Submitted by David S. Image by alasdair.d via Flickr I have submitted a few rants and testimonies in the past. I wanted to outpour my feelings and emotions on my current situation. To give some quick background, 3 years ago I married a wonderful woman, who also happens to be a hardcore Christian. Her motto is "if it's in the Bible, it has to be true." I knew this going in and at the time of our marriage, I called myself a Christian as well and generally believed what I was exposed to me in my faith. About a year and half into our marriage, (and you can read my testimony last December 2008 for more on that) I told my wife I had become a hard core athiest after walking with God for seven plus years. We still enjoyed our daily relationship, but a huge hole had been shot between us. She felt I had hoodwinked her. I have thought about separating from my wife for sometime now; in early May I pulled the trigger. She was in total shock, even though she had told me a week b...

Sent in by billybee Image via Wikipedia M y viewpoint is one of having been an evangelical Christian for many many years. Today I am a member of what is statistically the most disliked, mistrusted and reviled group of humans on this planet; I am an Atheist. What causes a person go from being a born-again, spirit-filled, Bible believing Christian to becoming a person who completely rejects these faith based claims? Many believers have a pat (automatic) answer to this question, so, they won't hear the real explanation of why someone like myself turns away from ideas that I once believed, cherished and followed with all of my heart, soul and mind.They will dismiss the subject without any examination because to understand someone else's point of view is difficult, challenging and even sometimes threatening. It is easy to ignore an idea. Especially if you have been taught, the way I was, that to even allow certain ideas to into your field of thought will lead to spiritual suicide....

By Aimee Like many people who once believed in Christianity, I was born into it and brought up with it. My parents attended a rather rare type of church, calling itself the Church of Christ, and it tried to the best of its ability to follow the New Testament as fully and completely as possible. This church is exceedingly absolutist - in fact, most of the sermons I can remember dealt entirely with pointing out what denominations of churches did wrong. We'd have a sermon on Catholicism , Mormonism , Baptist, Pentecostal etc etc. In fact, I knew more about the depth and breadth of Christianity than any other Christian kid I met. I believed the pastor when he said that these churches were wrong because it was so very supported by the Bible itself. This church did not shy away from the hard side of God and Jesus and did not indulge in any frivolity, and managed to remain fairly clear of hypocrisy as well. But one thing that my upbringing missed was any real mention of beliefs entire...

By Brother Greg Image by Harry‧黃基峰‧Taiwan via Flickr This is something that happened during high school that I wish I had looked at more directly earlier in life – it might have helped me leave Christianity much sooner than I ultimately did. I should mention that this high school was an American school based in Taiwan. In Taiwan, when I lived there, there where there were a large number of white missionaries supposedly there to convert Chinese people to fundamentalist Christianity. I had a friend in the high school– let’s call him Mike. Mike was a nice guy. He was also quite human. He was proud of his high SAT scores . He was in love with a girl at my high school, and the love was unrequited. He was very opinionated about music, about performing artists, songs, and lyrics. He was someone I could agree with or disagree with, but I respected his intelligence. One day, Mike invited a friend, Steve, and me to a Christian weekend retreat for high school students, run by missionaries, and...

Sent in by koosgirl Image by Caro's Lines via Flickr I was raised in a mainline Protestant household. We said grace, had an Advent wreath , went to church every Sunday, etc., but my parents were not overly heavy-handed. Church services were low-key, with the preaching and lessons geared toward positive things--emphasizing God's love for us, how we should love one another, God's mercy and kindness, and so on. I really never knew the negative aspects of the Bible until I was in my twenties and decided to read the whole thing, cover to cover. It was an eye-opener for sure. I remember in particular the story of Job. In our church, Job had always been portrayed as a heroically faithful man, remaining true to God even when life dealt him the severest of blows--and being recompensed by God for the strength of his devotion. So it was rather a shock to get the whole picture. God makes a bet with Satan that no matter how much crap God dishes out, Job will keep coming back for mo...

