To Shiver in the Howling of the Night
sent in by Richard
Long ago I can remember a place in my life when I was happy and content with who I was and what my life was all about. I can remember having the warm, peaceful feeling in my life that religions of all forms promise when they tell you that they have something surreal and otherworldly to offer. I can remember, as a child being ecstatic to wake up and go to church because of Jesus what I could learn to be more like him. That was then, when troubles seemed to be a world away and life was truly an adventure.
Now as I sit here and write to those whom take enough pity on me to read this I tell you of a completely different me. As a child I was a valiant Christian. I was on fire. I felt deeply that there was a plan for my life and that I was going to make a difference for the sake of the kingdom of God. I can remember going to visitation on Saturday mornings and knocking on the doors of perfect strangers and try my hardest to get them to commit to Jesus and give thier sinful life up for God. On Sundays I would go and listen to the Pastor give a sermon and would proceed to go after that to a restaurant and eat with my fellow brothers in Christ and debate the merits of the days sermon. All was good in a life that could not have been more perfect.
I do not remember the circumstances of the change. I can only remember the day I opened my eyes to what I really was. I can remember thinking about all the sermons that were preached and noticed that they all had threads of control running through them. When simmered down to their true content I discovered that all the messages revolved around giving of your time, money, or personal property to the church. And while we were told about the great Christian martyrs of the world I made a shocking discovery: People from other religions have died for their beliefs just as much, if not much more than Christians. I also discovered that there were other religions that sent out missionaries, not just Baptists. And then I began to wonder what made us Christians so much better. I soon found out that it was nothing. I was taught to blindly accept that our religion was better than all the others because it just was. I was taught that our book of holy scripture was superior to all the other books of holy scripture because it, again, just was.
I can remember staying up at night in fear. the fear that I had been programmed to know only Christianity, and nothing else. And if I left it I would literally be giving up my entire life. Yet I also knew that I could not live a life unless I one hundred percent believed in it. I began to do further in depth thinking. How did I know that our pastor was appointed by God? How could I be for sure that what looked fishy was really the will of God and not something done through politics and the good ol boy system? How did I know that things like cussing, sex before marriage, and drinking wrere actually wrong when they are nowhere mentioned in the Bible? How did I know that, as Christians say, every single contradiction in the bible is perfectly explainable? Was I to trust the very men that displayed anger and made accusations of being rebellious against god when I would ask these questions?
I could write a multi volume set of books on the atrocities involved in the modern day church from experiencing a lifetime of them. Yet when I stopped taking people at face value and saw them for who they were it was very clear to me that no God out there could claim to love a person so much and then allow such evil people into the church. The Christians will tell you that they are wolves in sheeps clothing as the bible speaks of. Yet when the people that god has supposedly appointed over the church say one thing, and do another depending on how it will personally benefit them, not much can be said about it except,maybe it is all a bunch of bullshit. The problem I faced with the Christians is that there is supposedly a god who has the power to create the universe from speaking in a matter of seven days. this is a God who can tell Noah to build an Ark and part the Sea for Moses. A God who can pull chariots in the sky and convert a murderer of Christians into the greatest missionary ever to exist on the face of the earth. A god who would send his son to do miracles, die on the cross, and ultimately raise again after three days. Yet he cannot keep even the most simple of dirty heathens out of his temple of worship? especially those whom are supposedly appointed by him? He cannot speak to us voice to voice anymore? Instead we are instructed to listen to man? the very same man that directly disobeyed god in the garden for selfish pleasure? Does this sound normal to you?
I could not deal with my life being a two faced backstabbing lie anymore. I knew that if I left I would be giving up my whole life. All my friends were members of the church. I am sure that some of you reading understand how quickly they turn their back on you when you are not doing what is "church approved" anymore. In many ways I gave up my family because my relationship with them has declined for the much worse since I left. I have come to an impassable revelation in my life: I am a mid twenties man that has not even an inkling of "who' I am. All I know is what the church said I was. I feel robbed of much of my life. I cannot get back the years that were taken from me for the selfish pleasure of heathenistic men who have made the words of the bible twist into whatever suits them at the time. I am stricken with anger. Thirty percent of my life is over and I never got to live it. I am doing now what I should have been doing as a kid. I am way behind in my awareness of what, or who, I am.
I have left the church. It took me mere minutes to determine that religion is the ultimate hoax of man, yet years to work up the nerve to give it up and actually start finding myself, aside from what all the political Christians said I was. Some people say that I wrote this to blow off steam. Possibly. Others said that it is somehow allowing me to express my inner child. I think that is bullshit personally, but maybe they are both true. All I know is that I have entered into a very cold trundra in my life. A place where I, albeit temporarily, am alone. And the chill, the cold, the wind and hair raising thought of being utterly and completely by myself is overwhelming. Yet in a very wierd and unexplainable fashion, I would not have it any other way. In a surreal way I feel that I am finally free. And it is better to be free and alone, than in a multitude of friends with an agenda and stipulations. To those reading I only ask that you wish me the best as I start my new life . Thanks for understanding and reading. May common sense and the truth continue to free those whom may be trying to find the avenue of escape from the organization of religion.
