sent in by The MadBuni I found your website a few months ago and subscribed to the posts, now I am addicted to getting my emails as soon as I get home from work to find out the latest topic of discussion. I knew all the sane people were hiding somewhere and I just found them! What a relief! I rarely have enough time to stay online long enough to post anything, because my husband breathes down my neck when I am typing messages, he thinks I’m having an internet affair if I spend any time on the computer, but he is computer illiterate. He is also what I fondly refer to as a PIMA (pain in my ass). I love him, hell we’ve been together since 1967, I just can’t stand to live with him most of the time. Our son says we should have divorced long ago. Why don’t I leave? I love to spend money, and two incomes are better than one. He pretty much feels the same way, besides, it’s way too much trouble and effort to get a divorce. Ok, I know that sounds really awful, but I have to get one thing

sent in by Jennifer To begin with, I started dating my boyfriend(who is now my husband) when I was 16. His family is very religious and they don't believe that it's a good idea for anyone of differing religious views to be together. My family for the most part let me and my brother choose what we want to believe in. I guess you could say I was open to Christianity and liked what I heard. So at the age of 16 I accecpted Christ. At no point after I accepted Christ did I feel different, or did I necessarily stop making wrong decisions. I never really expected to. While following Christ, I felt restricted. My morals did not get better or worse after becoming a Christian. So now at 24, I chose to become an atheist. Suprisingly, there wasn't a major event in my life that changed my viewpoint, I only went back to what my parents taught me. That is to be true to myself, find what it is that I believe in, and be open to all religious possiblities, whether I choose a reli

sent in by Joe I was raised in an Assemblies of God church in upstate NY since I was born. My parents are devout born-again Christians and have forced…um...highly encouraged me to attend all services (negatively termed indoctrination sessions) and to live my life for Christ until I finally moved out of the house. I can remember when I was a young boy and had asked my father if he also had a stomach ache every time we went to church. It never felt comfortable for me there but all I knew was to obey my parents and do as I was told. I loved and trusted my parents and wanted to please them very much. I honestly believed in everything that was taught to me and was a self-proclaimed Christian by age 4. In 1989 (Age 9), I remember a member of the church coming down to teach our children’s church. Her goal was to have all of us young kids speak in unknown tongues and be “slain in the spirit” aka "baptized by the holy ghost". As a young boy, I was very confused by this and it didn’t s

sent in by Chuck S. My name is Chuck S. and at the age of 23 I became a Christian out of a sense of hopelessness in life and a fear of death. Though I was young I had bouts of depression mainly because of drug and alcohol use that left me in morbid states of mind and I turned to Jesus as a means to eternal life and to reach peace of mind in this life. I started out with a small Baptist group in Baltimore Maryland where I graduated from college and from there joined another Baptist group in northern Virginia near Washington D.C. when I moved down to the D.C. area for a job as a stock broker. As any Christian, my faith in the begining was enthusiastic and exciting. I was introduced to some very nice people and I acquired some hope and a reason to live. However as the years went by I found my state of mind to become even far worse that it was before I became a Christian even though I had stopped drugs and alcohol. When I read the Bible I believed it to be literally true and I found myself

sent in by Claywise My story is frankly a lot less fascinating than that of many posters here. But I have finally decided to lay it out. We went to Catholic Church when I was a kid. I went to CCD -- got in trouble once for swiping unconsecrated Communion hosts with a friend! -- but my father was more or less an agnostic who had himself thrown off his Catholic straightjacket and only went to church on holidays to please my mother. My mom was never a radical, or hard core, but she went to church because, well, that's what nice American families did. I hardly remember what I was taught in church as a young person, or in CCD (what we used to call "catechism"). But somewhere along the way, I developed some pretty messed up notions: Humans are, by design, flawed and pretty rotten; sex is repulsive and wrong; to even question the tenets of the Church is to condemn oneself to eternal punishment. In short, I came away from my early experience with a lot of fear and self-hatred. Wh

sent in by Red De-conversion 1. My parents were “born again” when I was five years old. They quickly became zealots. They used our house for church gatherings and backyard bible study. People were constantly coming and going. My parents became extremely active in their zealotry, witnessing door to door and going to church three times a week This was the mid-seventies and I have nostalgic memories of the long-haired Jesus freaks coming over with their sandals and guitars. At this age I picked up and filtered the messages I was hearing at church: we are the best church, we are saved and others are not, we are good and they are bad. I was five when I formally accepted Jesus Christ into my heart. In elementary school, I was an active crusader, genuinely concerned about my schoolmates’ souls. When I was about seven, my dad and two other guys from our church broke off and founded their own church, which rented out a space at a private school. It was exciting to me. After intense w

sent in by Chris I thought that I had posted this once before, but could never find it when I looked. So if this is a repeat, forgive me. I was, unfortunately, born into a family with a very typical southern attitude toward religion. What might that attitude be? Well, in my experience, that attitude is that Christianity offers the only answers to the mysteries of life; we as humans are simply unable to understand those mysteries and should therefore simply accept Christianity without question, bathing in the opulent light and love of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Well, as Penn and Teller so eloquently put it on their Showtime program, “Humbug!” Again unfortunately, I was forced into this mindset at a very young age. I suppose you could say that my programming began at birth. My mother and father were both born in the south, my mother in Florida, my father in Alabama. My mother’s family was also native to Alabama, and to top it off, came from one of the small towns in the “mountains

