By Onesinging ~ T o My Christian Friends and Family, Just so there is no doubt in your mind, I am going to hell. Entrance to Hell (Photo credit: joeltelling ) Yes, I AM GOING TO HELL . I am no longer a Christian according to your definition, which means to you that I am going to hell. Why am I being so crystal clear about it? Because I care about you. I know how horrible this must be for you, facing head on the reality of me subjected to eternal torment. Fire. The Devil heaping hate on me. Knowing pain and evil and misery worse than you could experience here on earth or wish on anyone – for ETERNITY . If you love me, and I know you do, I understand that as you face this horrific reality, you must be devastated, grief stricken, anxious, depressed. Maybe you even feel like throwing up at the thought of your child, your friend - ME…experiencing the worst nightmare, torment, torture - FOREVER. I will never know God’s perfect love after I die. I will never be in your compa

By Paul So ~ D on’t get me wrong: I strongly disagree with any young-earth or old-earth creationists as much as the next person in this wonderful website. I think young-earth creationism is a failed falsified hypothesis since there are contrary evidences such as data from radiometric measurements that the earth is around 4.5 billions of years old or the vast amounts of data that supports evolution. Furthermore, I think young-earth is so clearly and demonstrably false that there is no further incentive to even bother debunking it. The only reason why I would probably want to debunk it is to show why young-earth creationism can never become a science. However, I do not want to argue with young-earth creationists . I do not want to argue with them for various of reasons but the main thrust of those reasons is that it is emotionally time-consuming for me. I simply cannot tolerate the amount of Bullsh*t that exists in creationism, and it baffles me that there is so much scientific ignor

By Dechristianized & Unchurched ~ I n my darkest hour, God didn't show up. In my deepest despair, Jesus remain silent. In my greatest pain. I was alone and confused. Jesus, my personal saviour was nowhere to be seen or heard. The year was 2007, the finale to my situation. Church has no answers; pastors have no answers to my questions. Prayers and fasting all seem to go down a deep well -- a black hole. Not even an echo from a personal saviour that supposedly love me so much that died for me on the cross. Anyway, strangely enough, the more I cried out and cried out, I was led out of Christianity. It started with exploration of Christian Science then Christian meditation then the grace message and many more. Long story short, I finally realized in 2012 that this is it: The year of my personal freedom . The personal year 5. And I am so happy. I feel more liberated and alive than I ever was in 30 yrs of Christianity. A religion that is supposed to liberate, but makes c

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ S ometimes it seems so hopeless; we non-believers are so few and the religious are so many, so influential, and so entrenched. But I want to tell you why it isn’t hopeless, and that we can, over time, and with intelligence and effort, push religious superstition off center stage. I realize that here on ExChristian.net I am “preaching to the choir,” but I think it is important to constantly remind ourselves that religion is not just a benign comfort for the masses. It is all too often harmful or even dangerous. Belief can even be a matter of life and death. President Bush the Younger declared that his god had told him to invade Iraq, and as a result of that invasion hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis (and several hundred soldiers from other nations) died. In the end, democracy came to Iraq, which was then re-founded as an Islamic state by a new constitution. And the Sunnis and Shiites there continue to kill one another over a 1,400 year-ol

By I. Weisernau ~ I have asked questions since I was a child. I never really believed in Santa Claus , since I had two older brothers who dispelled me of that before I had a chance to believe it. At the same time, it didn't add up in our family anyway. We grew up in a family of very little means. We often got maybe one or two presents for Christmas in a good year. We learned young to be vague about that when other kids asked. The first time we went to school and other kids asked us what we got for Christmas and we answered that honestly, we were treated with fascination or pity. Some kids got that look of shock on their face. Others told us we had been ripped off. Both of those reactions just hurt. We learned how to be vague after that. If I got a doll, it became "some toys" and if I got a sweater it became "some clothes." It kept us from standing out like a sore thumb. I would say that poor kids learn the truth about Santa much sooner than wealthier kids. Su

By ExCBooster ~ I 'm not an ex-Christian , because I was never Christian in the first place, but I thought I'd write some encouragement in the form of a different perspective on the problem: not what it's like to leave, but what Christianity looks like from the outside looking in. Some personal background might be in order. Both of my parents were raised Catholic, and left Christianity long before they met or I was born, so I was not raised Christian at all, and they explicitly encouraged me to come to my own conclusions about philosophy or belief. I never see the inside of a church except for funerals or weddings, and because of family friends, I've been to as many Wicca, Hindu, or Jewish religious functions as anything else. Nevertheless, since I live in a society with a lot of Christians, and much of my extended family is Christian, I've had plenty of contact with the religion, and I thought I'd share a few anecdotes of what it's like to be on the ou