Saint Joseph
Missouri
United States
Joined: nine years of age
Left: nineteen
Was: Independent Baptist
Now: Agnostic
Converted because: Belief in a loving god
De-converted because: belief in the evil of man
Long ago I can remember a place in my life when I was happy and content with who I was and what my life was all about. I can remember having the warm, peaceful feeling in my life that religions of all forms promise when they tell you that they have something surreal and otherworldly to offer. I can remember, as a child being ecstatic to wake up and go to church because of Jesus what I could learn to be more like him. That was then, when troubles seemed to be a world away and life was truly an adventure.
Now as I sit here and write to those whom take enough pity on me to read this I tell you of a completely different me. As a child I was a valiant Christian. I was on fire. I felt deeply that there was a plan for my life and that I was going to make a difference for the sake of the kingdom of God. I can remember going to visitation on Saturday mornings and knocking on the doors of perfect strangers and try my hardest to get them to commit to Jesus and give thier sinful life up for God. On Sundays I would go and listen to the Pastor give a sermon and would proceed to go after that to a restaurant and eat with my fellow brothers in Christ and debate the merits of the days sermon. All was good in a life that could not have been more perfect.
I do not remember the circumstances of the change. I can only remember the day I opened my eyes to what I really was. I can remember thinking about all the sermons that were preached and noticed that they all had threads of control running through them. When simmered down to their true content I discovered that all the messages revolved around giving of your time, money, or personal property to the church. And while we were told about the great Christian martyrs of the world I made a shocking discovery: People from other religions have died for their beliefs just as much, if not much more than Christians. I also discovered that there were other religions that sent out missionaries, not just Baptists. And then I began to wonder what made us Christians so much better. I soon found out that it was nothing. I was taught to blindly accept that our religion was better than all the others because it just was. I was taught that our book of holy scripture was superior to all the other books of holy scripture because it, again, just was.
I can remember staying up at night in fear. the fear that I had been programmed to know only Christianity, and nothing else. And if I left it I would literally be giving up my entire life. Yet I also knew that I could not live a life unless I one hundred percent believed in it. I began to do further in depth thinking. How did I know that our pastor was appointed by God? How could I be for sure that what looked fishy was really the will of God and not something done through politics and the good ol boy system? How did I know that things like cussing, sex before marriage, and drinking wrere actually wrong when they are nowhere mentioned in the Bible? How did I know that, as Christians say, every single contradiction in the bible is perfectly explainable? Was I to trust the very men that displayed anger and made accusations of being rebellious against god when I would ask these questions?
I could write a multi volume set of books on the atrocities involved in the modern day church from experiencing a lifetime of them. Yet when I stopped taking people at face value and saw them for who they were it was very clear to me that no God out there could claim to love a person so much and then allow such evil people into the church. The Christians will tell you that they are wolves in sheeps clothing as the bible speaks of. Yet when the people that god has supposedly appointed over the church say one thing, and do another depending on how it will personally benefit them, not much can be said about it except,maybe it is all a bunch of bullshit. The problem I faced with the Christians is that there is supposedly a god who has the power to create the universe from speaking in a matter of seven days. this is a God who can tell Noah to build an Ark and part the Sea for Moses. A God who can pull chariots in the sky and convert a murderer of Christians into the greatest missionary ever to exist on the face of the earth. A god who would send his son to do miracles, die on the cross, and ultimately raise again after three days. Yet he cannot keep even the most simple of dirty heathens out of his temple of worship? especially those whom are supposedly appointed by him? He cannot speak to us voice to voice anymore? Instead we are instructed to listen to man? the very same man that directly disobeyed god in the garden for selfish pleasure? Does this sound normal to you?
I could not deal with my life being a two faced backstabbing lie anymore. I knew that if I left I would be giving up my whole life. All my friends were members of the church. I am sure that some of you reading understand how quickly they turn their back on you when you are not doing what is "church approved" anymore. In many ways I gave up my family because my relationship with them has declined for the much worse since I left. I have come to an impassable revelation in my life: I am a mid twenties man that has not even an inkling of "who' I am. All I know is what the church said I was. I feel robbed of much of my life. I cannot get back the years that were taken from me for the selfish pleasure of heathenistic men who have made the words of the bible twist into whatever suits them at the time. I am stricken with anger. Thirty percent of my life is over and I never got to live it. I am doing now what I should have been doing as a kid. I am way behind in my awareness of what, or who, I am.
I have left the church. It took me mere minutes to determine that religion is the ultimate hoax of man, yet years to work up the nerve to give it up and actually start finding myself, aside from what all the political Christians said I was. Some people say that I wrote this to blow off steam. Possibly. Others said that it is somehow allowing me to express my inner child. I think that is bullshit personally, but maybe they are both true. All I know is that I have entered into a very cold trundra in my life. A place where I, albeit temporarily, am alone. And the chill, the cold, the wind and hair raising thought of being utterly and completely by myself is overwhelming. Yet in a very wierd and unexplainable fashion, I would not have it any other way. In a surreal way I feel that I am finally free. And it is better to be free and alone, than in a multitude of friends with an agenda and stipulations. To those reading I only ask that you wish me the best as I start my new life . Thanks for understanding and reading. May common sense and the truth continue to free those whom may be trying to find the avenue of escape from the organization of religion.
