or shine they would still attend mass every Sunday, and always put their money on the plate. Even during the 65 drought they would give to the church. Funny thing, I know that one of our parish priests during this time was connected years later t...

sent in by David McCord My mother and I were charter members of a Congregational Church in Lincoln, NE. She was a very devout Christian and insisted that I always attend church with her. My father never went to Church. He believed in God, but had a problem with the methods used in organized religion. In 1963, while working on my Boy Scout God and Country award (these were quite rare back then), I was required to study the world's great religions. The more questions I asked, the less sense the answers made. Faith does not stand up well to questions. Eventually, I became agnostic. I no longer accepted the "truths" that were preached from the pulpit. I was training to become an engineer and learned to investigate things using scientific method. Logic and the search for truth became very important to me. The bizarre and twisted logic used by the Church to "prove" their beliefs became not only hard for me to swallow, they struck me as a ...

sent in by Colin Wright I was brought up Catholic. We’ve got the VHS tape of my baptism, we’ve got little certificates saying that, yes, I did indeed go through my First Communion. I went to a private Catholic school in California before moving to Missouri, and I think that was the biggest ingraining factor for the longest time. The fact that all my peers were going through the same rituals and being told the same things as I was made them right and factual. Any time I would mentally triangulate something that didn’t seem quite right, well, I only had to look around to be reassured of its righteousness. After moving to Missouri, I started attending a public school. That was a shock. There were kids of different ethnicities (there was one African American and one Philippino in my entire grade level at the Catholic school), different social background (not everyone here is loaded…whoa) and with different spiritual beliefs. That was the biggest shock. The...

sent in by Asuryan I think I'm the first Italian that writes her story on this website... please excuse me if I'll do some errors and stay with me 'till the end :) I'll also be happy to read your comments, if you have some, since perhaps Italian Catholic, American Catholic and Protestant churches are very different. I'm 24 years old, I'm an Italian and I've always been. It's Catholic custom to baptize (hope I've got it right) very small children only days after they're born. The reason for this has something absurd and sick in it: priests say that since Adam and Eve soiled themselves the Original Sin, every human being that comes to life is a sinner, and should he/she die he/she'll go straight to hell. If you ask a priest what happens to a baby that dies at childbirth, though, he usually says that an unbaptized baby ends up in a place in Hell called "Limbo", which is a bit less horrible than the rest of Hell. However the pri...

sent in by Daryl I was raised in a Fundamentalist Christian home, and did the whole “Forgive the lowly sinner and thanks for the blood” thing when I was three years old. I was baptized at age thirteen, and was my parent’s great hope of having a preacher in the family. I memorized entire books of the bible, involved myself in theological discussions, and was a major pain in the ass to any non-believer in school as I testified incessantly. I was hard core. Around the age of sixteen, I came across some challenging questions that I couldn’t find the answer to: 1) If God didn’t condone drunkenness, then why did Jesus turn water into wine at a point in the party when everyone was getting drunk? 2) Why did God put Job through such horrible trials just to prove a point to someone he had already condemned to hell? 3) In the Garden of Eden, didn’t the snake actually tell the truth, and God lied? The answers I received from my parents, youth group leaders, and my pastor were as...

sent in by Kurt O Let me first start off that I've been diagnosed with a mental disorder: Schizo Affective / Bipolar Disorder. I hear voices, feel spirits/demons/angels/God's wrath most of the time. On with my story, it's long but I'll make it short. What "sins" I have comitted are irelavant. I'll start with my conversion. It was full of pressure from so-called "Disciples of Christ" from the Boston Movement. They said I had to do what they told me or I would not be a christian. So I trudged along being faithful to the "church" (though it's really a sinking ship). I was asked to leave due to my behavior due to illness. Up until that time I had a daily "quiet time" and "prayer walks" which I hated to do but I DID THEM ANYWAY BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE SAVED. After I was asked to leave I didn't pray or have "quiet times" anymore. 3 months later I had a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with sc...

sent in by Brian I have no spectacular tale to tell, nothing that makes for good reading, nothing that will cause tears to be shed. All the same I was raised by loving parents (though NOT demonstrative) to believe that the most vile invention of humankind was 'the truth'. As an adult I have read parts of the bible and am astounded that such a rediculous collection of fantasies (the NT) and horrendous accounts of savage bloodshed and superstition (the OT) can be so highly regarded by so many otherwise clever people. It causes me to shake my head in utter disbelief. We give ourselves far too much credit as a species if this sampling can be called representative of the 'average'. I often want to scream "Wake up, you mindless fools!" Back to my deconversion; I was 13 and attending Catholic school when I was first able, though only in the gaurded spaces of my mind, to admit that I didn't believe in gawd (or J. Hoover, as I sometimes like to...

sent in by Ben Anderson The main thing that sold me the idea that Christianity is wrong is this question: Why did Christianity become the biggest religion in the world? Here are the conclusions I came to: 1. Christianity is a bully religion. Holy wars and inquisitions are just the beginning. The bible encourages its followers to spread the word across the globe. To their credit, Christians have done this very well. For hundreds of years, Europe was Christian by law practically. There wasn't a line separating Church and state, let alone a wall as we (are supposed to) have in America. 2. I've always had an interest in world history. So I look through history and see all of the vile, disgusting things Christians have done in the name of their god. That wasn't a proof of untruth, but it was an absolute turn off. 3. Christianity is a myth. A modern myth. Thousands of years ago, people needed explanations of why things are the way they ...

sent in by BimmuDorgir I was one of those Christians who was a Christian because I was told I that was. Ever since I've been able to remember, I was told by my mom, and the rest of my family that I was Christian, and that, when I die, I would go to heaven, because I believed in Jesus. Luckily, my mom was religiously slack, and although we went to church on occasion, she never made a big deal out of it. She did, however, throw in her own little religious lessons every once in a while, like "If you don't believe in Jesus, you will go to Hell", "Jesus died for our sins" and "Everyone is a sinner", etc. Some of these teachings never seemed to meld with me, though. For example, I was also taught that you have to believe in Jesus and God to be saved (from hell), but that God and Jesus were infinitely loving, etc. That just didn't seem to fit. Also, I knew of the existence of other religions, and by the time I was 8 or so, I ...

sent in by semagoohay I had written a letter to the webmaster regarding my Hindu background and the subsequent detachment from it. The webmaster was kind enough to publish it too, but I was not a registered member then, nor did I place the message in the correct forum. So here is another go at it. I was born in India in a Hindu family and I belonged to the so-called highest caste – the Brahmins. For the benefit of those who don’t know, Hinduism splits its followers into four groups (or classes or castes) – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vysyas, and Sudras. Brahmins are the preachers, teachers, mathematicians, scientists, and the defenders of the faith. In short, they are the erudite and the elite class. Please understand that such distinction no longer exists. Whatever I said was true only in the past. Kshatriyas are the warriors. Kings and Generals belonged to this class. Vysyas are the business people and Sudras (pronounced shoe-druhs) are the people of the lowest class. ...