Sent in by Nick Boer During a four-year stretch of prison time, I "found" Jesus, and began to study the "Word of God" diligently and sincerely. Mine, was not what I would consider simply a "jailhouse conversion". Geographically, this would be so, but spiritually, I knew that my conversion was real. Oh yes, I did find comfort in the ink. The psalms of David brought peace to my soul. The Book of Revelation reminded me that there would be vindication for the faithful of God who worshiped HIM in "spirit and truth". My dedication to Christ lasted throughout my confinement. I did everything I thought "He" would want me to. I gave up family and friends, I would torment over masturbation, I would pray "unceasingly", attend chapel as often as I could, and even vowed to become one of God's many fine "warriors" by becoming a preacher and spreading the gospel to the heathens! Some things began to

Sent in by Another Dave My father was raised in a Deist household with fervent views against organized religion. When my Dad met my mother he started attending her evangelical church and became a devout believer. My cousins on my Dad’s side always made fun of me because of my devout Christian beliefs. I hated to be around them but on the other hand it felt good to be persecuted for my beliefs. To make things worse, my younger sister became very chummy with my cousins and adopted their hatred of religion. Of course, she still went to church and pretended to believe. She sometimes made fun of my devotion to Christianity. When she started college though, she started hanging out with some secular humanists and her attacks became more constant. I used to happily think about the shock my sister and cousins would experience when they died and found out that Christianity was true after all. Then they would suffer for their rejection of the truth and their persecution of me. After Thanksgiving

Sent in by Embracing Ambivalence Sincerity is among the most beautiful things to grace this earth. It is the result of a free flowing desire that doesn't get manipulated or distorted by the mind, but rather is blessed by it to go forth into the world as is. Sincerity has this precious way of striking you're affections and breaking down you're guard to protect some false image you wish to preserve. Sincerity of another sets you free to be yourself. It sets you free to be vulnerable, and stupid, and ugly. Its rips down the damns that prevent you from expressing yourself. Sincerity is infectious, it begets sincerity. A sincere life, is the fullest life. I read this today: "The world needs a missionary to denounce its conventions. Why should each new soul that is launched out of God into Nature be wrecked at the beginning of the voyage by following the charts of its mates instead the compass, the stars, and the continents?" —Ralph Waldo Emerson For so long i have been

Sent in by Don O'Connor (pseudonym) I was born into a family of four in the summer of '85. We were from and soon settled in the Bible Belt after my dad left the service. The Church of Christ was the only viable religion, and hence the only way to god. That's what I was led to believe, anyway. The name was correct, and the policies were unquestionable. This was made clear from an early age, so naturally I adopted their attitudes. My father was strict about maintaining appearances, though he was often too lazy or unwilling to put his tirades and rants into personal practice. This was my first encounter with religious hypocrisy, and a necessary first step in my ultimate exodus from the faith itself. For now, however, I simply became non-denominational. I believe I was about 10 at the time. (I was a very serious child.) I swung back and forth from private and public schools. My parent's financial straits versus their desire to indoctrinate me with Christian c

Sent in by Zen I am Zen who wrote my testimony November 7th 2006 (how study can change you). I want to share a little story how physic change my faith from Christianity to Naturalist, Universalist, Pantheist, Daoist, or whatever you call it (it doesn’t matter for me). I ever read that Albert Einstein was more or less pantheist too. Einstein ever said, “The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion.” Einstein admired Spinoza. Spinoza, as pantheist, ever said, “God and Nature, two names for the same reality.” At high school, I studied Einstein’s Relativity. Then at University, when I began to be skeptic because of Zen (the skeptical Buddhist that disbelieves every scriptures), I wondered the Emc2 and thought it was a product of pantheistic Einstein. A pantheist believes if God is energy (“E”) then Universe is material (“m”). Light speed (“c”) is space (distance) divided by time (second). So we can derive Emc2 into this equation: “God” times “Time” “Universe” times “Space”. I fou

Sent in by Ken I was born into the Catholic faith. As a young boy, all I can recall was that it meant making sure I attended Sunday Mass and going for Sunday School. You could do anything you wanted during the week but God forbid if you ever missed a Mass. When I was about 12, I went for Confession. I rattled off some typical young boy's sins. The priest listened quietly until I said I missed Mass last 2 Sundays. I got a stern rebuke from the priest. He upped the number of Hail Mary's I had to recite in penance in the hope that "Mother Mary" will lead me to attend Mass. At 14, a certain disillusionment had already set in about the liturgical approach to God with an emphasis on what to do especially on certain days (eg don't eat meat on Fridays). In school, a friend of mine introduced me to a Christian group called the Navigators. They were a group which emphasized a lot on converting your friends and family (evangelism). As I liked to read, their approach to readi