sent in by Richard Moore My name is Richard Moore and I am thankfully an ex Christian. I was raised in the very fundamentalist Southern Baptist Church. When I was too young to walk to Church, I was carried. There followed many years of Sunday School, worship service, vacation Bible schools, and summer youth camps. The pressure to believe is intense, and I was baptized at about the age of twelve. Christians must believe blindly and have faith without proof and doubts must be suppressed. Of course a single doubt or the wrong question can destroy the Christian programming. About the age of sixteen I started asking the hard questions. For example, Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel and was banished to another country where he took himself a wife. Since the Bible says that only Adam, Eve, and Cain were alive, how could there be another country from which he could take a wife? I found out that my church leaders didn’t like being asked the hard questi

sent in by Tyson Wow! Where do I even start? I want to try to make this as short as possible if I can. Ok, I was born on St. Thomas United States Virgin Islands and raised 150 miles southeast on an island known as St. Kitts (Christopher). From the time I knew myself, I was going to church because I went to St. Kitts when I was 6 months old. My grandmother raised me Catholic and you guys have got to realize that 30 years ago, the Caribbean was a bastion of Christianity of all types of faith. Slavery's legacy of learning the religion of the slavemaster for 400 years was deeply entrenched. I don't even remember Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Taoists, Wiccans or Hindus in the community much less the island. You were either Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Moravian, Baptist or Pentecostal. In fact, considering this was back in the mid to late 60s, we had no television at the time and all my grandmother did was have her radio locked on a Christian station 24/7/365. The radio was NEVER off s

sent in by John Blatt My name is John Blatt and I am an ex-christian. The process of leaving christianity took a good two years, but now I am finally free from that fear and guilt-based Cult. Fundamentalist Christianity is literally a destructive mind-control cult and the bible is primarily a series of psychological documents. It took many years to finally come to see this reality, because I didn't want it to be so. No one in the Cult can see with straight vision, thus, the more devoted and zealous one is for christianity the more blind they are to its psychological and spiritual destruction and control. I became a born-again christian at the age of twenty while I was in the U.S. Air Force in May of 1992. It was a powerful and moving experience and it did effect me deeply, changing me overnight. Before this, I had simply adopted my mothers metaphysical beliefs and so I had no true belief in anything that was really my own. Since the day that I had been "born-again" I

sent in by Brandon One of my earliest memories is of being "saved" in my church when I was six years old. I remember feeling that I absolutely must accept Jesus into my heart to let him forgive me of my sins, so that I could live in Heaven forever with Him. It was a powerful emotional experience. I felt like I was bathed in the light of the creator of all things, that I had found the ultimate truth. A part of me was saddened by the thought that I would never grow up, that the rapture would come and take me up to heaven before I could experience being an adult. I wondered what was wrong with my peers, why they wouldnt rush to save themselves from the eternal torment of Hell? I suppose my vivid imagination and sensitivity contributed alot to the fear. Another childhood experience that stands out involved a church-sponsored "haunted house" type of walk-through exhibit. I am not quite sure how old I was when my ever so thoughtful parents took me to this, but I th

sent in by William E. Wallace Hi, thanks for listening to my story! Here it is... I was adopted into a 'good christian home" here in good ole South Mississippi. I was raised in the Methodist church from six years old through my teens. Even at the age of six I had one question 'Who made God?" No one could ever give me a satisfactory answer, I could feel their lack of knowledge, some even suggested "You don't ask questions like that". Even as a kid i knew, everything comes from somewhere and the lousy answer to my one simple question was a lie. Being a good kid, I bought this crap until my early 20's until I studied Geology and I realized that our Earth is a lot older than christian religion wants to admit. The bible and science had a big difference of opinion, looking at the facts, I had to side with science. Events in my life from time to time made me doubt my skepticism and then I got interested in the Human Genome Project and started doing re

sent in by chris The background: I have a friend who is, well, a fundy. I mean a fundy to the core. A biblical literalist, who is elderly, uneducated, and who believes in the whole deal. She spends untold hours of her life on her imaginary friend. She goes to church, she signs up to volunteer for every possible function to serve him, she gets up at 5:30 every morning to meditate and pray to him, she plays only worship music in her car and in her home. She thinks about him, talks to him, thanks him, and does his work all of her waking hours. She has felt his hands on her face, heard his voice, written down things he has said to her, gotten all kinds of revelations and answered prayers from him, and felt his presence. She has battled the enemy in her own life and in the lives of others. She has people who are completely dependent upon her to pray for them, because she is a prayer warrier. Everything outside of her protective refuge is satanic and utterly evil. She will not hav

sent in by Mikey B I began practicing christianity at age 11 with an over zealous heart to become a member of my Methodist church. I saw the older kids in youth group and immidatly wanted to fit in and play in all their reindeer games. From the teeter-totter a thons to their movie nights and discussing this book that they said to live their life by. (stuff that I wouldnt change because it has made me the person I am today) By the time I hit 14, I was completely indoctrinated into believe that anything I thought was immoral was sin and when I caught someone fooling around with their unmarried significant other, I cast them off demanding that they repent of their sins or they were going to hell. As the years progressed, I loosened my grip on the fire and brimstone and started down my own path of rational indulgences. By the time I hit college I started opening up from the outwardly critical to a more inwardly critical view. My father and close aunt had passed away from cancer and I