sent in by Marty Mets I was raised from birth within the Evangelical Lutheran tradition. My childhood church also had a private school, and I attended there from kindergarten through eighth grade. I was somewhere on that campus six days a week, for at least half of the day, many times for much longer. I once made a conservative estimate that I spent at least 20,000 hours being indoctrinated into the Lutheran brand of Christianity. A quick glance at my report cards will show I got A’s in every one of my religion classes, and I was confirmed right on schedule when I was fifteen years old. That ceremony was the last time I went to church “willingly”. There was of course a spattering of Christmas Eve or Easter services to appease my mother, but I had basically figured out that Christianity was a sham during my second year of confirmation classes. I had never intended to come to this conclusion however and in fact I desired the very opposite. Throughout my whole childhood, I s...

sent in by Jason Tonight as I am sitting at home after a somewhat strenuous yet satisfying and gratifying day at work I feel inspired by my joy and happiness, which I should let you know DOES NOT come from faith in any "god" whatsoever to let everyone know that religion will make you sick. My desire is that many Christians will read this post and that they may feel the same way that they make everyone on this site feel when they come here to argue that their religion is the "truth". This site has been created for the healing of ex-Christians, not as a debate forum to argue whether or not Christianity is true. Many of us on this site are truly ex-Christians who have felt some sort of hurt from fundamental Christianity. People practice many forms of Christianity ranging from a simple faith to the extreme of fundamental Christianity which the bible describes and calls for. This site has helped me tremendously since my deconversion about a year and a half ago. Keep...

sent in by Holly I first became interested in religion and God when I hit my sophomore year of high school. Those years weren't the best for me, for some people they are but for me they weren't. It was difficult fitting in, and trying to be popular to me was just so superficial. I wanted more than that to make me happy. I sought out religion because I had so many questions about life, about God, about living. I thought that I didn't know anything and more than anything, I wanted to fit in. I went to church on and off for the remainder of my high school years, when I hit college things were different for me. Things weren't as difficult socially as they were in high school. I grew up a lot in college. I was no longer the awkward young girl. It was in college that I really began to ask questions about everything, critical and logical questions. These questions were difficult for many Christians to accept as well as my honesty about certain things in religion. I would try t...

sent in by ApostateLiberalEvilDoer Like many other Jesus-bots, I was labeled a misfit at an early age. First, I was abused emotionally and physically. I suspect this was because I refused to be the obedient little soldier my alcoholic mother expected me to be. My brother was the family favorite; consequently, the blame for all of the family’s problems was assigned to me. My family thought I was a worthless, lazy misfit and wouldn’t let me forget it for a minute. School wasn’t much better. I was above average intelligence and prone to non-mainstream obsessive interests. My peers quickly labeled me with all the usual statuses: freak, weirdo, gay, etc. I understood that the Social Darwinism of the school system was engineered to destroy kids like me. For this reason, I spent my first 18 years on the margins of social life, and the only advice that teachers and counselors had for me was “Laugh it off until you get to college, everything will be different. You’ll Fit In™.” In short, I was p...

sent in by Barry A friend of mine posted here recently, so I wanted to do the same. I grew up in a not very religious Methodist family. We only went to church 4 to 5 times a year. However, I always considered myself Christian, believing Jesus died to sacrifice for our sins. But I never thought about what that meant. In my freshman year of college, I met a very cute born again Christian, who I'll call Kate. Her father walked out when she was just seven. He never bothered to see her again. The trauma of being abandoned drove her to drinking, drugs and unsafe sex. Then at 16, she found Christ. She quit drinking and drugs and became one of those born again virgins. Jesus, she said, saved her from her inner demons. I was fascinated by her and her story (which she almost immediately told to everyone she met). Anyway, we started going out and I got into the whole born again thing. I really enjoyed church and bible study and all the get-togethers. Everyone was very nice and friendly. Then ...

sent in by John I've been coming here for several years now. Often times agreeing with many of the deconverts and smiling at the realization of those who had been in it for far too long and where suddenly shown the "light" of what Christianity truly is. But in the whole time I have yet to post my own testimony. So this is my story..... I was born to parents who had completely separate beliefs. My father was a devout catholic, and my mother was more or less simply a believer in individuality. They divorced each other when I was about 3 years old, much too young for me to remember or to really care much about the divorce. Anyways, after they divorced, my father's lawyer screwed him over and my mother received custody of me virtually by default. By then, she had remarried to an extremely abusive man who took quite a bit of pleasure punching me in the face, stomach, and throwing me around whenever I did anything "wrong". For the next decade I had to deal with th...