Sent in by Zen Hi, Call me Zen. I want to share my story as an ex Christian. I am Indonesian Chinese. My father raised me as an “ordinary” Chinese, I mean, my father believes in God but never explain his faith deeply. He only pointed out that conscience is better than religions. We lived in a small city and the best school in that city was Catholic school. Gradually, I became a Catholic, and so did my brothers and sisters. I remembered my father objections to my elder brother for his conversion to Catholic. My father saw Christianity as an evil religion that humiliated Chinese when he was a child in China. But my father was wise enough to say that we all could choose our own religion freely at 17 years old. So, unfortunately, all of his sons and daughters became Catholics when they were 17 years old. Until his death several years ago, my father was still “ordinary” Chinese, going to Temple once or twice a year in Chinese New Year (around January/February) and/or Qing Ming (every April

Sent in by Bill I recently heard Richard Dawkins express this point in one of his short interviews. He stated that we as enlightened non believers must do all we can to reach out to the vaguely religious or the “fence sitters” and lead them to our truth. I am a shining example of why this is so important for us to do. I could not officially classify myself as an ExChristian. I am more like an ex wishy washy believer in some sort of generic God. I have faint memories of attending Sunday School as a small child, but I don’t recall ever attending church services with my folks after about age seven. My parents could also fall into the category of the vague believers. They rarely discussed anything about religion, but lead by example to live by the Golden Rule. My parents acts of kindness or generosity were never meant to please an invisible man in the sky. Due to the fact that we had a very beloved gay extended family member, my parents were often critical of the intoler

Sent in by Ryan My first memory in relation to god was at the age of 4 when my aunty (who in her youth had nearly become a nun) had told me “Now you must always be good because god is always watching you and knows everything you do.” As young child who despite going to church and even Sunday school really had no grasp of this whole god concept, yet had also been filled with the notion of “stranger danger,” I immediately slotted the two together and was thus terrified of being on my own outside the house. My head filled with images of a strange, scary bearded man with many eyes on stalks that could see everything in every which way. Time passed as it does, I had my first communion and didn’t question it too much (other than why the catholic children got to do this thing and get out of class whist the other children stayed behind in class. To which I never got a satisfactory answer.) Yet over time I began to see less and less point in it (through a few minor incidents which need n

Sent in by "RubySera" I posted an eximony some time ago because I felt I had to explain about my background. I feel it was riven with anger, frustration, and confusion. I think my thoughts are more organized now so I will post another one. Mine was a double deconversion. One was deconversion from cultural religion, and the other was deconversion from theological religion. The first was more traumatic. I had never fully bought into the second. What I had bought into, and trusted fully and completely, was the belief that the church had the answer. My mother, other women of her generation, and the ministers all said at the time of my (believer's) baptism that as teenagers we could not understand it all but that as we got older we would get deeper insight. When I was crowded out of the church at forty-odd years of age, I "knew in my bones" that the highest authority on earth--the OOM bishops, preachers, and deacons who claimed to stand before the body of believers i

Sent in by J Milton I'm going to try to keep my little tale brief. I've been reading the hundreds of testimonies on this site for the last week now. Thank you, webmaster, for creating this venue and allowing so many people to share their experiences and read the stories of others. My story is somewhat unique as I was not indoctrinated or forced to go to church as a child (save for a few sunday school sessions at a methodist church) and never believed a shred of christianity during my childhood and teenage years. I actually came to the christian faith via more of an intellectual, mystical path... through the writings of John Milton, Edmund Spenser, C.S. Lewis, and the spiritualist and mystic Renaissance man known as William Blake. I was in college during this time (of course!) and one year away from getting my undergrad degree in English literature. I was reading the last great epic work, Paradise Lost, which for anyone who doesn't know is the story of Lucifer's fall, Ad

Sent in by Star Umbehant A Christian friend of mine recently asked, “What led you to your current beliefs?” Here I will try to describe the evolution from my Christian childhood to my current state of atheism. I can’t, of course, cover everything – but I will attempt to touch on the most important aspects. To say the least, my childhood was rough. Granted, it could have been worse – a lot worse – but it was bad enough. I don’t have many memories up until the age of six. That was pretty much when the shit hit the fan. My younger brother, age four, was hit be a car while riding his bike. I won’t get into the horrific specifics of the day, or the following months in the hospital, but the events left his body broken and he was in a vegetative state for four years until his death. It was also around this time that I was sexually molested by my uncle although I wouldn’t realize the full implications this would have on my childhood until later. It was also around this time that my mother had

