I finally had ENOUGH
sent in by Tim
My name is Tim. This is my de-conversion story. Prepare to be sickened!
One day, my live-in girlfriend (now my wife) suggested we go to this local church she and her family attended in her youth. (she stopped at age 17) It was this church's 25th anniversary and her mother (devout xtian) invited us to the sunday service. (At this point, the only exposure I had to xtianity was a few years of being dragged to services at a seventh-day adventist church twice a month by my grandmother when I was between the ages of 4-7.) At age 30, I knew absolutely nothing about the bible or church. So, I decided why not. Hey, it'll probably score points with my girlfriends mom, right? And maybe it will make me a better person.
So, off we went.
What was coming from the pulpit was unlike anything I had ever heard. In just under an hour, I had the full gospel message preached to me from adam to revelation with conviction , much enthusiasm (holy ghost power!). I met a few seemingly nice people, shook the pastor's hand, and commented on how nice their church was. I was invited to come back again, and departed with some very thought-provoking new "knowledge".
I thought about it for 2 days, and decided it simply must be true-too many people believe for it not to be. Plus, the hellfire preaching had me "convicted" of my "sin".
I accepted christ, and my girlfriend followed suit after much egging on from me.
From there I proceeded to move out of the house until we got married. This put my g/f through hell.
There was a man who was discipling me in the church, and he and a few other men tried to convince me with scripture that it is against god's will for me to marry her, because she was divorced.(another confusing area of scripture!) I didnt listen to them, and we married.
I was struggling with smoking at this time, and was sincere about wanting to quit. At a prayer meeting one thursday night, I told the group of 5 men about my struggle with tobacco. They proceeded to tell me that smoking was sin (the body being "the temple" of the holy spirit and all), and that "god doesnt hear the prayer of a sinner." What happened next stunned me. As the men took turns praying, it came to be my turn, and as I began to say my prayers, they all got up and walked away from me!!! This really had me down in the dumps. I guess my sinfullness was hindering their fellowship with the holy spirit. I felt like a piece of shit. Needless to say, that was my last time in a prayer group. I wasnt seeing the power of the holy spirit active in any area of my life like the sermons boldly claim and the bible PROMISES.
As time went on, I began to see people doing some seriously craaaazy shit. Flopping around on the floor, speaking baby babble, shouting at the supposed demons inside those being prayed for at the altar call, people "prophesying" to the congregation, and people shaking as though they were being electrocuted in a puddle of water. Curiously, the sick were never healed, the storehouse was not opened and blessings did not pour out from all of our tithing. And people still had the same afflictions week after week. One time, I hesitantly allowed a group to lay hands on me and "pray for me", you know, tongues and all that. After they noticed that I wasn't falling down and babbling in tongues, the man directly in front of me was trying to push me down backwards!! I guess he was just trying to help the spirit slay me. What a nice fellow.
God is good, eh?
Thats when the bullshit meter started to go off the chart.
I was looking around at what goes on in my "spirit-filled" church, with the people flopping and babbling and moaning and shaking and crying and saying to myself "is not god the author of confusion?"
And to top all of it off, I could get no satisfying answers to my questions (they call them sinful doubts) even from the pastors and elders. I was told not to read the bible to try to find problems, that was a sin.
My faith was slowly slipping away.......
Finally I just said piss on all my confusion and doubt..............and gave up.
No more of this backwards-ass, hypocritical, contradictory, mythical bullshit ANY MORE!
But see, now that I realize Iv'e been duped and even betrayed by this false belief system, the fact that my wife won't open her eyes and see what iv'e seen, is going to allow for the label of "backslidden heathen" to be heaped upon me, and eventually put my wife at odds in some way with the church she has faith in or the friends she has made there.
This feeling of release is tremendous, but at the same time theres my wife, who still has faith in this garbage.
Question:
I'll give you a hint:
Thanks, webmaster for giving me an outlet to vent, and I welcome all e-mails, questions and comments, except from those wishing to preach. Save it for the "brethren". They need it much more than I.
City: Elmira
State: NY
Country: USA
Became a Christian: 30
Ceased being a Christian: 32
Labels before: Assemblies of god
Labels now: Pissed off, possibly Agnostic?
Why I joined: Because i was stupid and jumped right in without checking it out first
Why I left: Because when I finally did check it out, it was BULLSHIT!
Email Address: elpoeta at dmailman dot com
My name is Tim. This is my de-conversion story. Prepare to be sickened!
One day, my live-in girlfriend (now my wife) suggested we go to this local church she and her family attended in her youth. (she stopped at age 17) It was this church's 25th anniversary and her mother (devout xtian) invited us to the sunday service. (At this point, the only exposure I had to xtianity was a few years of being dragged to services at a seventh-day adventist church twice a month by my grandmother when I was between the ages of 4-7.) At age 30, I knew absolutely nothing about the bible or church. So, I decided why not. Hey, it'll probably score points with my girlfriends mom, right? And maybe it will make me a better person.
