Son of a preacher ~ I know of two parallel worlds , one I try to live in now, based on scientific truth (to the best of my knowledge). The other I had forced on me when I was a child. This is a parallel world that coexists on the earth we share, I'm sure there is more than this one, but this particular world is the only other one I have any knowledge of. Imagine if you can…. A world where you and I both still exist, set on the earth right now. In this world there is a battle of galactic proportions ragging. In this world there are two sides, the good guys (god, his angels and the people of pentecostal churches), and the baddies (the devil, his demons, and everyone else on this earth (that means you!)). In this world the earth has fallen under the sway of the devil, and his demons are everywhere. His demons are the most horrifying beasts imaginable, an undead invisible army, capable of possessing anyone (this means you), and causing tremendous pain and suffering. It wold be fa

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ I believe that Christianity is a negative influence on modern societies. Why do I believe this? Well, for starters, it promotes ignorance , and there can be no greater impediment to the advancement of a culture than widespread ignorance. Promoting ignorance undermines all serious efforts at true education. Worse still, Christianity does not merely promote ignorance, it elevates it to a virtue. The following passage, John 20:26-29, is one of the foundational messages of modern Christianity: “Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.' Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!' Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'“ Thus, Jesus claims, the truly blessed are those who have believed without seeing any evidence. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defin

By Jordan ~ H ello and thank you for reading this whoever you may be. This is my account of leaving Christianity (more specifically the Catholic Church ) and my conversion to Buddhism at age 15. I was raised with a non-religious mother and a father who was on and off about religion until about 43 (I'll get back to him later). I was baptized as a baby (Oh good, already in bondage before my first birthday, thanks for letting me use my free will!) and went to a catholic elementary school in Canada. I was a very conservative catholic boy, never questioning a single bit of what I heard. Not even wondering why if God is so all loving, did he drown the world and send plagues upon people? However as I grew older and I began to think for myself, questions arose about the validity of the bible. At this time the shroud of Turin was proven fake by carbon dating and the catholic church was in the process of accepting evolution. I wondered, "How can the Bible be the word of God if its

By Xrayman ~ What follows is the ultimate story of failed prayer that unfolded at my workplace recently. It was a terrible tragedy that happened to the family of a wonderful friend and coworker... I am an x-ray tech at a Level One Trauma center in Lansing Michigan which is the go to place for the victims of horrific car accidents and other mishaps causing life threatening bodily injury. When an ambulance or chopper arrives on site, our x-ray department responds to the ER with a portable x-ray machine to the trauma room. In my 17 years I’ve seen it all, and early on you learn to put up a huge emotional wall to protect your sanity, but from time to time that emotional wall can break down as it did in the story that follows. As my shift was nearing its conclusion late last Friday evening around 11pm, the trauma pager sounded with the print out reading..”M.V.A.(motor vehicle accident) high speed 18 Y.O. male ejected from vehicle. Neck injuries vital signs stable.” Soon after th

By Mystery_F ~ I stumbled upon this site a few weeks back, and ever since it has truly been inspiring to read and connect with people with similar perspectives. So thank you! I am eighteen years old and all my life I was raised in a Christian home. All with well-intent, my whole family have been ministers and growing up I showed these signs as well. Being pressed by this "call" to lead.. I began teaching at a christian organization at school all through high school, and youth group. Blindly I lead my peers, unknowingly at this point, to what would eventually corrupt not only myself but those I cared for deeply as well. I always felt I had to become perfect, and would wake up and make my daily goal to literally be perfect until I go to bed that night. My strive to be accepted in this christian community, to impress my pastor, or make myself feel useful I made it my life's goal to become to best christian humanly possible. This intensified and poured into my externa

By a humble Wiccan ~ B lessed be, my name is Robert Malcolm Richardson III, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance. As you have doubtlessly guessed, I am an Ex Christian (If you have not, then you must be lost), and I was delivered from the clutches of Christ. I would be most humbled if you would take a moment, and hear my tale. Alright so, I was born in Georgetown, South Carolina (Bible Country), and I was from the start a very different sort of southerner, raised in the Southern Baptist fashion, doubtlessly the worst years of my life. You might be wondering how a person could possibly escape the church in such a hard core Jesus-freak area, well, contrary to what you might think, the younger generations of my native town are slowly detaching from our former faith, and the old Christian hierarchy is crumbling steadily, but back onto subject, whilst growing into a young Christian in my hometown, I began to at last take a serious look at my beliefs. Not surprisingly from

By Son of a preacher man ~ I am the Lord your God: If I even dare to question the absolute truth of the bible I deserve to be beaten. Later becomes "Why am I so unprepared for the real world, God where have I gone wrong?". Still later becomes "God, how could you do this to me?". And then becomes " you are not My god, I AM (to quote the bible), not you". Which turns to "what do I do now? how do people live in this world?"… … I say 'this world' deliberately, I often think of my time involved in my family to quite literally living in a parallel world, a world that was just as real to me as what I would now call a 'scientific' world, which I now try to live, it is a daily struggle to separate reality form this parallel world, a struggle I fear I will face for the rest of my life. All concepts must be relearned in this life, such as, what does the word family really mean? what is it to be a friend? how come my education only leav

