By Carl S. ~ F or more than a dozen years, I've followed the testimonies and comments on this site. The most responses ensue whenever a troll comes in to caustically criticize or preach. It's weird, so much time, energy, and emotion wasted in arguing and fighting over beings that don't exist! On that note, here's a quote from children's author Robert Munsch:  “I'm not saying there isn't a God, but there isn't a God who cares about people. And who wants a God who doesn't give a shit?”  Why waste time on those who suck up to superstitions? It'd be interesting to find out how many believers don't believe in the “theory” of evolution, but believe wholeheartedly in conspiracy theories. For that, they can thank religion. I've spent most of my life as a humanist, not a believer. It's a really good feeling I've tried to share with others, and sometimes their attitude is “fuck off.” Really, many people don't know they're enc...

By Debbie ~ H ow many times have I started this testimonial? Countless. I'm not sure why, but, yeah, I do know. I tend to have a wordy mouth – on paper. I was so impressed with my whole experience with God, and the Christian faith, and what it meant to me that I wrote a book about it, was offered a contract with Tate Publishing , and then I learned the Truth. After that I put everything on hold. I couldn't earn money from a book about a faith I was no longer passionate about, right? But first, I am amazed how entangled I was in Christianity, the beliefs, the dogma, the rules, etc. I did not grow up in the faith. I was a teenager and was sent to a Baptist School in Savannah, Georgia. There, I befriended a minister's daughter and the rest is history. What I find amazing is how I analyzed my whole life, the whole world even, using the Bible as a guidebook. The most hurtful thing about Christianity is how it makes you admit and believe that you are the scum of the ea...

By Herb ~ I haven't written to this site in some time, but I decided to write now because of a problem that just cropped up. My father was a Seventh Day Adventist and my mother was from a Pentecostal type church known as The Church of First Born . Both churches taught a literal interpretation of the Bible. We were to follow whatever the Bible said no matter how ridiculous or senseless it was. To them, the Bible was just a bunch of rules to follow. Because of this approach to following the Bible and obsessive compulsive disorder , I developed a bad case of scrupulosity . I was always worried about what was right and what was wrong and whether or not I had done the right thing to be saved. When I was 26, there was a person at work who was an agnostic. Knowing him and conversations with him about religion and the list of books he recommended for me to read gave me the courage to give up religion. But I still have OCD, so now my religious obsessions have taken a differ...

By Mary B ~ I was baptized Catholic; being named after the Mother of God meant life was always going to be a series of falling shorts. Raised as an Evangelical with a side order of Fundamental Dispensationalism , I spent a good portion of my childhood worrying about being left behind if the Rapture happened or that my head would be chopped off by the Antichrist. We didn't attend church because they contained false prophets; we held small services as a family. Apart from a brief sojourn into atheism at the age of 16 – inspired by someone tall and handsome – I kept the faith until I was 30. Emmeno definition: *to remain in, continue; *to persevere in anything, a state of mind etc.; *to hold fast, to be true to, abide by, keep Those years were spent in agony. I never felt good enough or faithful enough or peaceful enough or any of those things I was told or read that Christians were or should be. I never quite reached the mark of a good Christian mother or wife. It was always ...

J oy Hopper, a well respected contributor here, submitted 24 articles under the pseudonym " Undercover Agnostic ." After making peace with her new atheist reality, she moved on from Ex-C and wrote a  memoir about her deconstruction of faith. The faith Joy inherited at the age of three worked for almost fifty years. She believed it, preached it, wrote songs about it, lived it. Jesus was the center of her universe, literally and metaphorically. Hence, one can only imagine the tsunami that followed when her ironclad theological foundation unexpectedly and involuntarily collapsed with a deafening thud. Joy's narrative chronicles her experiences of indoctrination from a young child to the present, as viewed through her rose-colored glasses. From early neglect to domestic violence, she shares how her distorted lens of faith turned every obstacle into an object lesson and every injustice into a refining tool. She exposes the toxicity of a religion that promises unspeakable...

