Sent in by Paul D Image by SamPac via Flickr I am deeply grateful to all the people who responded to my previous testimonial and all the kind and helpful comments, believe me, you showed me more compassion than I received from fifteen years as a Christian - I thank you. I don't always have access to a PC but when I do I always reply to messages. As before, the Christians I am talking about are those whom label themselves as "born again," and this is where I will start. I am an atheist for one reason and one reason only - Christians - and what I observed for over fifteen years. The sheer magnitude of hypocrisy between what they SAY and how they actually ARE as people. The staggering arrogance of Christians and the distasteful, mocking, style they have in dealing with beliefs that are different to their own. The unbelievable COLDHEARTEDNESS of Christians is matched only by their indifference in the presence of human need and suffering. Make no mistake about it, I re...

Image by flashboy via Flickr Sent in by John Looking through this site, I see that most of you are American. In England , religion doesn't play such an integral role as it seems to in the USA . However, it is just as pernicious. I became a Christian at the age of 15 (I am now 43) when I was 'evangelised' by a Charismatic, Pentecostal church. At first, everything was great. I believed that I had found the answer to life, the universe and everything . I read my Bible diligently; I witnessed to all at my school; I prayed and I studied Christianity. Studying Christianity was my downfall. The more I read and studied, the more I became confused. I was hearing one thing in church (God is love) and reading another (God commanding the slaughter of children and animals). To cut a long story short, the more that I questioned what I was learning, the more exasperated the church became with me. I was told over and over that I was allowing the devil/ the world/ my mind/ to control me a...

Sent in by Gary Image by neojhun via Flickr I'm writing this testimonial because I need some sort of outlet for my frustration. So, let's start from the beginning. I grew up in a very strict Christian home. I went to church whenever the doors were open. When I was thirteen my mom decided to move my brother and I 300 miles away from the rest of our family because she felt that the "Lord" wanted her to. That landed us in Nashville where we started attending an almost cult-like independent baptist church. All of the families in the church were home schooled and that was one of the reasons we were drawn to the church because I had been home schooled since I was very young. The church was very strict and had many different doctrines that weren't typical in most churches. I took part in street preaching, soul winning, and handing out gospel tracts on a regular basis. I wasn't allowed to listen to secular music , watch anything over a PG rating , or go to the ...

By Neal Stone Image by mufan96 via Flickr As I shared my story I shared my beginnings dealing with Epilepsy and being visual impaired. I also shared my learning disability. These are all the thins that helped set the stage for the usury that is Christianity. When you are insecure and unsure of yourself and your life you are easily used and manipulated. This was my life for over 20 years. While good things did happen to me and some nice people helped me along, it was good old fashioned human nature and kindness that prevailed. Not God. God always seemed MIA. My overcoming the very things that held me back was nothing more than my own personal strength and determination to be a better person and have a better life. This is still a driving force in my life. There are many things I left out of my story do to space and just too much to cover. But in the end I think you got the idea of what religion can really do to you. After breaking free I had the quick and short downfall in my ...

Sent in by TheOtherRainMan James Bond . Indiana Jones . The Librarian Dude from those "Librarian" movies on TNT. What do all these men have in common? Well, technically, they have a plethora of things in common, such as the fact they are all men, they are all incredibly good looking, they always get the girl, and their third installment was usually considered "not good" by a good percentage. But one thing in particular that they all have in common is that they are men of action at night, but in the daytime - they are men of charm. They would capture the bad guys, recover the stolen gems, save the girl and win her over, and yet, be able get to the President's Ball, dressed in their nicest tuxedo, looking like they spent the whole day getting ready. No one expects or even knows of the trouble they went through earlier. They are masters of illusion. Although I haven't captured any bad guys, recovered the stolen gems, saved the girl and won her over, AND looked ...

Sent in by Confused (Ex?)Believer My journey into Christianity began in high school when a friend of mine invited me to a Pentecostal church. Since I have been raised as an Orthodox Christian (nominally, our family wasn't really religious), I have accepted the teachings of a protestant church because they seemed to be based on the Bible more than the Orthodox's teachings. Its been five years now and I am writing this letter with a tormenting feeling, lack of peace, or joy inside. I hate what has happened to me and don't know how to ever go back, at least not yet... To be fair to Christianity, I have been experiencing some anxiety, OCD , and maybe even depression-like symptoms during my teenage years, and I know that most Christians don't experience what I did, but it is still my story and it is still real to me. So, before my conversion, despite me having some problems, I was still managing to do really well in high school, have a girlfriend, be that popular guy in s...

Image by jimmywayne22 via Flickr Sent in by Andy I was born into a hardcore legalistic home school Christian family. We went to the local Independent Fundamental Baptist church "every time the doors were open". This was all fine when I was a little kid (age 9,10) because I did not understand any of it anyway, and it was normal to me because i was so used to it. My parents, and their cult/religion believed in separation from the world. This meant no music, no movies, no TV, and formal "church" clothes everywhere we went. My parents believed that god speaks directly to the parents, and then the parents to the kids... I guess that makes parents god? My parents beat and abused us and forced us into their mold. They had absolute authority, and absolute control. I made professions of faith because I was afraid of going to hell, and I was afraid of them. Most sermons at church were on hell, and how I'll go there if I don't obey my parents. My parents followed th...

