Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Emily Ortega Hello fellow Ex-tians. I have been coming to this site for over a year now, reading testimonials, browsing the forum, etc., and I thought now would be the best time to submit my ex-timony. You see, I've been an atheist since I was about 16, but I didn't know what 'label' to use until recently. My story starts like many others here. I was born and raised in the deep South, in a Southern Baptist family. My uncle was a pastor at a church in the town in which I now live. The first gift I ever remember receiving was a Precious Moments Bible -- pink, with silver-lined pages. I treasured that book, and read it cover to cover when I was 8 years old. This was the beginning of the end of my faith, at such a tender age. I read about the Garden of Eden . I remember thinking how unfair it was that Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden for eating the apple when they didn't even understand 'right' and 'wrong...

Image via Wikipedia By PeeJay McNeil I didn't grow up in a particularly religious family. My father was a Harvard educated attorney, who just as the stereotype suggests, went to prison for a white-collar crime . My mother has her own unique ideas about the universe most of which consist of watching John Edward (the psychic, not the political figure) and hoping to make "contact" with her mother. My older sister joined the Baptist Student Union in college and proceeded to tell the entire family that they were going to hell (ironically, she's a lesbian now) which did not set well with anyone. I was only about four when this happened but it had a profound effect on me. On Salvation When I was fourteen I went to a crusade with an older friend of mine that I had met in a summer art class. Her father was the music minister at the First Baptist Church . I got saved that night. It changed everything in me. I became one of the most faithful, dedicated, annoying people...

Image by ~jjjohn~ via Flickr By Neal Stone My personal story is quite long so will be breaking it down into smaller posts. It all began in German back in 1965. My mother went into labor and off to the hospital she went. The German nurse in charge of her hated Americans. She ignored my mom at every turn or treated bad when she did pay attention. My mother went into labor at 9pm March 16th. No one came to her aid because of this nurse ignoring her and I would be stuck in the birth canal for 12 hours. When the doctors finally found her she was laying in a pool of blood. Don't worry, my mother survived and wasn't seriously harmed other than the shock of what she went through. As a result of this I was born blind in my right eye. My father was US Army , an alcoholic and a mean drunk who would come home and beat the wife and kids. I was too young so he never hurt me, but for the first two years of my life I got to witness what he did to everyone else. He was “nice” enough to...

Image via Flickr Sent in by Jim Schoch What would cause a pastor of over 20 yrs to leave the ministry? My reasons and story are uniquely mine. Maybe you have been in my shoes in one way or another. I started out in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions of showing up early and leaving late from every church meeting I ever attended. As a result, as soon as I was asked to do anything, I always said "yes." In our churches, the way into ministry was through apprenticeship, for higher learning was suspect as not being spiritual enough for true ministers. I was as sincere as anyone I have ever met. My motives were honest, simple, and trusting that I was truly following God. I was led to believe that my calling and gifts would make room for me in the kingdom. It sounded good to me, and I bit into it hook, line, and sinker. Soon I was the anointed worship leader, Christian school administrator, elder, assistant pastor, building coordinator, TV host, hospital visitation minister,...

Image by Sinsong via Flickr Sent in by Celeste I have been an ex-Christian for about six years now. Mine is a long strange story. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for nine years. I was born in Maine in a community of mostly French Canadian descent, uneducated, and 99% Catholic in my home town. I was taught mostly by nuns who really messed with my head and caused me so much torment. I believed I was a good student, but the nuns treated me like I was stupid and caused me to have low self-esteem. Anyway, I did go to a public High School from 1975-1979. I was a good Catholic girl, still a virgin at the age of 18, unlike my peers who I found out lost their virginity while in middle Catholic school. Approaching graduation in 1979 I was determined that I wanted to be wild, drink, and have sex -- and I did. I got married in 1982 to a guy in the Navy at the age of 20, and really wasn't a "practicing Catholic" at the time, but we got married in the Cat...

Medieval illustration of Hell. Artist: Herrad von Landsberg (about 1180), via Wikipedia Sent in by Former Fundamentalist Pastor Up to the time of my Dad’s funeral in May of 1998, I had discretely maintained silence about my true beliefs, in order to not upset our fragile family unity (or offend my Christian sons and families as well as my lovely wife); nevertheless, after Dad’s passing, I angrily penned the following thoughts which exposed my radically different views and took a stand as an official heretic. My family was understandably upset. While religion is a still subject studiously avoided among us, I have studiously avoided letting my family read the following thoughts, although they have been published on many anti-Christian web sites; moreover, I still get occasional emails from around the world. “My dad died. We buried him this last Tuesday. The preacher at the funeral used Dad’s death as a springboard for his deluded agenda of salvation only through Jesus. (...