So, off we went.
What was coming from the pulpit was unlike anything I had ever heard. In just under an hour, I had the full gospel message preached to me from adam to revelation with conviction , much enthusiasm (holy ghost power!). I met a few seemingly nice people, shook the pastor's hand, and commented on how nice their church was. I was invited to come back again, and departed with some very thought-provoking new "knowledge".
I thought about it for 2 days, and decided it simply must be true-too many people believe for it not to be. Plus, the hellfire preaching had me "convicted" of my "sin".
I accepted christ, and my girlfriend followed suit after much egging on from me.
From there I proceeded to move out of the house until we got married. This put my g/f through hell.
There was a man who was discipling me in the church, and he and a few other men tried to convince me with scripture that it is against god's will for me to marry her, because she was divorced.(another confusing area of scripture!) I didnt listen to them, and we married.
I was struggling with smoking at this time, and was sincere about wanting to quit. At a prayer meeting one thursday night, I told the group of 5 men about my struggle with tobacco. They proceeded to tell me that smoking was sin (the body being "the temple" of the holy spirit and all), and that "god doesnt hear the prayer of a sinner." What happened next stunned me. As the men took turns praying, it came to be my turn, and as I began to say my prayers, they all got up and walked away from me!!! This really had me down in the dumps. I guess my sinfullness was hindering their fellowship with the holy spirit. I felt like a piece of shit. Needless to say, that was my last time in a prayer group. I wasnt seeing the power of the holy spirit active in any area of my life like the sermons boldly claim and the bible PROMISES.
As time went on, I began to see people doing some seriously craaaazy shit. Flopping around on the floor, speaking baby babble, shouting at the supposed demons inside those being prayed for at the altar call, people "prophesying" to the congregation, and people shaking as though they were being electrocuted in a puddle of water. Curiously, the sick were never healed, the storehouse was not opened and blessings did not pour out from all of our tithing. And people still had the same afflictions week after week. One time, I hesitantly allowed a group to lay hands on me and "pray for me", you know, tongues and all that. After they noticed that I wasn't falling down and babbling in tongues, the man directly in front of me was trying to push me down backwards!! I guess he was just trying to help the spirit slay me. What a nice fellow.
God is good, eh?
Thats when the bullshit meter started to go off the chart.
I was looking around at what goes on in my "spirit-filled" church, with the people flopping and babbling and moaning and shaking and crying and saying to myself "is not god the author of confusion?"
And to top all of it off, I could get no satisfying answers to my questions (they call them sinful doubts) even from the pastors and elders. I was told not to read the bible to try to find problems, that was a sin.
My faith was slowly slipping away.......
Finally I just said piss on all my confusion and doubt..............and gave up.
No more of this backwards-ass, hypocritical, contradictory, mythical bullshit ANY MORE!
But see, now that I realize Iv'e been duped and even betrayed by this false belief system, the fact that my wife won't open her eyes and see what iv'e seen, is going to allow for the label of "backslidden heathen" to be heaped upon me, and eventually put my wife at odds in some way with the church she has faith in or the friends she has made there.
This feeling of release is tremendous, but at the same time theres my wife, who still has faith in this garbage.
Question:
How many humble and totally selfless prayers offered up to and ignored by the imaginary skydaddy does it take for the average person to finally throw in the towel and say FUCK THIS SHIT!!!!
I'll give you a hint:
too damn many.
Thanks, webmaster for giving me an outlet to vent, and I welcome all e-mails, questions and comments, except from those wishing to preach. Save it for the "brethren". They need it much more than I.
City: Elmira
State: NY
Country: USA
Became a Christian: 30
Ceased being a Christian: 32
Labels before: Assemblies of god
Labels now: Pissed off, possibly Agnostic?
Why I joined: Because i was stupid and jumped right in without checking it out first
Why I left: Because when I finally did check it out, it was BULLSHIT!
Email Address: elpoeta at dmailman dot com
Comments
The real kicker was at the end of my time. I was asked to go help out in the area she had been kicked out of. All the locals were very heartbroken over losing this person they loved. They stopped coming to church and quarreled among themselves. I was a young woman having a difficult time trying to do something postivie in this area. After I didn't make good enough for them by bringing in the sheaths, getting more members and just being overall more charasmatic, I was informed that due to my many "personal" problems that I now needed to go back to the States and be discipled. lol. They didn't tell me what all the personal problems were, just that I had a lot of them. The love of Christ through his church abounds. Peace.