sent in by cj Hello unmet friends at exchristian.net. I’ve been a quiet visitor here for over a year now. Many times wanting to comment or post, but wanting to enter appropriately with my testimony first. It’s interesting isn’t it that we all need to put into words our deconversion testimony. I actually did that before I found this site, for my own piece of mind... to validate that I really had thought it through and to remember that journey. That testimony is on an old computer that will take some time to recover, but with the holiday season upon us I felt the need to post now. The gist of my story is that I was a conservative United Methodist all my life. Then a newly ordained liberal UM pastor opened my eyes to the humanness of the bible. This is a condensation of what he convinced me of... “The bible is oral stories told and retold, written and rewritten, edited and reedited, voted on and compiled by men with agendas. It was written by premodern, superstitious men with exagge...

sent in by Lynne I'm a person who chose to be a devout Catholic. My parents took me to church, had me make all the sacraments (except the nunhood of course), but I chose to absorb the religion into my being. (they were not particularly religious) This is the hardest part for me - I have had cognitive dissonance with Catholicism for 15 years now, but I just realized I am finally now in recovery. The effects of being a die-hard Catholic are still plaguing me - even though I quit going to church 15 yrs. ago. My big issues that still haunt me are: feeling guilty for silly reasons, a neurotic desire to help the needy, a huge fear of conflict and expressing anger, being sicky sweet to people, but inside highly judgmental of them (my biggest regret), and thinking mundane things are immoral. Unfortunately, all this greatly hindered my social skills (as you can imagine), and this caused me to suffer clinical depression on and off for years. I recently decided to go to the root of my p...

sent in by Onanite Well ..... Things have come a long way since BIOLA. I posted a testimony here a few months ago. I knew I had cancer then, but did not mention it. Things have kind of gone downhill since then. Today is a really bad day, lots of pain, even though I am on the best pain meds. Science can only do so much. I am still at home, where I want to be. I do not want to die in a hospital or hospice. My partner has agreed, he is wonderful. I read this site everyday, I love it. My reality is that there is no God, maybe I will find out differently soon. I know one thing for sure, if there is a god, it has to be better than all I know about love. You see, for me non-existence is like a deep sleep, nothing to fear. Just the end of all reality. There is no pain, there is just nothingness. Nothing to be afraid of. I cannot say that I am not afraid of dying, I am. But I know that it could not be worse than what I feel right now. Onanite Beverly Hills CA USA Joined: I was a...

sent in by Dan Hurst I hope this can make it to the readers because I am naming the bully who pastored me and my family for some four years. The man’s name is Bob N... and he has a web site open to the public (that I'm going to give) so I'm going to assume it's alright for me to call him by name. If not, please find a way to post the web site so your readers can see first hand how a brain-washer operates. He needs to be exposed and probably arrested. The Chick tract "Bad Bob" is rumored to be based off of him. His web site is absolutely perfect ammunition against this particular sect of Christianity and could by itself speak for me. They call themselves "bible-believers" because they hold to the belief that God preserved His word in only one version of the bible......the King James Version. They will fight tooth and nail over it. Some of them even believe that unless you read the KJV exclusively, you will go to hell. "For a man is saved by faith and...

sent in by Dude I was born-again at 10 years of age (asked Jesus into my heart). I have been in many gospel groups. I have been on many praise & worship teams. I have been a choir director, have served on 2 church elder/deacon boards. I very recently realized that the Biblical foundation on which I have stood has flaws. I very recently realized that the unanswered prayers and random events of prayers answered (coincidences) were just that: randomness. I am numb right now. Most of my life has been involved in religion and serving a non-existent God. I love Jesus. I love Christianity. Yes, still. I love what it stands for and what it represents. But it is untrue. My wife is a born-again Pentecostal. Her mother is also. I'll tell you where I started doubting... I prayed for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit according to the Book of Acts and my (Pentecostal) Church with evidence in speaking in tongues for about 25 years. It never happened. My prayer was never answered. So I figured...