Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr By Pineapple If the God you believe in exists, why did He turn His back on me when I was collapsed on my bedroom floor sobbing and begging Him for more faith? Why did He leave me alone and bewildered when my faith of 20 years begin to unravel? When I started questioning the Bible I did the right thing. I rebuked Satan , believing he was trying to deceive me and humbled myself before the Lord and prayed for more faith. But He didn't answer my prayer. Or wait, according to Christian reasoning, He did answer my prayer and the answer was a big fat "NO". While I was crying out to Him on my floor that night, I would have accepted even a vague sense of peace and love as proof of His Spirit and thus His existence, but He offered none. The only conclusion I could come up with was that God didn't want me to be one of His children. I wasn't chosen. I'm glad that He has blessed you with faith. I'm glad that He c...

Image via Wikipedia By Mriana When I was little, there was this cartoon series involving Casper the Friendly Ghost , and I had an invisible friend, as do many children, only his name was Casper. Romper Room hosted some of the Casper shows, which caught my attention and probably encouraged my desire to learn, but it also gave me my invisible friend. Now, for those of you born long after Romper Room , this was an educational kids’ show in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. There was no Barney though. Rather, in this show, a very human teacher assisted a classroom of children in learning social skills and other important things they needed to learn as preschoolers. It was probably this early learning process, through the media, which lead to me to other profound discoveries, including religious ones. The interesting thing about having Casper as an invisible friend was the teasing I got from the adults around me. This friend I had a little longer than most children have theirs, probably ...

Escape , originally uploaded by SM Photo By Neal Stone First off sorry about the delay on this next part. Been a busy week and kind of lost the writing bug for a bit. You read all the time on the news how someone escapes from jail, but ends up being recaptured right away. Why? Because they failed to prepare for AFTER the got away. You spend all this time on getting free, but not what to do next. When I graduated it was assumed I would never go to college so I never had an S.A.T. And for a while that was the case. I did get some schooling eventually ( GPA 3.5) and took other courses related to work. Turns out I can sit in class, daydream, not read one word in the book and still pull off a B grade average. After graduating from high school I had no job, do direction and no idea what to do with my life. No one seemed to care and my parents suck at teaching life skills. All this had to be learned on my own. All the while the dragon was still in hot pursuit. From 1983 to 1998 I ...

Sent in by Andrew I grew up on the extremely Catholic west side of Cincinnati, Ohio . For those of you who aren't familiar with this (and thankfully most of the world isn't) West Side Cincinnati is one of the most isolated metropolitan areas of the country. Religious, economic, psychological and geographic borders keep these suburbs of about 100,000 people apart from the rest of the city. No easy access to a major interstate due to endless miles of suburbs, anyone that wasn't catholic was ostracized behind closed doors, people from any other area of the city were weird, and the valleys that surrounded this area led to a staggering lack of culture. I was raised to believe that divorced parents and their children were odd and contemptible. My mother is a bigoted, hypocritical fascist, pretending to be compassionate yet speaking ill behind everyone's backs... like a true Christian. My father, coming from good 'ole German stock, was quiet, but had a fury that oft...

Image by freestone via Flickr Sent in by Jenny the Disaster Of all the areas of my life, my faith has been challenged the most my entire life. I feel like this has been a long time coming. I struggled greatly with religion as a child. Even while I was in Sunday school , learning all about Jesus and God and the Bible, I found myself asking very difficult questions. I didn’t have doubt in my heart. I actually enjoyed myself very much. I liked the stories. I loved Jesus. I just thought God was mean. I didn’t understand why I was to worship someone who made life so difficult for some and so great for others. Was I supposed to worship him until he did something nice for me and hope that my family and I would somehow be one of the lucky ones? What makes you lucky? What makes you better than everyone else? What makes us more important than anyone of any other faith? It wasn’t my fault I grew up a Christian. Just like it’s not my fault I grew up to be an actor . It’s just the ...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Richard I was raised in a loving family in a quiet suburb of the city of Chicago . My mother was a graduate of Wheaton , the school that produced Billy Graham and many other respected evangelicals. I attended church, went to Christian camps, memorized verse, and studied what I was given in order to be a better lamb of god. It was actually this study and desire to learn more about the faith that caused me to have what I call my first epiphany. The bible, I discovered at the approximate age of 20, was filled with nonsense. It was incomplete, being a product of Byzantine politics rather than divine inspiration . I did not turn from the faith at this time. Instead I chose to cherry pick the parts of the bible that made sense to me, and ignore the rest. My second shift came as the result of my profession. I joined the marine corps, and was sent overseas. I saw gut wrenching poverty on a scale that stunned me. I saw absolute squalor, and human misery that ma...

