Skip to main content

Giving up my beliefs

By AJ ~

I'd like to start by introducing myself. My name is AJ, and I'm 16 years old. I guess that's kind of young for me to be making decisions, but I've been thinking about this decision for almost my entire life.

My faith story begins when I was born. My parents were both raised in some form of Christianity--my mother, Catholic, my father, Methodist. They remain devout to this day.

Most kids raised in the church are, as I feel, brainwashed. I remember thinking around the time I was 10 "that doesn't make sense" and "why do we get heaven when other people don't, just because their parents raised them to follow another religion?"
"How does God love people, but then most people go to Hell for all eternity just because they don't believe what I believe?"

I was VERY confused, and in my earlier teen years (13-15) I found myself very depressed. Of course, I had family problems at home; my dad is extremely bipolar, and was an abusive alcoholic my entire childhood until I was 9, then when I was 12 we discovered he never stopped his addiction and had been hiding beer from us.

I wallowed in self-pity for a couple years, which I am ashamed of. I started doing drugs, self-harming, and got addicted to painkillers, which I eventually was able to break.

But I digress. Enough of my life's story. While my peers were basking in the "light that is Jesus," I was still confused and even more depressed. I felt my life had no meaning, I attempted suicide a few times. And then I came to a shocking realization.

Not sure if I should break this to my parents though.My faith is a lie! Well, not an all-out lie, but it was something I didn't want to be part of. It seemed judgmental and wrong to take pleasure in the fact that I am going to be "saved" while most of the world is going to burn in hell forever. I couldn't live with that on my shoulders, and I couldn't see how everyone else could. Guess that's why Christians flit around and try to convert everybody.

I felt like such a douchebag and duped for believing all this... garbage! Adam and Eve, the "Great Flood" that never happened. Seemingly every other Bible story. There's no proof! I can't damn others over a matter of blind faith. And that blind faith was coming from conflicting evidence; there's such a horde of contradictions in the Bible.

It took me months to break my beliefs, but when I finally did, it was nothing short of a relief. To me, it was less discovering that Santa Claus doesn't exist, and more like believing he doesn't exist and then finding him in my chimney on Christmas Eve. It was exhilarating!

I've dabbled in other religions recently, particularly buddhism, and I'm trying to find a belief/nonbelief system I can stick with, something that makes me feel right and is backed by something other than my own opinion and bias.

Not sure if I should break this to my parents though.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi