Sent in by Ellytoad Before I begin, I want to point out that I am, indeed, an ex-Christian, so forgive some of my terminology here. Do you know what my least favorite Christian teaching is? It is the one that states how Jesus could have smited all of mankind off of the face of the earth for our evilness but instead, out of the pure generosity of His heart, decided to die for us instead. Yes, the belief that fills so many Christians up with tearful thankfulness used to make me think I was totally worthless. Such a feeling is apparently a healthy one in Christianity's eyes, because it means knowing just how ugly and deserving of Hell one's soul truly is. After a time of wallowing in this state of mind, I began to realize that mankind was far more innocent of its "sinful nature" than my former fellow believers would have me think. There's two details that brought me to that conclusion; one, we were born with the weakness of sin inside of us, and two, it is apparent...

Sent in by Mary S Being the offspring of Polish and Italian parents it was a given that I should be raised Catholic. My brother and I attended Catechism on Wednesday afternoons while we attended public school. When I was eight years old I somehow got the courage to ask the nun how different languages came about. I already had an idea of how it happened, people moving around, etc. Well, she proceeded to tell the story of the Tower of Babel and how God got mad so he changed the languages so they couldn't yell down for the tools needed. At the tender age of eight I just wasn't buying this story, I wanted a more realistic answer. After that I just daydreamed in Catechism class and never heard another word a nun said. I don't think an eight year old has a grasp on what the meaning of a god really is, but it's safe to say I never believed in a god, and to this day am very thankful to that nun who gave me liberty to my mind. Since then I question everything -- how and w...

Sent in by Richard L I find no evidence of an omnipotent omniscient deity participating in my life or anyone else's. I find no evidence of a deity intervening in history. Natural disasters, diseases and famines (events over which humans have no control kill people regardless of their faith or philosophy. The burden of proof rests with believers to show their God is real. If faith is your only evidence, than you can't expect those who trust empirical evidence to share your belief. Creationism is a futile attempt to reconcile the Bible with science. Proponents peruse scientific literature for disagreements about evolution, between scientists who agree that the Earth is billions of years old and the human species a member of the primate genus. Creationists refer to statements in the Bible that they believe reveals something that science “rediscovered” centuries later, but their examples are easy to debunk by a knowledgeable skeptic. The Bible cannot coexist with science in a ratio...

By Bob P I talked to God. I waited… and waited… and waited... No answer. God must be busy, I concluded. Adults told me that God always answers prayer. That's OK, I'm still young, I thought. So I talked to God again… and waited… and waited... Perhaps God doesn't listen to young people? Then I began to wonder, who does God talk to? Who was the last person to whom God saw fit to communicate? Back then, I was a boy scout who had earned my God and Country Award and was a member of the Methodist Church. The church had youth activities and I rather enjoyed that. At about the same time, I received my Eagle Scout badge. At age 16 I was able to talk my folks into buying me a car. It was an old 1931 junker that took constant maintenance; I became quite proficient at keeping it running on a small budget. It had a rumble seat, and that was kind of cool in 1950. By 1951, I had overhauled the engine, rewired it completely, and had it running quite reliably. Because of my Boy Scout backgr...

Sent in by Margaret J It was a cloudy, dreary fall day in November of 1971. I was an American spending my junior year of college in Avignon, France. The French guy I was dating, so to speak, decided to take me to a nearby tourist site – Mont Ventoux. He was from an unusual sort of family anyway and it was determined that his younger sister would accompany us – her function being a sort of chaperon. Well, my date Michel drove while his sister sat next to him in the front seat of his faded gray “Deux Chevaux.” I was relegated to the back seat. All along the forty-five minute or so drive to Mont Ventoux, Michel and his sister sparred verbally with each other as a brother and sister might. Soon disinterested in their discourse, I turned to my own thoughts. As the drive wore on, those thoughts gained depth and turned to the issue of religion. I had been raised a Catholic in a nominally Catholic family. By that I mean, that lip service was paid to the rules of the church and avoiding...

Sent in by Ziggy Blacktail I grew up in a secular home (my parents are lapsed Catholics but that's beside the point) so the religion was never pushed on me. I remember back in the fourth grade when someone told me about the truth about Santa Claus, I didn't cry (yes, I believed in Santa Claus until I was 10. I mature slower than most people). I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I applied the same concept with God and felt the same. I started to doubt Atheism during the last two years of college and decided to give Christianity a chance. A couple of factors caused my doubts and pushed me into Christianity. First, I had a girlfriend at the time who was Catholic. She surprised me when I first learned this because she seemed normal...normal in a sense that her opinions weren't limited to the confines of a certain book and she wasn't fanatical about her beliefs (do bear in mind, I never knew anyone personally who believed in this religion growing up). This led me to ...

Sent in by Kyle Hi. My name is Kyle, I live in Austin, and I am a former devout Christian. I grew up in a semi devout family. By semi, I mean that my grandparents on both sides were extremely religious, but my parents were not too religious. I did the whole CCE Church deal on Wednesdays as a child, and went to Church on Christmas, but that was about all. However, once I became about 15, I started to study more about religion. This was my Confirmation year for the Catholic Church, so I started wondering a bit more about why I was Christian. And, I ended up becoming extremely devout. Every week I would now go to Church with my grandparents on my mom's side, and I became extremely religious. My grandpa on my dad's side is a Protestant Pastor for the Church of Christ, and so I talked with him all the time, about theology, the Bible, and anything Christian! So, to sum it up... My parents were not really religious, but when I became a teen I became extremely religious. My grandparent...

Sent in by Colin E I was raised in a home where my parents called themselves Christian: we were members of a protestant church, but I do not think that any of us took religion too seriously. Us children were sent to Sunday School every week to get proper religious instruction, but my parents never tried to encourage me or my sister to dedicate our "lives to the Lord". Moreover, being a white South African child in the heyday of Apartheid, with the church I attended openly supporting the Apartheid government, my parents did tell me to take whatever that church teaches with a pinch of salt: they certainly were not supporters of that regime, but all white South Africans in the '70s had to keep up appearances, or face at best ostracism, or at worst criminal prosecution. This all changed when I turned 15: my sister was invited to a charismatic/fundamentalist church service, and I tagged along, mostly because I was promised that it was a good place to meet girls - and I was n...

Sent in by Josh I cannot say I ever was a true Christian. I grew up fascinated by religions, and fascinated by the natural world. My family showed me Carl Sagan's Cosmos at age 5 and later The Demon Haunted World. I loved Sagan's expansive view of life, his respect and tolerance for the wisdom gained through religion, and his staunch support of empirical evidence and the scientific method. I consider myself thus a Sagan-style agnostic. Show me the evidence! Thomas Jefferson once wrote, optimistically: And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors. --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, Ap...

Sent in by Jo I was raised in the church by my mom, a single parent. We went to church most of my life, but not always consistently. Although my mom is not a "churchy" sort of personality, her faith in Jesus and God are very strong. So I was raised with an open minder parent but also a very spiritual and superstitious parent. Luckily I was always educated at school to think for myself. During elementary school I was in the gifted program. In middle school I left this program to be a "regular student." I didn't do so well as a regular student. I became a rebel of sorts, refused to go to church, experimented with all the taboos. Finally after my freshmen year in high school I decided to leave that behind, throw away the cigarettes and become a born again Christian. I studied the bible and was very dedicated to this life, that I genuinely felt saved me. My life was good for awhile, though I felt plagued by guilt and confusion over the things I read in the bible. ...