The "Li Wu" River in Hualien County, Taiwan via Wikipedia Sent in by Kirsten I am a 29-year-old female, married, living very happily in St Paul, Minnesota . I work in a factory that makes windows, live in a one-bedroom condo downtown, and go to school part time. It has been quite the journey to arrive to this stage in my life. I was born and raised in Taiwan along with my two older brothers. My parents are missionaries with the Evangelical Covenant Church and have been for over thirty years. They help with church-planting projects and my dad served as a mentoring pastor to several different churches on the island. My mom led Bible studies and stayed at home with us. They now live in the US and coordinate short-term mission trips into Taiwan, China, and South Africa. Growing up, we attended private Christian international schools and were encouraged not to question the bible and to spread the gospel at a very young age. And I followed like everyone else. I believed whole-hea...

Image via Wikipedia Sent in by Sarah I was born into a fundamentalist family. My mother has a very strong faith. My father claimed to be a Christian, but his actions convinced me otherwise. I made a "decision for Christ" at age six. By age 10 I was convinced that God wanted me to be a missionary in Japan and the direction of my life headed towards that goal from that time. My family would now be described as dysfunctional. My paternal grandfather was a drunkard who beat his wife to death. My father carried an incredible amount of anger throughout his life stemming from the terrible experiences of his childhood. He was converted at the Joyful News Mission in Brisbane Australia. He met my mother at that church. My mother's mother was a Methodist. Her father was also violent, but not to the extent of my paternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather left my grandmother during the Great Depression. My life as a child was one of vigorous defense of the faith, coupled with an...

Image by PermanentlyScatterbrained via Flickr Sent in by Portland Guy After 45 years in the evangelical church and culture, here I am, out of it! I'm not an atheist, and at best I am agnostic-lite, at least at this point. Keep reading, because at the end I will ask for your help. My dad was a career Navy guy, and a heavy drinker. My mother and dad often talked about divorce. Then when he retired at 40 (I was 14), my mother became a born-again Christian, and when my dad saw the transformation, he too "accepted Christ". It changed my family profoundly, as he stopped drinking and their marriage was healed forever. So we became a 4-times a week church-attending, fully-paid-up members of the evangelical church and life. We formed a family gospel quartet, I led the youth group, never drank a drop of alcohol or touched drugs, and was virgin till the day I was married (actually till the second day after the wedding, because we couldn't figure out how "it" worked qu...

Image by jodigreen via Flickr Sent in by DebTheQueenBee I am so glad that I found your website. After being away from church and from God for eight months, I feel free. I mean, why should I spend the rest of my life serving a God that doesn't even exist? All this talk about "have faith", "God has a plan and a purpose", and "In my house, we will serve the Lord" is nothing but a CROCK OF SHIT! I can't believe I wasted 11 years of my life as well as wasting money buying Christian materials, thinking that this was going to help me become a better person. Boy was I wrong! Where do I start? Growing up, I went to a Catholic school where I was to go to church on Friday mornings at 7:30 before classes started at 8:30; had my first communion in the third grade and had to go to confession (that really sucked). I went to mass from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade. From high school to college, I never went to church for a long time. As long as I was a...

Image by beggs via Flickr By Andrew I guess I'm an atheist in respect to religion, but not necessarily to God. Sure, I'm still open to the idea of a God or gods existing, but I know that the concept of God could not be accurately presented from any of the religions we have at our disposal. A personal God as espoused by our holiest books is something I have come to reject. I've even witnessed spiritual phenomena during the course of my life, some might even say supernatural, but fortunately I abstained from attributing these incidents to a specific religion, which is a mistake many people have done. I grew up in a Catholic home: Filipino Catholics . Most people have heard of the zeal of Filipino Catholics, some of whom will actually go to such lengths as nailing themselves to a cross! I haven't seen such acts in person, but often at a Filipino funeral, someone will lug a huge cross down the church aisle just to get their point across. My mother, however, wasn't stee...