Sent in by Rob Johnson My world was so small, so confusing, so depressing, so illogical, and so intolerant as a Christian. Whenever people claim that I didn't try to understand spirituality and belief I just have to laugh. I'm pretty sure I've read the bible more than the average christian--about 8 times. I not once found a cubic millimeter of comfort in the words found there and only had questions. Why the ridiculous complications of a "perfect" all-knowing, all-powerful God making a "perfect" world and "perfect" people knowing they wouldn't be perfect and fail the absolutely superfluous test of not eating a fruit he deigned as "bad" and then blaming them for creating them perfect, giving them the unnecessary law of not eating from the tree...um, ad nauseum. As a literal OR metaphorical tale it's flawed so much that it hurts. So we have huge problems in the first chpater of the bible. My parents won't let me listen t

Sent in by Harry McNichol I believe this is the fourth time that I have posted here. This time, I am as spiritually confused as ever. The good thing is I've gotten over my obsession with Islam. Now I am starting to question my own faith in the Church and questioning everything really. Last post, I believe I said that it seemed like I was afraid of the truth because it was staring me in the face. This semester at school I am taking a Theory and Methodology of Religion class and the prof is an atheist. The readings I have been dealing with have really made me question the validity of religion and faith. John Lennon's song "Imagine" is kind of my theme song. As far as hell goes, I don't believe in that. As far as heaven is concerned, who knows? Then I got to thinking, wouldn't it be nice if there were no religions in the world? No 9/11, no fundys banging their bibles or the alter boys, no murder in the name of Allah, Jesus, God....etc., To me, religion is man mad

Sent in by Athey My whole family is Christian. Some stronger then others. My mom has told me stories about a short stint in her youth where she decided she was catholic, but primarily because the sermon was in Latin and that was really cool. Haha. Once the church she was going to switched to English and she could understand what they were saying, she lost interested and gave it up. I was baptized. Had god parents. Was occasionally taken to church (but only really when my grandparents were visiting or some relative or family friend had died). And grew up knowing the basics of the kid-friendly bible stories. My mom never really pushed any serious religion onto me, but I never knew about any other options. I didn't realize that there was an option to Not believe in god. I never heard anyone even mention that. I remember being young and hearing the term Jewish and knowing enough to realize it was something different then what everyone I knew believed, but that was all I knew.

Sent in by Bob Growing up I went to church every once in a while. I even went to two different Christian schools in between public schools. My Mother was not a big church-goer but she thought it did good for us kids to believe. In my early teens I was surprised to hear her confess to me that she was an atheist. I was a gullible sort all around in that I believed a lot of other nonsense as well in my youth all the way up to short of a few years ago. I was an avid UFO buff and strong believer in just about anything supernatural in mainstream media. When I was 20, a lot of my friends started getting saved and having bible studies. We were all musicians, and one in particular was a really good song writer. He wrote a song that was so moving it gave me chills about the torments that Jesus went through. From hanging out at these bible studies and going to Christian concerts, it wasn't long before I was one of them. I found many contradictions along the way... I, like someone else mention

Sent in by Andrew Hawkins I am a 39-year-old male. I grew up in Somerset, UK. It was a pleasant semi-rural existence. My childhood is full of pleasant memories with a loving family. At about the age of 15 I joined the boys brigade, an organisation with religious undertones. We had to go to church services once a month. I suppose that all of those church services must have played their part in me becoming a born again Christian. Billy Graham was on a tour in 1984. I went to see him at Aston Gate football stadium. The sheer numbers of people there overcame me. I was also overcome by the showmanship of the event. On that fateful night I became a born again Christian. I was 18 years old. Being a red blooded male and highly attracted to the opposite sex and being a Christian is a very difficult thing to do. I was heavily into masturbation and I tried and tried to stop but I couldn’t. I prayed and prayed that Jesus would take these feelings away. He never did, of course. I took communion and

Sent in by Danielle, a.k.a Sithprincess Well, here I am. Still struggling with some things in my mind, but all in all, I'd say that this hasn't been as hard for me as for some, judging by what I've read in some of the testimonies here. I was adopted into a Baptist family, whom I love, and am thankful for. When I was little, we didn't go to church on a regular basis, though I do remember being in Sunday school from time to time. I was still raised with Christian values, though, and when I was around 13, my mom and I began attending a Baptist church. We got involved with it, Sunday school, prayer meeting, youth group - the works. I was at youth group every Friday, and eventually my mom became the co-leader of the group. I sat in Sunday school and listened to things that I now realize aren't really even Biblical, like the degrees of Hell and "If you put someone else before God, He WILL take them out." Oh, and of course, most rock songs had subliminal messages