sent in by Michael Foland Although I was a regular church goer since I was a small child, I was 13 when I was "saved." A very religious aunt walked me through the process. And shortly afterwards, I was baptized. I was due to have surgery on my left eye to remove it. It was a blind eye since birth and affected my childhood greatly. I prayed to god so I would not have to go through surgery. I wanted to see with both eyes. I was also going through puberty and I absolutely knew I was gay. I didn't want to be different "that way" either. Of course, no amount of praying to god or jesus changed anything about my situation. I had the eye removed (it would have affected the good eye). And I am still very much gay. My de-conversion to christianity began when I was about 15 or 16. The youth group in the church I attended were planning a trip to an amusement park in another state. I was excited about going. A few weeks after the announcement of the planned trip, I was ...

sent in by Gary I was a "born again" believer, being "saved by the blood of Jesus" during Bible School in the summer between the eighth grade and my first year of high school. I loved the Lord and being in church, singing His songs and worshipping...my heart was His throne. I read the Bible every day, and believed every word of it from cover to cover. I wasn't a Bible thumper but would share my beliefs and things I'd learned and read with anyone who was interested. The main reason I got saved was because I didn't want to go to hell, I mean after all who would want to go to someplace as awfull as that?! As I grew older much of it didn't make sense, but I followed it anyway because I felt bad if I didn't, and after all there was that "Hell" thing if I slipped up. Mine was an average Christian lifestyle, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, etc. I hadn't really done anything to warrant going to Hell, no crimes, no m...

sent in by Dan My name is Dan, and I am a Korean-American who used to attend the South Suburban Korean Methodist church in Homewood flossmore, Il. The Reverend Park had three children, Jae, the oldest, who attended the University of Chicago, and then Harvard Divinity school, Ester Park, who attended the University of Chicago, and Mary Jaesun Park, who attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Reverend Park and other members of this church taught me the bible is the Inerrant word of god, that we should believe in Genesis rather than evolution, that Jesus is coming soon and there will be a resurrection, to pray in jesus' name and believe in miracles. My father asked Rev Park what happens to Koreans who practice Buddhism, and admitted to him he was raised Buddhist, and Rev Park told my father Jesus is the only way to salvation and baptized him. My father told me to tell his parents, my grandparents, to believe in Jesus before it's too late, and to disbelieve in K...

sent in by Dano I am sixty-nine years old, and I don't think that I ever was a real Christian. I got baptized a couple of times. Had water sprinkled on me when I was a kid in the Presbyterian church, and got dunked once in a Baptist church, but never really developed a whole lot of interest in becoming a bible scholar. I know that I don't believe in any of the standard religious stuff, such as God creating the world in six days, sacrificing his son, heaven, hell, angels, or the devil, because it is all so illogical, primitive, and just darn right silly. I think that if there is a God, he has to be a lot smarter, and a lot better person than he is portrayed to be by the religions of the world. I have done a lot of praying to God, but don't recall any prayer ever being answered, except when I made some definite effort to make it happen myself. I used to say that God must be pleased that I have chucked all of that destructive nonsense, but now I tend to think that if there ...

sent in by Jeff A Lackluster Faith Journey The story of my conversion to, involvement with, and de-conversion from the Christian faith is not nearly as dramatic, lengthy, or painful as it has been for others. Growing up, I had little exposure to Christianity except for irregular visits to a Lutheran church for Sunday school and attending Catholic Mass with my grandparents once in awhile. Neither of my parents was particularly religious; my dad was and is a confirmed agnostic leaning heavily toward atheism, though if you asked him today he'd probably identify strongly with Buddhism. Interestingly enough, at one time my father had been pursuing a career in Christian ministry. He'd been raised in a strict Lutheran home, and due to some factors stemming from a dysfunctional family and his own personal demons (homosexuality), he felt at the time that immersing himself in faith was the answer. It wasn't. But this really isn't about his faith journey, so it suffices to sa...