By Michael Runyan ~ R eligions roll with the times and the tides. A good example of that is what has happened in the United States over the past 50 years. Back then, Jesus was ambivalent about abortion. Now he is solidly anti-abortion. Back then he cared deeply about poor people, but the modern Jesus opposes almost all forms of poverty assistance from food stamps to Social Security. He was also a great healer who ministered to the sick, but lately he is opposed to universal health care and Medicaid. Five decades ago, Jesus was a pacifist (turn the other cheek), but now he is a stand-your-ground man toting a semi-automatic rifle and 25-bullet clip – yes, he opposes all forms of gun control. He has also gone from not being concerned about gay people to now seeing them as sinful reprobates. He was primarily a socialist in biblical times, but today he is a staunch capitalist despising government interference. He wore long hair during his time on earth (or so the paintings of him imply)...

By Yak ~ I f I were a Christian I’d be afraid. Very afraid. Mainly because of their extraordinary claims about the Universe, and more importantly, their view of how it will end. Keep in mind that only a few of their beliefs about "the end" actually come from their book, the bible. The rest of the dramatics and theatrics, and especially their fear-mongering comes from people throughout time who have added their own imaginative twists to the florid prose they use to frighten people with. An example. They believe that this rather wide, old, busy and populated universe will come to a rather theatrical and catastrophic end. Their Jesus will show up completely pissed-off at everything and everyone, just like his genocidal father (Remember the maniac git with the kill-everything-that-lives-whether-they-deserve-it-or-not flood? Yup. That’s his pop. My friends say that apples certainly don’t fall far from the tree in that family…) –and he causes mayhem: thunderous trumpets to ...

By Jessica ~ I was raised in a Christian cult. That’s a heavy opener, right? It’s definitely a conversation starter. Yes, I was raised in a Christian cult. You may have heard of it: the UPCI, the “ United Pentecostal Church International .” I remember very clearly as a six-year-old girl, I was playing outside just as it was getting dark. It was a Wednesday night. My mother came to me and told me it was time to go to church. “I don’t want to go.” I told her. “If you don’t go, god might come back tonight, and you won’t go.” So, I went. At six-years-old, I already knew what it meant to “not go.” To six-year-old me, “not going” when god came back meant being stuck on Earth that would be overcome with bad people, natural disasters, and demons being unleashed from hell; which meant torture, losing my loved ones, and death. It scared me. It would scare anyone, let alone a six-year-old. We had people in our church called “end time preachers” who would preach about nothing other ...

By Riki ~ T his isn't really my testimony so much as it is simply a stream of consciousness about the nature of forced belief and fake adulation; both rife among Christians. One must unquestioningly accept so many irreconcilable 'facts' and offer up such a steady stream of hand-wringing adoration it equates to one of the cruelest psychological tortures ever devised... From my perspective, the sponsoring emotion of all Christians is fear... and what a terrible way to begin a relationship with someone you're supposed to love... If I had a message for Christians; housed within the belief system they adhere to, it would be as follows: Be honest! God knows your true motivation! You can't lie to god about what you really feel!! Lying is a sin and it will land you in hell, so your only hope is to first be completely honest and bare your soul... You can't pretend to love someone who fills your entire being with terror and dread..pretending that is called groveli...

By Apetivist ~ H ello to all. You can call me "Ape." (It is okay, I do not mind as I happen to be one.) I hope you get something useful from my website . I will explain more about myself below too so you can better understand where I'm coming from. Now onto the purpose of my site . First, let us get this basic Q & A stuff resolved before we continue: Q. Do I mean to attack believers? A. No, I am only addressing beliefs not the people who hold them. Q. Do I think I am more intelligent than believers?  A. No, making a case for my or a reader's intelligence is not the point for my website. Intelligence is rather evenly spread throughout groups of people. There are no peer-reviewed scientific studies that indicate intelligence being a factor that is sufficient enough to make any difference between believers or unbelievers. We must be careful and kind to not make snap judgments on the intelligence of others based upon a belief or absence of beli...