By the Filipino Infidel I am a Filipino. I live in the Philippines , a country so proud of itself as the Christian country in the southeast Asian region. I live with fellow Filipinos who devout their lives following the Christian way of life. Everyone is united according to the will of God. Yes, as it is written in Revelations, we will all suffer. The Philippines had been colonized by Spain for more than 3 decades. Thus, Roman Catholicism has been planted very deeply into our roots. Well, they had a great job of doing it that this religion had played a major role in having the country held for such a long time. Religious leaders then had such great influence to the Filipinos making them believe that the only path to salvation is Christianity. And it is true that were saved. With Christianity, there were saved from the evils of riches, the corruption of power, the addiction of pleasure and fame. And with that, they happily lived poor, exploited and depraved for the rest of their lives...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Paul D Greetings, friends. I want to make clear from the outset that my path from "born-again" Christian to atheist has been very long and very painful. I have been dragged kicking and screaming all the way, and the easiest thing for me to do would be to walk back into that religion. So, any Christian who wants to give me the "chosen to backslide" treatment... forget it. Also, when I say "Christian," I am talking about the type of person who calls themselves "born again". I do have a few dear Christian friends who are not the "born again or go to hell" kind. There are dozens of reasons for my de-conversion, so for the moment I will just go over a few key events. My first experience of born-again Christians was when I was a rather mixed up 17-year-old, and I was latched onto by a small group of people whom showed me the kind of love and attention that I had always wanted, but never had. For this reason ...

Cover of Anthem By Kat Sullivan On Christianity W hen you start to really doubt, they tell you to immerse yourself in the "word" and in prayer. And it sounds so wise and like it’s the right thing to do. But really it is the church's built in, self protective mechanism to keep people in the church. The intent seems to be to keep people from spending too long not hearing the “word” and too long away from prayer, because when the “word” and prayer start to seem foreign, weird and a little uncomfortable to people it becomes possible to see Christianity objectively. And it is when we see things objectively that we start to perceive reality, life, the world with more accuracy. I have become convinced that religions tend to be delusions humans create for ourselves as a coping mechanism to help us get through life and a tool for governing society. In some ways that seems like it might be fine...I have my coping mechanisms too. But at least mine don't consume me, hurt me and...

Image by AlaskanLibrarian via Flickr From a UU in Spring, TX I was raised Catholic-- 12 years of parochial education in Illinois & Missouri . My family on my mother's side were caring, devote people from small-town America who had converted to Catholicism. In high school when visiting California, I remember meeting a guy who said that he was a pagan. That surprised me-- when I thought of "pagan," all I could think of was the people who worshiped the golden calf. Most of my Catholic education taught discipline and critical analysis and I think that it was healthy to think of moral choices that we make in life, but upon reflection, I realize that the concepts of guilt, patriarchy and hatred of those of different faiths were unhealthy. I stopped attending church in college. After working overseas for 4 years and working with senior citizens in St. Louis , I asked a "Minister for the Aging" (she served seniors who were members of several churches in down...

Image via Wikipedia By Neal Stone One of the hardest things to deal with, because of my disability, is I had no skills, talent and not much of a personality. This made my life difficult when it came to trying to fit in. In the 79/80 school year we finally were able to move into the new church building and the school which was in the basement. It was at this point things would take a weird turn in thew church and my family. My step-dad would marry my mother and start to demand to be called dad and be treated like dad. On top of that he ate up everything the pastor preached and would become real strict at times. The church would become very cult like and we would be in constant fear. Fear that if we stepped out of line, even in the smallest way, we would be exposed in the church and rebuked. The pastor was one of those scream, yell and kick the pulpit types. We would have at least 3 church splits before I quit years later. There would also be midnight secret meetings to discuss w...