Saint Joseph
Missouri
United States
Joined: nine years of age
Left: nineteen
Was: Independent Baptist
Now: Agnostic
Converted because: Belief in a loving god
De-converted because: belief in the evil of man
Comments
It's all about conditional love, the church members and family will love you, if you''ll pretend like them that you love jesus, they will form a bond with you if and only if, you will support them in their silly ignorance and self-righteous arrogance.
Christians have had their will stripped away from them by having to get up in public and state a creed or a pact with the imaginary god and now they are committed by virtue, a suicide pact similar to Kamikasism to be loyal to the blind faith, like Lemmings following the Pide Piper over the cliffs.
I told my parents about a year ago that I no longer believed in jesus and their faces and their demeaner changed immediately as if someone had just run over their favorite dog in front of them, they are 75 years old and have fervently believed in jesus for over 50 years and are so afraid to this day to question the bible, preachers and accuantances that claim they are a christian, they've been openly cheated and lied to by other christians and preachers and just simply pass it off as well Satan made them do it, but yet they are a christian, so god will judge them later, rather than stand up to them to their face and tell them that they cheated them, they are essentually religious cowards, they are people that have been brainwashed to the point of religious insanity, but that's ok because the bible cannot be defeated according to their stupid childhood silly beliefs.
Religions are the biggest sickness and biggest ills to have ever destroyed a country, America is already totally destroyed because we have let "turned the other cheek" destroy us, we let the Muslims in and other Terrorist's and immigrants in so that they may find jesus and they will slip in here and eventually destroy us with a nuclear device, that may be the day that all religious people suddenly leave this world because if I'm living, I'm no longer going to tolerate any more religion or preacher or jesus loves me bullshit, and I do not think I'm the only one that feels that way.
You're not alone Richard, you have friends here, Thanks, Ben
It would help if everything was'nt geared toward religion,but unfortunately that's the world we live in.That's why we turned to "churchianity" to begin with.
I was a christian for four years (believed in the infallibility of the bible, that Jesus was the only way to heaven, etc), and I felt the same feelings of being lost, confused, and fearful upon leaving the faith. You're not alone in feeling alone and lost. I've been there, and it isn't pretty. But if you keep going, you will get through it. It took me a year, but afterwords I feel much stronger and more self-confident then before. If I can do it, you can do it.
Like Arthur, I started spirituality after leaving christianity and found it to be much more useful and helpful in my life. So much so, that i'm still a spiritual person, and I feel much better then I ever was as a christian. I still believe in a God, just not the human like god shown in the bible. And it is my belief that God would like us to grow up into mature individuals. I look back at my time in christianity as a learning period where I experienced the faith to learn what it was like and to appreciate what I found later on after I left it. Maybe you can look at your experience with christianity as a learning experience to help you grow and evolve as an individual.
Thank you so much for your so-well-written story. I wish I had see it when I was your age. You are sorry you lost one third of you life, and I understand it.
You help me realize why after 40 years of indoctrination and only one year trying to walk away, I go from anger to depression to extreme skepticism. After all, they stole 40 whole years of my damn life. Yes, you and I have every right to kick and scream and be bitter.
Best
Remember, what happened in the past will not have nearly as much impact on your future as what you do in the present - right now. Its your life, live it. The purpose of life is life itself. It needs nothing more. When you see that, you will be able to shake off all the remnants of that disgusting mythology. If you tried to start a religious movement now that required people to engage in a canabalistic ritual of eating the body and drinking the blood of your leader, how long do you think it would take the autorities to get you locked up in a prison or an asylum?
Well done, you are free.
Well done, Richard: you have been resurrected to life, overcoming a religious death.
Why do so many awful things happen in churches and at the hands of Christians? Two answers: free will and sin.
I encourage all of you to think on this: Were you failed by God, or were you failed by people? People fail. God's people fail. God does not fail.
Should I logically deduce what it is that you are saying I am lead to believe one of either two different things:
1: The bible states that when Christ is accepted we inherit the holy spirit thereby instructing those whom he places in charge as to what to do and the "godly" way to behave in the church. If I follow that logic than I have no choice but to believe that God himself is evil because his spirit, living in those whom act out these things, is allowing this sort of behavior. Or:
2: The people in charge of the church are power crazed, cult loving, mind fucking, ignroatn people who failed to gain in the real world. Consequently they chose to run a church where they could say something, spout off a few verses to back up their theories, no matter how twisted they were, and then proceed to get what what they want from the person dumb enough to believe them.
I'm not sure which one I should buy, but either way it is not looking too good for the Christians is it?
RICHARD