Sent in by Philosopher D. R. Khashaba I was born to devout Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox Christian) parents and was brought up as a good Christian boy. I was deeply impressed by the Sermon on the Mount, loved the beautiful imaginative scenario Luke weaved around the birth of Jesus, and reveled in the Gospel parables. At about the age of fourteen I was repulsed by Abraham's willingness to slaughter his son. How could a father acquiesce in such a cruel command even if coming from God? Surely the revolt of Prometheus against Zeus was nobler and morally superior to the slavish submission of Abraham. Soon after that I was rewarded at school (a school run by Catholic Franciscans ) by a book of Apologetics. The book had on me an effect diametrically opposed to that intended by the priests who gave it to me. It revealed to me the inanity of all theistic arguments and the absurdity of all of the basic Church doctrines. I filled all the margins and all blank spaces in the book with crit...

Sent in by T I was raised in a fairly sizable town in the south of England. I attended the local Church of England church, more specifically "Anglican", with my family, from an early age - before I can remember. As is common for Anglican Protestants in England I was baptized as a baby. The church is one of the oldest buildings for miles round. The Norman church was built around and altered as the years went on but there's still a lot of the medieval building left, including some graffiti carved into the wall. I joined the choir aged seven and my Christianity grew organically, steeped in the literally awesome feeling of tradition gained from the quiet, ancient, stones and timber and participating directly in the canon of centuries of sacred vocal music - one of man's greatest achievements. Religion was tangible to me. Ritual became hugely important to me and praising God through beautiful music was my most pious goal. My parents never directly instructed me in any re...

Sent in by A. Ford When I was a child, we were always taken to a Free Will Baptist church by my mother. However, my dad never attended. The church was across the street from where we lived (my parents moved here for that very reason), so we had no excuse for being absent. At the age of 2, my life seemed to be one of constant failure psychologically. It was then that I was bitten by my uncle's dog under one eye. The bite left a scar when it healed, and I became very self-concious, even though it didn't show up that bad. A few years later, I had to have surgery on my eyes (7 years old). I had to wear glasses after the surgery for at least 3 or 4 years. My family were the only people I thought I could trust amongst all the doctors, dentists, etc. However, my dad constantly belittled everything I did to the point that I had no self-esteem. My brother and I fought a lot, and when I was 13, he became an alcoholic, so when we got in fights, he became very violent (he tried to kill me...

Sent in by Katie I apologize in advance for the length this will probably reach. I tend to ramble. Also, as an extra but probably superfluous warning, I do not censor myself. If my language offends you…well, tough shit. Let's start from the beginning. I was born in August of 1988 in a smallish burg in northwest central Arkansas about sixty miles from Little Rock, nestled cozily in a river valley amongst three hills (I think there are about 30,000 people in it now). There are no shopping malls, but there is a Wal-Mart Supercenter (complete with Mickey D's) along with about seven major churches and countless small ones. Most are Southern Baptist (a.k.a. "I love Jesus and my .22") or evangelical charismatic (a.k.a. "He must have the Holy Spirit in him! Listen to him babbling nonsensically!"). Needless to say, my upbringing was quite religious. My mother was and is still devoutly Christian, as was my father to a somewhat lesser extent. I was raised and co...

Sent in by Jamie G I went to Wikipedia and read more about cognitive dissonance where I encountered several more interesting terms: true-believer syndrome and buyer's remorse. The one I would like to focus on in this post is buyer’s remorse. It may be a misuse of terms, but I think I am justified as it seems to resemble what I believe I am experiencing psychologically after leaving Christianity. Buyer's remorse is defined as: An emotional condition whereby a person feels remorse or regret after the purchase of an item. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer%27s_remorse ) I have only posted the general idea, it goes a little deeper than this, but you can visit the article yourself if you would like. This ties into the original 'cognitive dissonance' article as their is an example give about Luke and his blender (see the article about half way down). The basics of the example is that Luke buys a blender without really looking into various choices, he gets the one he likes. ...

Sent in by Brian B When I was 4 years old, my dad came into my room just before bedtime, and made me kneel with him and close my eyes. Then he guided me through the basic conversion prayer, despite my having no idea what the hell I was even saying. I mimiced his words-meaingless to me, of course- and he said I had just accepted Jesus into my heart. Thus began my Christian life. Even at a young age, I could sense the tension between what a Christian should believe and what everyone else believed. Being very much interested in dinosaurs, I began reading books about them at age 6, and page after page claimed these beasts had died 65 million years ago. Meanwhile, at church I was told about a perfect garden where everone lived together only 6000 years ago. Obviously both stories could not be true, but my six-year old brain couldn't comprehend a non-christian mindset at that point. So I did what many intelligent, thinking Christians do. I divided my brain in half, with my faith b...

Sent in by Jenny Hello Readers…ex-Christians, Christians, and others. My name is Jenny. I am a 23 year-old ex-Christian agnostic who has lived her whole life in the densely religious region of West Tennessee. As a Christian I never wrote a testimony, and this is my first attempt to write an anti-testimony. So bear with me, as this may not be eloquently written. Well, in order to be an Ex-Christian, I must have been a Christian at one point, right? Let me briefly explain my Christian years. I don't remember having an epiphany in my childhood or early teen years when I was 'saved' by being overcome with the Holy Spirit. I never prayed, "Hallelujah! I'm saved! I turn my life over to you now, Lord!" Needless to say many people think they feel a spirit washing over them or moving through them and this leads them to conversion. There were several times in my Christian years when I was moved to tears or had mini-epiphanies about certain scriptures and such. Like an, ...