Image by Highway Huns via Flickr Sent in by WizenedSage The following is a testimony by my friend, Carl, who has no computer, but with whom I have shared much material from this site. He wished to give something back. All responses will be shared with him . My parents moved a lot. And they were seriously superstitious Roman Catholics (miracles, rosaries, saints, etc.). These things are important in retrospect, for they explain how I ended up in a monastery at the age of 14 (my oldest brother was already there, but that is really irrelevant). The monastery where I found “God” was actually a return to the country, which I deeply missed when my parents moved to be back in the city. It was also an escape from school and, according to my ex-wife who claimed my mother told her, a place to put me since, “They didn’t know how to handle you anymore (a religious reform school?).” For nearly three and a half years I threw myself fully into the regimentation, prayers, dogma, and silence enforced...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Jody My childhood was one of confusion, being raised by my RLDS mother and agnostic father. They married as a result of a whirlwind courtship during college, when my mom had sown her wild oats and dated this "heathen" non believer. She later returned to her conservative RLDS heritage when I was a young girl. (BTW: RLDS is a small, breakaway sect of Mormonism . It is now called Community of Christ , and happens to be very liberal). This was the cause of much division in our family, as my mom tried to "convert" my father. My dad was a great father, taking us camping and being involved in my youth group when we went on canoe trips and such. But I felt like what was missing was the spiritual dimension. I determined at a young age to marry a "priesthood man," and in my childish thinking, avoid the problems that plagued my parents. In my mind, God was something to be pursued at all costs. I gave my life to the church, to this bel...

Image by mrjmw via Flickr Sent in by Sergio My personal journey of de-conversion can be viewed in a similar light as a story of an addict. One day you feel great and have no fear of hell and the need to tell others about it, but the other day you wake up and feel like Christ is real, what you have experienced is true, and Christianity is the way. This website and numerous books have been able to show me the logical reasons against Christianity, but since I've been attending a Pentecostal church, my EXPERIENCE prevents me from truly leaving my faith behind. So I have a question to this community with a hope of finding some answers. If you've been ever exposed to people prophesying over you, hearing words of wisdom or knowledge (when a person can see something in your life, kind of like a psychic ), and other supernatural testimonies and stories how do you go about your life, not believing that there is some kind of supernatural power in Christ. Also, when I was shaky in my fai...

Sent in by by rustywheeler Image by timabbott via Flickr I was born in 1969 in Glendale, California, the last of four kids by a 9-year margin to my nearest sister, but my family moved to Portland, Oregon when I was five. My parents are Charismatic Fundamentalists ; by the time I left home we had been plain old Baptists , Assembly of God , and Foursquare . It's kind of wild: I've been visiting this site a lot lately, and it's got me remembering, sifting through the crazy shit I heard growing up, presented as truth. I distinctly remember a popular Young-Earth Creationist delivering a series of much-anticipated lectures in our church, explaining (among other riveting insights) how, since we know that the rotation of the earth is slowing, we can infer that if it was really billions of years old it would have had to originally be spinning so fast as to be centrifuged flat like a pancake. We had our share of the Holy Ghost , speaking in tongues and the like. I ca...

Image by Jari Schroderus via Flickr Sent in by Splashy Hi all, I’ve been a lurker at ex-Christian for a few years now, and I think it’s about time I shared my anti-testimony. My parents are not Christians in any way, which was helpful for my de-conversion (oh you’re not a Christian anymore darling? That’s nice, as long as you’re happy, pass the butter wouldn’t you?), but they didn’t exactly have any views on religion, which made me ripe for converting. Growing up in rural Australia, I was sent away to a boarding school when I finished primary school (elementary school for the USA reader). Therein began my indoctrination. I went to a fundy Christian school that believed every word of the bible was true and infallible. They still administered the cane as punishment up until 1997, when the federal government finally decided to outlaw all corporal punishment in private schools (in public schools this had been done in the 70’s….go figure). Well didn’t that get attention. The scho...

Image by Куртис Перри via Flickr Sent in by Cynthia I was born into a military Fundamentalist Baptist Christian home where there was no option other than to also be a Christian, and the bible was taken literally. I grew up in America and South Korea , both very Christian countries. I of course realize I was born an Atheist, just like everyone else. But I was told very quickly that I was a Christian, just like I am half Korean. It was not something to have a choice in; it was simply fact. The main language my parents spoke was gossip. They gossiped about everyone at church except the revered preacher man. They even gossiped about their children right in front of them, resulting in insecurities we have all carried into adulthood. My oldest sister was abused and put down for being bigger boned and has been through many eating disorders . She is still obsessed with her appearance to a higher degree than I have seen in others. My middle sister was put down for being “stupid.” She isn’t stu...