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ T he Age of Enlightenment , centered upon the 18th century, marked a dramatic, secular shift in Western culture from dependence on authority to an appreciation of evidence and reason. It was no longer just a matter of who said it, but whether what was said could be rationally justified or demonstrated. The Enlightenment has had far reaching effects on our modern societies, especially in science, ethics, and government. In fact, it marked the beginning of a secular approach to government in the Western World . Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr The American founding fathers lived during the birth of the Enlightenment and absorbed the philosophy thoroughly. They had no patience with the authority of kings or prelates, or with that “divine right of kings” nonsense. They understood that progress and justice depended on finding the truth, not by obeying authorities, but by gathering evidence, debating ideas, and testing what worked to the benefit of the most

By Celia ~ I 'm not an ex-Christian , but I'm fighting with God none-the-less. I fell in love with Jesus when I was four. It was the deep, like-warm-melted-wax-flowing-through-my-heart falling in love that may only happen once in a life-time, and it was real. I loved Jesus, and I loved God, and I knew nothing about the Holy Spirit, or I would have loved her (carrying over the gender from the original languages, no disrespect) just as deeply and just as much. But there was a problem, a big problem, in my life. It was my father, but it was bigger than that. It was the conspiracy of silence and violent and violating disbelief around the things my father did. I was eleven, and our Sunday School teacher presented a lesson on prayer based on John 16:23-24: "...Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, hHe will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." My heart wa

By Simone ~ Editor's note: This submission comes from Switzerland. I am very happy to join ex-christians. We probably left Christianity for different reasons... I will try to summarize my testimony. Well I started to join "born again Christians" when I was 18 and in the beginning it was so nice. I had some spiritual needs, people looked so nice. It was like a new family. Then all my friends were there, I had few unbelievers friends ..I followed different churches in 20 years like pentecostal, evangelical...And I did not realize that I received more and more a bible brainwashing. All seemed so true. People said it was the truth, Jesus would provide all my needs. You know what ? Nothing happened with that !!. Then I started to feel anger in me and now I know it was my small voice that said that something was going wrong..but as soon as you start doubting your "new family" says that you must trust Jesus, he takes care of you, you mustn’t listen to the dev

By Katie ~ I t’s a bit difficult to pull up the relevant details of my deconversion from the recesses of my mind, but there is far less pressure laying it out before fellow nonbelievers rather than believers who are intent on sniffing out the places I went “wrong.” That being said, I guess I’ll start with my background. Image by AlicePopkorn via Flickr I was raised by Reformed Baptist parents. My father has a PhD in Theology and was the pastor of my church for the first eleven years of my life. He only stopped preaching when we moved closer to my mom’s family, and he found a much more profitable job as a software engineer. Fortunately, my father is a jack of many trades. Not all pastors are so lucky. I always trusted that everything I was taught as truth in church actually was true, and I don’t remember second-guessing or questioning any of it when I was younger. In high school, I was honestly pretty bored with the Bible. I insisted that I was a believer, but I rarely read my Bib

By Discordia ~ E very now and then it pops up in postings here about how stupid and religious everyone in the South is. While everyone is entitled to their opinions, that entitlement doesn’t mean I have to like what they say, nor does it mean I have to remain silent. Quite frankly, such sweeping assumptions irritate me (especially on those occasions I find myself making them). There are more than just a few of us regulars who are from the South. While that may come as a shock to some people who like thinking that the South is nothing but border to border churches, they should be realizing that deconversions are happening everywhere, and if churches are losing members on a regular basis, exactly WHERE do you think the majority of losses would be? Perhaps in areas where there are more religious people? I cannot speak for others here, but I can promise you that I no more like hearing that EVERYONE in the South is a religious moron no more than anyone here likes hearing how they w

By hellboundsoul ~ I ’ve never had much affinity for Pascal’s Wager . The whole thing is pretty hard to take seriously with the heap of objections that immediately come to mind after hearing it. However, I do think there is something to be said about it. First of all though, here’s a shortened and condensed version of Pascal’s Wager: Image by andreakw via Flickr Premise 1: Either God exists or he does not. Premise 2: Every person must choose whether they believe that he does or does not exist. Premise 3: If God exists, after death those who believe in him experience eternal life and happiness and those who do not believe experience eternal misery. Premise 4: If God does not exist, those who believe in him will have wasted some time on earth doing some things they didn’t need to do and those who didn’t believe in him will have avoided this. Premise 5: It is better to sacrifice some time on earth to do what’s required to appease God than to not believe in him and take the

By Carl S ~ T o tell the truth, "vacation” isn’t the natural word for the time, as it consisted mostly of traveling and visiting we would not ordinarily choose to do, and eating out almost constantly. Somehow, the stressfulness of it all turned out positively. I will relate only those events pertinent to this site. Cover of Vacation First of all, it actually started when I sent a note to my wife’s sister, Sue, two weeks before we left for the trip, asking if she still believed in a kind and loving heavenly father after what she had witnessed in the hospital room as her nephew Tony died while spitting blood all over the place. (That whole story, "Tony Gable," is here: http://new.exchristian.net/2011/10/tony-gable.html .) I was certain of her response but wanted confirmation from her own lips. I asked for a simple yes or no answer. More on this later. We arrived on Oct. 7th, around 4:30 p.m. There was no answer at my wife's sister Mary's house, although she