Sent in by DifferentNow On January 15, 2007, I told my husband I wanted a divorce. It was a cold day in New York City. My second time there. We were on a company retreat with our business, the graphic design company we both owned. I woke up at 6 a.m. unable to sleep and went down to the hotel lobby so I could email the man I had fallen in love with and tell him I was antsy... really antsy. I couldn't put on a front any longer. It wasn't in my nature to hide things, and I couldn't keep it up for long. I had barely slept in two weeks. Two weeks since our first date. Two weeks of listening religiously to the wisdom of Johnny Cash while painting our studio space black. As black as my mood. Pouring myself into the old, worn down building that I convinced my husband to let us rent with dreams creating a theatre space and pursuing the never ending quest for fun, always fun... A pursuit that left him exhausted and asking me often, "why can't you just slow down?" His i...

Sent in by Sharon I remember a day in 2000 when my children were still living at home. My de-conversion had already begun, I think. I was getting into their contemporary music, both Christian and “secular,” as it was called. I was going to a church where I felt more free, dancing was part of the worship service, and now I was dancing at home to anything. On this particular day, I was dancing to a song on a CD belonging to my 16-year-old daughter called “Spirit In The Sky.” I don’t know if it was a “secular” or a Christian artist. That song made my heart soar, and I didn’t know why. Maybe it was just because I was feeling more and more like flying those days, as I was beginning to loose myself from the restraints of Christianity. One of my two daughters saw me dancing and ran to get her sister, yelling, “Come look at Mommy! You’ve got to see this!” My other daughter came and saw and both yelled, “Go, Mommy!” and started dancing with me. I still love that song and dance to it today. Both...

Sent in by John I grew up a Roman Catholic and when I reached 18 was co-erced into checking out Pentecostalism by some friends of mine at school. I went along and was pretty much converted within a week. What joy! What peace! What a crock! After wandering around for about 18 years as a bible-believing Christian, I was struck by the lack of real love among the chosen and the total disregard for the "unsaved." I became a street preacher after getting into Ray Comfort's teachings (with Kirk Cameron!) and spent a good year and a half bothering others about their sin! I met an atheist on the street and we became kinda pen friends. He wrote to me and what impressed me was not just the facts he was presenting but the mere fact he bothered to answer those nagging doubts I had over the years. After coming to a realization in my own mind about the fact that the whole Christian thing was ridiculous (with some help from some medication prescribed by a shrink) I was cured of my belief...

Sent in by Scott I grew up as a Catholic, believing in God. Eventually my faith wandered and I had many questions. I became a Methodist and was raising a family. I still believed in a God that would help explain the mystery of the cosmos, but Christianity was becoming increasingly absurd to me. Nine months ago, my ten-year-old son Connor died of a heart attack related to leukemia. Needless to say, we were devastated. I'm lost and broken; my whole world was shattered. There is nothing more tortuous than losing your child. It's not like you've heard it described -- "a big hole in your heart" -- it's your whole soul, your very existence being ripped in infinite directions, and so much worse. I've been robbed and violated and there is absolutely nothing I, or anyone else, can do to fix it -- I'm helpless and it is hopeless. There is nothing like having your young son die, that pulls the rug from under you. Everything I ever believed or thought I believed w...

Sent in by Caleb Well, I sense my whole de-conversion from Christianity is about to come to a head. I guess it is funny how it is all playing out. You see, when I was a youth pastor and ministry director, my faith and commitment to God and ministry led me to neglect my family. This caused severe problems for my wife and I, because she was and still is a 'closet atheist.' I say 'closet' because she is to scared/embarrassed to admit her atheism publicly. Luckily, even then, even as a devout Christian, I realized how important my family was to me. I left the ministry so I could become more involved in my wife and children's lives. Through this time, I was able to study Christianity as more of an onlooker. My church attendance dwindled, and my study of what exactly this religion I was following was, became more intense. I finally let go of my superstitious beliefs in God, and decided to live life free of religion. Through all this time, I kept a my-space prof...

Sent in by Sharon H Christianity taught me that I must always forgive. Now I’m learning that while forgiveness is indeed good for the soul, forgiveness is a choice not a mandate. Compassion is more effective than forgiveness, because it involves stepping back and detaching from the tendency to judge. Christianity taught me that marriage was the second most important goal in life, the first being devotion to God. Now I've learned that marriage is not a goal at all but a formal way of expressing a love relationship between two people. Christianity taught me that allegiance to one’s life partner is more important than anything—including one's sanity, safety and well being. Now I’m learning that allegiance to self is most important. Christianity taught me to judge my every feeling, thought, and behavior as morally right or wrong. Now I’m learning that feelings are feelings, thoughts are thoughts, and behaviors are either effective or ineffective. Christ...

