sent in by Mike Lee The Bible's usage of the metaphor of the "shepherd" (aka, Jesus) and "sheep" (aka, the human beings) captures what Christianity is beautifully. I mean, what more could one say? I rest my case. Christians are sheeps. And like sheep, Christians become extremely anxious when wondering away from the flock. Like sheep, they are studid, fearful, and helpless. Like sheep, they can't survive without a shepherd. In the end, they will be sold to the slaughter house. On the other hand, I'm a stallion! I'm wild and free. Don't mess with me. And I too, will die one day. But I won't die in the slaughter house. Mickey Rourke character in the movie, "Bar Fly" says in response to the question that he must hate cops-- "No, I don't hate cops. I just seem to feel better when they're not around." My point exactly. I don't hate the Christians. I just seem to feel better when they're not aroun...

By Rick James I was baptized a Roman Catholic, along with my twin brother, quite shortly, I'm sure, after our birth. I don't know what you'd call me now ... a "recovering Catholic?" My dear, aging and brutally frank gay-lover-of-26-years tells me I've been hopelessly scarred by the Church, and that my frequent anti-religious, faith-mocking rants and outbursts, which I thoroughly enjoy, testify to the damage done me. Perhaps. My parents, life-long Catholics, were not particularly devout -- they went to mass only on Easter and Christmas, if then; but they insisted that my brother and sister and I attend both mass and catechism classes regularly. We weren't above pointing out the inherent hypocrisy on their part to them about this. They had a pat answer: "When you've gone to church as long as we went to church, you can stop going." I never much liked going to mass. I found it boring, and all the kneeling hurt my back. But throughout...

sent in by Alexandra Cammack I was brought up a Roman Catholic – not strict, but I made my First Holy Communion when I was seven and was expected to believe in the basics. We never went to church, except Easter Sunday and Christmas Day but even that stopped by the time I was 12. My grandparents died when I was 12 and that’s when I began thinking about Christianity and how it just wasn’t for me. My Dad’s pretty cool about it. In fact, he doesn’t really believe much of it and is open-minded. I’m not sure if he still calls himself a Catholic or even a Christian, but he does watch the God Channel. To laugh at the scary-ass Christians. My Mum still thinks of herself as a Catholic and can get very angry when we debate religion. She doesn’t care what I believe but she doesn’t understand why I left the religion. Actually, I think she is a very mis-informed Christian because she doesn’t seem to know all the stupid rules and contradictions. Maybe if she read about it form an...

sent in by Wayne I was a "cradle Catholic," but I didn't significantly believe any dogma until I was about 10, when I went through CCD and the whole First Communion experience. Eventually I slacked off of church and was just a lukewarm believer up through high school. In college, I was increasingly drawn toward the Bible and Christian ideas, though initially in a universalist way. But increasing examination of my ideas led me toward Protestantism; I began to attend an Episcopal Church, but in private my ideas were driven toward the evangelicals. I went over to a Baptist church for the summer then went lukewarm for the rest of the school year. Toward the end of that school year I began to investigate Catholicism, and I fell for the revisionist history of Catholic apologetics. I went over in my senior year, got really zealous, and even thought of priesthood. Then the lukewarmness set in over the course of last year. I'd been increasingly uncom...

sent in by Josh Hello again. I'm currently stuck at a Christian college at the moment (transferring out at the end of the semester) and we are required to go to revival services this week. The minister has said some interesting things that I thought I would share with you all: 1. Yesterday, he presented the example of a person who lives an upstanding and moral life outside of the framework of Christianity. He said that these people live like this because they have God's laws in their hearts, even though they don't realize it. I disagree. I think that Christianity is not really unique in many of its major teachings. All of the major religions essentially share many teachings, such as not to murder, not to steal, not to lie, etc. I think now that the "creators" of these religions simply used logic and rationality to come up with moral laws that would benefit society and applied these as being divinely given. That's how you get Buddhis...

sent in by Neil Sweeney I was brought up in a predominately Roman Catholic upper middle class family, we where all Irish (me, my brother and my sister where the only ones born and raised in England). My mum and my mum's mum where the only authoritarian people in my family that weren’t Catholics, mainly because my Nan’s first husband died and she started losing her faith and she divorced again and the church wouldn’t let her back in (not all forgiveness now is it?). My mum followed my Nan and together they became spiritualist - kind of like Catholics but very reformed and more open to ideas and other religions. I went to a Roman Catholic Primary school; still to this day do not understand, as it was one of the worst primary schools in the area. There I started to question it all when these teachers there never gave me any real support in any thing. See I had meningitis when I was about 10 months old; the doctors though I would die, I came out with no obvious problems; tur...

sent in by Paul Johnson From the beginning... First off, My name is changed here, due to the fact that my mother searches my name on the internet regularly to find out information about me. With this being said... I am a 22 Year old man who grew up in southern Indiana. Religion (Christianity) is not just a Sunday-Wednesday night thing in my home town, It is a way of life. There is no less than 20 various Christian churches in my hometown of 20,000 people. Therefore, hardly a soul you can approach that doesn't belong to a Baptist, catholic, church of god, etc. I grew up in a Nazarene church. For those that do not know, they are fairly strict and Hell is a huge topic for Sunday sermons. As well, nazarenes believe that you can only go to heaven if you have been saved from your sins.. And if you sin again, you have to get saved again... As a child (age 8 forward) I would pray constantly for fear of going to hell if I screwed up during the course of the day...