Sent in by SG I was brought up in what most in this country would consider a fundamentalist Christian church called the Apostolic Christian Church in the conservative Midwest whose members were predominately poorly educated farmers and local small-businessmen. It was actually a safe environment from a physical threat kid-perspective. In my teen years (late 70's – early 80s) everyone around our country home left their doors unlocked and their keys in the ignition. There was no gangs, no violence, no theft… just ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice. It was an extremely insular social environment where children were carefully indoctrinated and guided into the faith. Many houses (ours included) had no television set since it was considered evil. Church families didn't go to the movie theaters, sporting events (even your own kid's school sports) or other raucous events. Even the local annual street fair and 4-H fairs were viewed with suspicion. Apostolics are like Amish, ex...

Sent in by DJ I was born and raised in a very traditional Irish/Slovak Catholic home in rural New England. I was an altar boy for many years and quite fastidious about my religious studies. I think I've always been curious about religions, and this curiosity began with the first one I was exposed to, as far back as I can recall. A number of things went on in my life, however, which set me to wondering. Was God real? Did he really hear our prayers? I very methodically considered the idea that God was everywhere and knew everything, the small and the large. At first, this idea seemed awe-inspiring and incomprehensible; but over time it made less sense. I also read the Bible a lot, mostly a hit-and-miss reading of it; I liked the accounts of warfare in the Old Testament, but found most of the rest of it pretty dry stuff. I wondered why people made such a big deal about it. (And I still do!) By the time I was in high school, I was no longer a Catholic "at heart." All the pomp...

Sent in by Marcus Johnston Having come across your website by accident, I first thought this was just another "evangelical atheist" page in which I'd see the same tracts and arguments that I've seen many times, thanks to my rabidly atheistic friend. However, searching for the "about us" part of this page, I found myself fascinated while reading the site founder's "anti-testimony," because in many ways, it mirrored my own story. I can't claim the same level of theologic scholarship that the author does, but I can relate to his story very well. When my parents divorced when I was seven, I first started going to the Presbyterian Church in town. I became a regular church attendee after being baptized at eight, but didn't really think much about the details of the church until later. Up until then, I loved the ceremony and the stories, but I didn't think much about what I believed, apart from the pat answers that every Christian gives. ...

Sent in by SLM I'm writing this to help me, if it helps someone else that would be great. I'm not a writer and I have very little formal education, so please look over the mistakes. I joined ex-Christian in August 06. I'll be 50 years old in March. I'm ashamed that it took me so long to open my eyes. Here's my story as briefly as possible. I was raised in a Pentecostal home. We went to Church of God, Assembly of God, Free holiness, where ever there was shouting and speaking in tongues. My mother was raised Baptist. Her father was a Baptist preacher. She changed to Pentecostal for my Dad. We were very poor when I was a child, (poor white trash) and we lived in rural Alabama. The churches I attended were like those you see in the documentaries about "snake handlers", only we didn't handle snakes. I hated church. As a little child I had people fall on top of me going slain in the Spirit. I used to make fun of people speaking in tongues, shun ditty eye cun...

Sent in by Jamie Q I am sorry this is long but this is My Story. I was not born in a Christian family, in fact far from it. My brother and I was raised by our dad alone. Although I remember as a five year old visiting a local church with my mom only a handful of times before they divorced religion was never brought up in our house. I don’t remember my dad talking about religion at all (except after I became a Christian when he told me that he didn't want to talk about it). In fact, my dad was your typical grade A ‘heathen’. Don't get me wrong, he was an awesome father, there was no doubt that he cared for me and my brother, but he definitely loved the ladies and going out to the local honky-tonk. Plus with him being a Vietnam vet made him a little rough around the edges. Out of me and my brother I was the quiet easy-natured one interested in academics while he was the athlete. I was shy and unassuming and generally very naïve. When I started seriously dating at 14 I met a gir...

Sent in by Chad As a child growing up in a Christian family I often went to church sang worship, discussed religion with other Christians and played with a lot of other Christian kids from my church, while I didn't have many other friends do to my home schooling, but I did go to a public school later and met my now best friend Al whom by his mother was encouraged to seek out a religion of his own (he chose Buddhism). We would often discuss religion together, and I was very interested in the things he had to say because he never spoke about Jesus or God’s Word and how big the universe was and that god was great. Instead he talked about new exciting things like meditation and the kind of peace one finds when you break all conflict within yourself. A few years later my family became churchless because we found out about the priest being a pedophile (no joke), so we stopped going to church. And then Al stopped his practice of Buddhism for his own reasons, and we both pretty simultaneou...

Sent in by Donna This site must be an answer to prayer. I was conceived and born into Seventh Day Adventism and have always suspected the rigidity of the religion coupled with the sterness of my father as having a repressive effect on who I was to become. And it did, but no longer. Though there are many positive things that resulted from a strict religious upbringing, I always felt very sad inside many times, as if the song I was born to sing could not be sung or else I would certainly loose my soul. My home was loving and my parents were most giving and great parents and I would not have chosen any other two people, as I now believe we all choose who we come to the earth by and that people do the best they can. But once my parents passed on, I was forced to look at my beliefs. Did I really believe the things I said I believed? And if so why did I believe them? Mostly I believed because that is what I had been taught and if I deared to question too deeply, it was strongly discou...