Image by Brian Sawyer via Flickr Sent in by Freeman I’ve been reading posts here for about the past month and I’m very impressed with the honesty and warmth from both those writing and those responding. A recent series of events culminated in my decision to leave Christianity once and for all. A brother I’m very close to attempted suicide recently. He is now getting help for the depression and severe anxiety that afflicted him for years. This event had a profound impact on all my family members. My fundamentalist father decided that "more Jesus" was the answer for my sibling . I won’t get into all that now – but my father and I had it out and haven’t spoken in months. I was raised Catholic and when I was 17 I read the bible from cover to cover. I remember thinking that some of this was really weird. I should have trusted my gut then. I got involved with the charismatic renewal and off and on attended churches of various denominations. At one point I followed my family to a...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Susan Just a real quick 'testimony'. Seems weird using that word. Anyways, I was 'saved' around age 19. Totally got into the whole 'church, witnessing, pleading with my family to get saved, reading my Bible for hours on end' type of life style. Went off to Bible College , Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College . Graduated with a music degree. Met my now 'ex' husband and got married right off the bat. I was afraid that Jesus would come back before I could have kids and I wanted kids. How gullible was I!? Anyways, we ended up on the mission field in Australia . We were there for around 5 years. During that time I started really questioning the whole Christian life. It seemed I was always at odds with it. My ex and I were having arguments all the time because I was sick of the whole church thing: tired of the judgmental people, tired of always trying to please Jesus, tired of always being so damn good. You know, that whole ...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Kyle First, I want to thank whoever is responsible for this site. I'll explain my title in a bit. But my de-conversion is very typical. I was raised in a Christian home. We attended a Methodist church, but the attitudes were more akin to the Southern Baptists. I have great parents, and I never endured any abuse in the typical sense. However, church was a big part of life. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesdays, special events, holidays all revolved around the church schedule. I was indoctrinated with the typical system of prayer and good works coupled with regular church attendance will get you to heaven. I really wasn't even taught much about grace. I was presented with hell and eternal damnation . So I got saved when I was about 7 years old. The years passed and ended up going on a mission trip with some Baptist family members. That was the first time I was exposed to the true Southern Baptist belief system. I learned about grace, etc. Wh...

Image by dibsonhoffweiler via Flickr By DebTheQueenBee It has been a month since I posted my last testimonial (see " I Feel I've Been 'Churched' Enough ") and I would like to share my update with you. It's been ten months now since I stopped attending church and I tell you it's a GREAT feeling knowing that I am no longer "slaved" to some gawd or the buy-bull. Also, I no longer tithe at the church I used to attend and now I'm saving money like crazy!! Not only that, I can spend money on things I really like. I gave and gave to the church and all I had in the end was being a broke-ass church mouse and an empty wallet. Boy, am I glad that's over. I work in retail and from time to time, I run into some people I went to church with. Sometimes they ask me why I am not in church anymore or come and tell me that there's a singles meeting at church on the second Saturday and my response will be, "I'll keep that in mind". In rea...

An example of a breathing treatment for a younger Cystic fibrosis patient. Image via Wikipedia By CH I was raised a Christian, but my dad was career Air Force , so I lived in foreign countries until I was a preteen. I always wondered why I was lucky enough to be a Christian, yet the kids I played with in Japan were doomed to hell. They were just kids. We moved from the UK to Tennessee (August 1960, 'whites-only' restaurants, etc.) when I was eleven years old. I am Caucasian, but until moving to TN, I actually had never categorized others by race. I had friends that were black, oriental, Hispanic , white, and never even put it together that any of us were any "different." TN was quite a shock. We moved off base, and for the first time we attended a Southern Baptist church instead of the Protestant chapel on base. It wasn't long before I was "saved." I enjoyed the Sunday School stories and activities, but the seeds of doubt were planted after a...