Sent in by Trish I was raised as a Christian. My mother's side of the family was Christian, my father never talked about his side, so I don't know what they believed in. My father didn't enjoy church but came if my mother pressured him enough. By the time I was in junior high, he had refused to attend completely. We attended a United Church every Sunday. I began going when I was about 3. I was a gifted child, speaking and reading at a very early age, with a phenomenal memory. I was very uncomfortable in the building, it seemed cold, empty and unfriendly to me. I remember colouring Bible stories and being anxious because I couldn't understand the contradictions we were told to believe, such as the David and Goliath story. (Thou shall not kill...unless killing is "allowed"?) I was adept at sensing energies and feeling auras and had a number of psychic like experiences that my mother told me I "imagined" and that things like that were of the D...

Sent in by Ellytoad Before I begin, I want to point out that I am, indeed, an ex-Christian, so forgive some of my terminology here. Do you know what my least favorite Christian teaching is? It is the one that states how Jesus could have smited all of mankind off of the face of the earth for our evilness but instead, out of the pure generosity of His heart, decided to die for us instead. Yes, the belief that fills so many Christians up with tearful thankfulness used to make me think I was totally worthless. Such a feeling is apparently a healthy one in Christianity's eyes, because it means knowing just how ugly and deserving of Hell one's soul truly is. After a time of wallowing in this state of mind, I began to realize that mankind was far more innocent of its "sinful nature" than my former fellow believers would have me think. There's two details that brought me to that conclusion; one, we were born with the weakness of sin inside of us, and two, it is apparent...

Sent in by Mary S Being the offspring of Polish and Italian parents it was a given that I should be raised Catholic. My brother and I attended Catechism on Wednesday afternoons while we attended public school. When I was eight years old I somehow got the courage to ask the nun how different languages came about. I already had an idea of how it happened, people moving around, etc. Well, she proceeded to tell the story of the Tower of Babel and how God got mad so he changed the languages so they couldn't yell down for the tools needed. At the tender age of eight I just wasn't buying this story, I wanted a more realistic answer. After that I just daydreamed in Catechism class and never heard another word a nun said. I don't think an eight year old has a grasp on what the meaning of a god really is, but it's safe to say I never believed in a god, and to this day am very thankful to that nun who gave me liberty to my mind. Since then I question everything -- how and w...

Sent in by Richard L I find no evidence of an omnipotent omniscient deity participating in my life or anyone else's. I find no evidence of a deity intervening in history. Natural disasters, diseases and famines (events over which humans have no control kill people regardless of their faith or philosophy. The burden of proof rests with believers to show their God is real. If faith is your only evidence, than you can't expect those who trust empirical evidence to share your belief. Creationism is a futile attempt to reconcile the Bible with science. Proponents peruse scientific literature for disagreements about evolution, between scientists who agree that the Earth is billions of years old and the human species a member of the primate genus. Creationists refer to statements in the Bible that they believe reveals something that science “rediscovered” centuries later, but their examples are easy to debunk by a knowledgeable skeptic. The Bible cannot coexist with science in a ratio...

By Bob P I talked to God. I waited… and waited… and waited... No answer. God must be busy, I concluded. Adults told me that God always answers prayer. That's OK, I'm still young, I thought. So I talked to God again… and waited… and waited... Perhaps God doesn't listen to young people? Then I began to wonder, who does God talk to? Who was the last person to whom God saw fit to communicate? Back then, I was a boy scout who had earned my God and Country Award and was a member of the Methodist Church. The church had youth activities and I rather enjoyed that. At about the same time, I received my Eagle Scout badge. At age 16 I was able to talk my folks into buying me a car. It was an old 1931 junker that took constant maintenance; I became quite proficient at keeping it running on a small budget. It had a rumble seat, and that was kind of cool in 1950. By 1951, I had overhauled the engine, rewired it completely, and had it running quite reliably. Because of my Boy Scout backgr...

Sent in by Margaret J It was a cloudy, dreary fall day in November of 1971. I was an American spending my junior year of college in Avignon, France. The French guy I was dating, so to speak, decided to take me to a nearby tourist site – Mont Ventoux. He was from an unusual sort of family anyway and it was determined that his younger sister would accompany us – her function being a sort of chaperon. Well, my date Michel drove while his sister sat next to him in the front seat of his faded gray “Deux Chevaux.” I was relegated to the back seat. All along the forty-five minute or so drive to Mont Ventoux, Michel and his sister sparred verbally with each other as a brother and sister might. Soon disinterested in their discourse, I turned to my own thoughts. As the drive wore on, those thoughts gained depth and turned to the issue of religion. I had been raised a Catholic in a nominally Catholic family. By that I mean, that lip service was paid to the rules of the church and avoiding...

Sent in by Ziggy Blacktail I grew up in a secular home (my parents are lapsed Catholics but that's beside the point) so the religion was never pushed on me. I remember back in the fourth grade when someone told me about the truth about Santa Claus, I didn't cry (yes, I believed in Santa Claus until I was 10. I mature slower than most people). I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I applied the same concept with God and felt the same. I started to doubt Atheism during the last two years of college and decided to give Christianity a chance. A couple of factors caused my doubts and pushed me into Christianity. First, I had a girlfriend at the time who was Catholic. She surprised me when I first learned this because she seemed normal...normal in a sense that her opinions weren't limited to the confines of a certain book and she wasn't fanatical about her beliefs (do bear in mind, I never knew anyone personally who believed in this religion growing up). This led me to ...