sent in by Cyrano Hi all, I'm Cyrano and I walked away almost five years ago. It was actually my best friend's coming out that started me down that road, although I'd been going down it a while. I was raised a Fundamentalist Baptist and exceeded even my zealous father's dreams in terms of my own "holiness" (read: self-righteous prudery). I was one of those horribly better-than-thou people who had read the Bible backward and forward, knew every apologetics answer to anything an unbeliever could throw at me, and actually wrote my graduating thesis on the value of the KJV over any other version of the Bible. In short, I was an annoying little shit. And when I got out of my father's house (or the Bible Bubble, as I like to call it), I kind of went crazy. Well, crazy for me. I dated and unbeliever *gasp* and had sex outside of marriage *double gasp*. I ended up pregnant and scared and so I got married. My husband (now ex) was a great guy, understanding of a...

sent in by Philip Agora I became a born-again Christian in a Fundamentalist Church when I was 14-year-old boy, wrestled with various issues from the start, found myself dissenting on numerous matters, social liberalism for one, difficulty with idea of hell for another (an idea dealt with succinctly by Bertrand Russell, one of my good guys even when I was a Christian). I have been a university gospel team preacher and developed an idea of Christian epistemology based on the experience of the so-called Holy Spirit. I found my Christianity more tolerable as a Quaker worshiping in a silent meeting that included a pagan and a jew in our midst. In a word we were a very accepting group of Friends. However a few years ago I found myself analyzing Christian doctrine more critically than I had ever before, and particularly the concept of "spiritual." What does one mean when one speaks of "spiritual values"? What are "miracles," a "phenomenon" about ...

sent in by Derek My decision to become agnostic did not happen overnight. It took several years before I came to realize exactly what I believed. I grew up believing Christianity was fact so it took time for me to kill that virus that had infected my mind. I hate to be harsh for those of you who are Christian reading this. But that is what I believe Christianity is: a virus of the mind. My hope is that you will read this article and hopefully it will allow you to question what you believe. I can't imagine anyone would want to believe in something that is not true. You don't believe the moon is made of cheese? or do you? I challenge you to read this article with an open mind. Explore the questions and really stop and think about them. Why do you believe what you believe? Do you know why? I sincerely only want to be where the truth is. If someone can convince me that Christianity, or any other religion is truth, then I want to be there. But unless I have concrete evidence I can...

sent in by Marie Murdock Ok where do I begin? I grew up in an abusive environment, which led to many emotional/mental scars....As a teenager I dabbled in drugs/alcohol/sex...and because of my past, I knew I needed to learn to cope in a healthier manner. I started going to church when I was 15 because my Mom, had gotten "saved", and was told that God was the only thing to save anyone from drugs/alcohol and self destructive behaviours. Of course being so young and wanting to "still serve my flesh", I continued to as most teenagers, and kept in the partying mode. When I met my husband...his Dad, a "christian" started taking us to church and we were told "we had to get married" because we were having sex...so 3 months later (age 19) we were married in a ceremony I had nothing to do with, accept show up~! The church made all the arrangements and I just needed to be there! (WE were "offending" ppl, by our lifestyle of sexual sin, and th...

sent in by Becca I grew up in a marginally Catholic family, and became extremely devout at a young age, turning to God and Jesus in an attempt to cope with abuse from my psychotic mother. I'm an intelligent, discerning individual, and so remaining faithful was a tremendous struggle because so much of Christianity just plain does not make sense. But at the time, I saw God as my only hope for any real love and support. Silly me. You don't want to know how many nights I spent crying into my pillow and begging for help, comfort or at least acknowledgment from God. I finally broke down and told my confessor that I was being abused. But instead of calling CPS or something sane, he just told me to pray harder. You can guess how well that worked. I decided that maybe Catholicism itself was the problem, and went looking for God in various other denominations. I sat through Lutheran services, talked to some of the Campus Crusade for Christ folks, studied the Bible on my own, and then m...

sent in by Sandra G A friend of mine posted here a while back and suggested that I do the same. From reading a lot of the testimonies it seems that people generally abandoned their beliefs for intellectual reasons. I think most religious people have questions or some doubts about their beliefs but most don't abandon their religions outright. The doubts co-exist with the desire to believe. I think leaving your faith usually takes more than doubts. I think there have to be other factors or events involved. I'll explain my situation. My mother died when I was 11. People at our church really reached out to us. My father and I always got dinner invitations on Sundays (no close family lived nearby) and church members offered to care for me after school when my Dad was working. However, something just didn't seem right to me. My best friend at that time was from an athiestic family. Of course, Dad didn't know that. My friend's mother was such a help to me during the di...