By Donald R. Image via Wikipedia I ended up attending private Christian schools all my life. We were pretty much taught how to be sheltered from anything they deemed evil. So we were oblivious to the world outside of our church faction. Most children after graduation from high school ended up partying harder than the "worldy" folks. They were the children who weren't taught about sex and drugs and ended up getting pregnant at 17 and 18 years old. My father was a pastor and he was very controlling. He knew how to manipulate your emotions and make you feel guilty for not doing things his way. So I grew up battling with my father because I was always one to ask questions as to why we did the things we did. Why we believed the things we believed. Part of me was made to feel bad for being the only one questioning things and another part of me felt I had a right to know why I was following blindly. Just about a year ago I was in bed and I thought to myself, "Man I wouldn...

by Lemsip Image by AmUnivers via Flickr This is following the recent article ' Religion has passed it's prime ' . What would a world look like without organised religion. I'm afraid new religions would form as a way to control societies, nations, tribes, etc. Even some atheists have a vested interest in keeping religion alive even to the point of imposing it on people whose behaviour they don't approve of especially those from lower social classes . I say to them 'well if you think church going is so good why don't you go yourself'. This is where the old adage of Karl Marx 'religion is the curse of the working class' rings true. When I quit going to church for the first time people I knew not just christians were begging me to try a new church. I was sick of church hopping and had realised that it wasn't this particular church and that particular church was wrong but the whole religion itself. I could breathe a bit more as I could wa...

Image by Dude Crush via Flickr Sent in by Evelyn I have been reading the posts about 4 months now. I did not start reading the posts because of deconversion, but because I was searching the Internet for a link on spiritual abuse in that link were testimonials of people were abused in United Pentecostal Church . That was the church I was thrown out of. I have been struggling all my life with mental illness and severe childhood abuse . Abuse that you only read about in the papers. Even though my adoptive parents did not go to church they sent me to church, vacation bible studies, and my birth family was Catholic . I was adopted at 3+. I was told that if I died I was going to hell, demons were going to get me and locked in closets and told God was going to get me. I read the bible from cover to cover when I was eight. I know the bible and I wish I had never read it. I have been tormented by it. I never questioned the brutality of it and i did not see how sadistic and cruel the...

Sent in by Jeff Image via Wikipedia I had a conversation with someone lately via email and they were asking about how I became a Christian and how I ended up leaving the Christian faith. Most of the time people who are Christians do not see how someone could have been a “true Christian” if they end up leaving the faith, so when they hear that I am no longer a Christian, they assume that I had a false faith of some kind. I wanted to briefly share my story of how I became a Christian and how I came to not be a Christian. I know that many people will still feel as though I was not a “real” Christian, but there is not much that I can do about that. The bottom line for me is that I was honestly a Christian and believed in Jesus and the Bible with all of my heart. I left the faith because I feel that I was bound by my conscience to be honest with myself about what I could and could not truly believe anymore. I grew up in a Christian home but…was not serious about my faith as a teenager at ...

Sent in by Tim I grew up as a missionary kid in the Philippines . I am twenty years old, an atheist (I guess), and quite enjoying my place in the world. As I said, I am a missionary kid. Both of my parents have been through seminary and are ordained. My father got his master's degree in Biblical Theology and my mom got a Master's of Divinity. My entire family, including my two brothers, my sister and all my distant relatives, is Christian. I went to private Christian schools from first grade to high school graduation. How is it, then, that I don't believe in what my family considers the most important thing in life? The story of my "escape" from Christianity is more a story of never fully giving in to it. Throughout my life, I have been pretty thoroughly ignored by my family. One factor for my neglect is that I'm the youngest in my family; another is that my brother is (or was) an extremely hyperactive, attention-hungry kid. To add to this, I have always bee...

Sent in by Daniel Brown My ancestors were forced out of Europe for being Protestants . Since then, many have been preachers, deacons, missionaries, teachers, and professors teaching and preaching Christianity. I, myself, attended several Christian schools throughout my life and at one time was a religion major with the intention of being a preacher. Throughout college, I served as a youth minister and taking several mission trips in the US and abroad. I graduated from a Christian university and worked for a prominent evangelical denomination for almost eight years. Over the past five years, I have thoughtfully examined what I believe. This is the first time I have ever truly taken the time to dig deep and determine what my position on religion is. This is an important step considering my background. I have come to the conclusion that all religions, particularly the three Abrahamic religions , are fabricated, and are nothing more than folklore and superstition. My primary issue with Ch...