Sent in by Kyle Hi. My name is Kyle, I live in Austin, and I am a former devout Christian. I grew up in a semi devout family. By semi, I mean that my grandparents on both sides were extremely religious, but my parents were not too religious. I did the whole CCE Church deal on Wednesdays as a child, and went to Church on Christmas, but that was about all. However, once I became about 15, I started to study more about religion. This was my Confirmation year for the Catholic Church, so I started wondering a bit more about why I was Christian. And, I ended up becoming extremely devout. Every week I would now go to Church with my grandparents on my mom's side, and I became extremely religious. My grandpa on my dad's side is a Protestant Pastor for the Church of Christ, and so I talked with him all the time, about theology, the Bible, and anything Christian! So, to sum it up... My parents were not really religious, but when I became a teen I became extremely religious. My grandparent...

Sent in by Colin E I was raised in a home where my parents called themselves Christian: we were members of a protestant church, but I do not think that any of us took religion too seriously. Us children were sent to Sunday School every week to get proper religious instruction, but my parents never tried to encourage me or my sister to dedicate our "lives to the Lord". Moreover, being a white South African child in the heyday of Apartheid, with the church I attended openly supporting the Apartheid government, my parents did tell me to take whatever that church teaches with a pinch of salt: they certainly were not supporters of that regime, but all white South Africans in the '70s had to keep up appearances, or face at best ostracism, or at worst criminal prosecution. This all changed when I turned 15: my sister was invited to a charismatic/fundamentalist church service, and I tagged along, mostly because I was promised that it was a good place to meet girls - and I was n...

Sent in by Josh I cannot say I ever was a true Christian. I grew up fascinated by religions, and fascinated by the natural world. My family showed me Carl Sagan's Cosmos at age 5 and later The Demon Haunted World. I loved Sagan's expansive view of life, his respect and tolerance for the wisdom gained through religion, and his staunch support of empirical evidence and the scientific method. I consider myself thus a Sagan-style agnostic. Show me the evidence! Thomas Jefferson once wrote, optimistically: And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors. --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, Ap...

Sent in by Jo I was raised in the church by my mom, a single parent. We went to church most of my life, but not always consistently. Although my mom is not a "churchy" sort of personality, her faith in Jesus and God are very strong. So I was raised with an open minder parent but also a very spiritual and superstitious parent. Luckily I was always educated at school to think for myself. During elementary school I was in the gifted program. In middle school I left this program to be a "regular student." I didn't do so well as a regular student. I became a rebel of sorts, refused to go to church, experimented with all the taboos. Finally after my freshmen year in high school I decided to leave that behind, throw away the cigarettes and become a born again Christian. I studied the bible and was very dedicated to this life, that I genuinely felt saved me. My life was good for awhile, though I felt plagued by guilt and confusion over the things I read in the bible. ...

Sent in by Chip S I was not raised in a Christian home. My parents had not made a conscious decision for atheism, I suppose. But their daily lives and lack of religious practice certainly would label them as non-Christians. They were always in that ambiguous category of people who simply had no time for theism or atheism. It was simply a non-issue. For a whole I attended church with a friend, in elementary school. Of course I didn't comprehend enough to understand what was being taught, let alone make a decision to subscribe to the beliefs advocated by that church. But I did learn enough to remember certain things... John 3:16, the claim that Jesus was God, etc. I had this vague understanding of the person called Savior. It was in middle school, which I now quaintly think of as the “Dark Ages” of my life that social awkwardness and intense depression led me on a search for more. Perhaps it was not as conscious of a search as I would now imagine, but a search nonetheless. I...

Sent in by Chris A Although the Biblical concept of the human experience had always seemed somewhat unfair, my doubts really began with the issue of homosexuality; specifically, why did the Christian god despise it so much? "Why," I asked myself, "Would God kill everyone in those cities for following the urges that He created them with in the first place?" It was shortly thereafter that I realized that this irrational act on god's part was just a microcosm of an even greater injustice: "Wait..." I thought, "If God is all-powerful, why must He persist in creating sinners instead of saints? And why must He then damn people for following the sinful natures that He gives them?" You'd think, wouldn't you, that such impious ruminations would herald a formal conversion to atheism? You would, however, be mistaken. Rather than having the courage and mental fortitude to pursue my inquisitions, I resolved to deal with my growing uncertainties by...

Sent in by L.S. Some people think I'm lying when I tell them that I just woke up one morning and realized that I was an atheist, but that's what really happened. My parents are Christian but they don't go to church. We stopped going to church when I was about 6 because they disagreed with how that particular church treated a family with 3 young daughters who couldn't always make it to Sunday worship. Because of the hypocrisy, they rejected the idea of organized religion but maintained their beliefs. They pray at dinner and do the whole Christmas thing and occasionally will talk about god, but they aren't zealots. It was because of their attitude that I grew up thinking of god/Jesus as that distant relative that you know you're related to, people talk about and you're supposed to love them but you don't really know exactly why. God wasn't a being to me. God was an idea that I never really understood. I was a really sheltered child. I (mostly) did what...