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 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 ...

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 ...

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...

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 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...

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...