From Morgan ~ I would just like to say, I'm not attempting to convert anyone by any of my statements, I simply would like to give a different perspective (my perspective) of this religion that has been turned into a seriously condemning and hurtful religion. Number one, I want to apologize to anyone that has been hurt by Christianity or the Church. The Church has been a serious failure. Big time. So much hurting and offense. So much deception and complete misinterpretation. In general, people suck. People fail, and people take things out of context. Nobody is perfect, seriously. I can't even express the pain it causes me to see how badly the church is representing itself. They've taken something so beautiful and hopeful and turned it into something hated and used it as a tool to make everyone else look like crap and make themselves look better. My story, is a little different. I'm not an atheist at all, or an ex-Christian . I've just broken away from the Ch

By Carl S ~ I f you watch enough actual crime case programs on TV, you will see how our legal system operates. But, sometimes you will notice how it malfunctions, working against the accused and the truth. Innocent people are thereby sentenced to years in prison, or even execution. I shall list several reasons how this comes about, and why. In a broader context, l will attempt to point out just how malfunctioning applies to pastors, their congregations, and religions of all kinds. Let us begin with the police and prosecutors. Sometimes, in pursuit of a swift solution because of pressure from the public for closure, the focus of investigations will be on a single individual. Other suspects are overlooked, intentionally or not; even the accused’s explanation of encounters with the actual perpetrator are dismissed. Sometimes, actual evidence from the crime scene is covered up. Police lie to those being questioned, in order to trick them into giving information or suspicions they mig

By S James, who considers the conscious brain a far greater weapon for understanding our world than faith ~ An example of simulated data modelled for the CMS particle detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Here, following a collision of two protons, a is produced which decays into two jets of hadrons and two electrons. The lines represent the possible paths of particles produced by the proton-proton collision in the detector while the energy these particles deposit is shown in blue. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I grew up in a Christian family. I don’t think we were overly strict about it, but we would say grace at night before meals and we went to church every Sunday. I went to a Christian boarding school when I was older and although I never got involved with the church side of things, I grew up thinking I was a Christian. After all, if you weren’t a Christian, what were you? I mean who can argue against the fundamental message of Christianity – to be kind to e

By Tom ~ Believe (Photo credit: uglyagnes ) I Deeply Believe in God. I have worked on the human body for many years. The Engineering behind this remarkable being is unbelievable. Have you had any questions about why we eat. Who designed that we need to eat to get nutrients. Why we Love. Why dont we live like animals and just kill everything. why is there convective tissue to protect joints why do we have a heart to pump blood why do we breathe to get oxygen and not carbon dioxide. why do we have muscles that move our joints why do we have cartilage tendons and ligaments. Have you ever wonder why our body works the way that it does. Do you really think that it just happened and there was no brilliance behind its engineering. Come on and think. Our bodies did not just do this on its own. Remember we are made of particles.But there is something that gives our particles an agenda to do what they are meant to do. God, life etc......

By Paul So ~ I t is often insisted by theists that while God is merciful he is also just. This insistence is usually a response to the common objection from atheists that eternal torment (or any forms of punishment) seem too cruel and despotic to be considered compatible with mercy. Many atheists respond in two ways: First, some divine punishments such as eternal damnation hardly qualifies as either merciful or just. Second, mercy and justice do not seem compatible with each other. I want to make arguments in favor of the latter assertion that mercy and justice are not compatible with each other, especially within the theological framework of atonement, since the very meaning or implication of both are contrary to one another. In order to do this I will provide definition of both of them in the form of deductive or syllogistic arguments in the following manner: Justice Tempered by Mercy - Statue located in the Courtyard of the Law School (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Justice I

By Dave H ~ I was born into a devoutly religious home. My family went to an Episcopal church . I learned very early in my life the rites and rituals of the church. It was not something that I questioned. As a child I accepted what I was taught and was told was right and proper to believe. I acted in church Christmas pageants, learned the songs, said my prayers. I "accepted" Jesus as my savior at the age of three and was baptised at the age of four. My education was in private, church based christian schools. Every subject was taught with a christian perspective. And with the unquestioning faith of a child I believed every word. At the same time, in the schools, I was constantly picked on and bullied by other kids who professed to hold the same faith. It didn't make sense to me. But I continued to believe. At the beginning of my 8th grade year, around 1990, my family left the Episcopal church and began attending a non-denominational, charismatic protest

By Paul So ~ W hen I remember my former years when I use to be a Christian there was always this latent fear of the intellect that sneaks behind the scenes of the religious mind. It never really manifested itself until I reached the age of 16. At the time I was interested in studying philosophy ever since I first tried to read about it in the World Book Encyclopedia in the P section, so I asked other church members (both inside and outside my community) about philosophy. I received variety of opinions all of which are negative. I would hear erroneous statements such as “Philosophy teaches evolution”, “Philosophy breeds atheism”, “ Philosophers are too abstract, no spiritual life”, “Philosophy denies God”, or “Be careful when you study philosophy” “the devil is out there to deceive you, and it doesn‘t matter if you don‘t believe!”. Even my closest church member who tutored me a little on philosophy warned me about it since it can lead to atheism or disbelief. I would continue to get