Received Monday, January 21, 2002 Hi David - your website's very moving; I shall read some of the ex-Christian books. I too got caught up in the charismatic thing; I was training to be a Bible translator when my father died very suddenly of cancer. I was blamed by my church for not having enough faith to allow God to heal him. I left the church and left Christianity about a year later. At about the same time time a close friend was raped by a member of her church; he reached the elders before she did, told them they'd been having an affair but he now repented, and she was kicked out of the church for fornication. They screwed so thoroughly with her head that she wasn't able to go to the police because they made her think it was her fault. I spent a few months exploring what I really believed and ended up a Pagan and more specifically a witch, but that's another story. I've healed sufficiently in the intervening years to now become involved in interfaith discussions...

by Spider Monkey Long, rambling, un-PC, and extraordinarily snarky, but hopefully worth the read. The drama started in 1995, when I was 13. My father had "found the lord" that summer when I was staying with my grandparents. Being the naïve, sheltered child that I was, I had squashed out my initial doubts and began believing the xian propaganda about the loving biblegod and his abilities to change people. Before the saga began, I had had limited experience with the Southern Baptists during vacation buybull school. I was a loner, an outcast among my peers, and I wasn't getting along with my parents. During this time in my life, I was often suicidal and depressed. I was happy that I would finally become part of a loving church family…. Was I ever wrong. I had the feeling that something was wrong early on. I was expecting a miracle to transform the short-temper and impatience of my father. Instead, he became more punitive, arrogant, and hypocritical. My brother...

by Harry Hi Everyone! I became a 'born again Christian' early in life, being baptized in an evangelical American Baptist (ABC) church in 1974. I became very active in it- youth group, volleyball, choir ( no, I can't sing, but I was in it anyway!), the clown ministry to nursing homes, retreats, etc. I went to contemporary Christian concerts ( Andre Crouch and the Disciples, Larry Norman, Petra, Phil Keaggy, Steve Taylor, etc, etc.), an inter-denominational group with a weekly singing and Bible study- we also went to concerts, retreats, and so on. I went to Christian coffeehouses, other events, and other churches for fellowship and teaching-to 'fellowship' and learn, not to church hop. Anyway. Skipping ahead a bit- I tried to convert LDS/Mormon missionaries at the ripe young age of 17, but after an extended period of time, I was baptized as a Mormon at the age of 18, in 1981 after going through the missionary discussions twice, film strips and talks with other Mormons...

Jim. Lee. New South Wales Australia. Aug. 99 I have walked a long road in just under three years. From Christianity, to Messianic Judaism, gave Orthodox Judaism some thought, and from there to agnostic belief, and today January 2001 I would have to say atheism. During this walk I rediscovered that you do not need religious dogma to have principles, ethics, or morals, after all religion is only a theory as to the nature of man, a man’s place in the universe, and religion has been and still is used as a form of control to guide human actions. There is not a man on the face of this earth today whether he is a Minister, Pastor, Bishop, Cardinal or Pope who can prove to you that heaven or hell exist, except by faith. "Faith" is merely someone’s assumption that something is true without evidence to support it. "Faith" is a blind belief in something unknown and unseen. This testimony remains ongoing, as I slowly lost sight of God. So let me begin……. My wife Gloria and myse...