Ex-Christians: Tell your story

[Orbit]

I am an ex-Christian who became an atheist almost a year ago. Six months ago I started on an eclectic spiritual path centered on meditation. I gave up Christianity, or at least a literal understanding of it, due to Biblical inconsistencies and science denial. What was your trajectory out of Christianity, and where did you end up?

 

[Awoon]

After 50 yrs of study, listening to many Christian teachers, arguing with fundi Christians in forums who deny their own scriptures because I don't have letters from their schools, I realized it (Christianity) was a bunch of legends, myths and stories written to convince people they are what they are not. IE no one is a sinner, fallen, on their way to some heaven or hell when one is outside the Christian religion. Only those that are in it will experience what they believe about it.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Christianity was tremendously great as a youth. Jesus was alive and God's power was present in so many ways. It was a beautiful and magical time.

Eventually....

Got older and things started coming out of the woodwork that caused considerable head scratching. Blimey that! Major discovery! One religion is no different than another, and no more different than anything else at it's core!

House of cards collapsed. Stain glass shattered into a zillion pieces, and chucked away the rose colored glasses.

Good run but had to go.

 

[Jainarayan]

I was raised Roman Catholic and converted to Eastern Orthodox at age 23. I stayed with the EOC for about 10 years, very happy with it in the beginning. But things just started to dissipate. I drifted away and became something of an agnostic deist. I could no longer believe the tenets of Christianity. The more I am away from it, the less I can believe it.

 

[George-ananda]

Raised Catholic with childlike acceptance. Became atheist and rebellious in teen years. Was atheist for a few years. Changed my views after hearing some sincere NDE's with veridical facts. Became Baha'i. Became 'spiritual but not religious'. Learned of the paranormal abilities of Indian Holy Man Satya Sai Baba. Later the paranormal part became less important and I struggled to understand the teachings. I came to believe Advaita philosophy was the summit of mankind's wisdom. After twenty-some years still very interested in Advaita, Sai Baba, the paranormal, Theosophy (the structure and nature of realms above the physical), and paths and practices that lead one to the One and bring peace, love and contentment.

 

[Skwim]

Very weak Lutheran until I read

 

[Baladas]

I was raised in a non-practicing, non-denominational Christian home. In my early teen years, I left the faith out of a combination of reason and rebelliousness.
When I was 15, I had a powerful mystic experience in which I felt a presence of overwhelming love and acceptance, that I connected to Jesus.
After all, he was the only god I knew.

I enjoyed a rich spiritual journey as a Christian, and my faith was always primarily rooted in my revelatory experiences that I had in the Divine presence.
There were many times that the Biblical scriptures (or the interpretations of them by pastors) went firmly against my convictions and intuitions about the Divine presence that I knew.
Eventually, I couldn't reconcile the barbarous god of the Old Testament and Revelations with my personal experiences of "God".

So, I researched the origins of the Bible and discovered it flawed and edited heavy-handedly. Researched the origins of YHWH and discovered he was a Canaanite war god.

Then, I broke with Christianity forever. I still enjoy that presence.

I consider myself a philosophical Daoist, and a Druid now...or some form of Celtic Daoist, as it were. Daoist, because it is the path that has resonated most deeply with me as a whole. Druid, because I have a strong personal connection the land of Ireland. Both personally, and in my ancestry.

I find myself most aware of the Divine whilst contemplating Nature, and in meditation.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I just realize I did a thread on this: Why I left Christianity and values I've learned by it | ReligiousForums.com

For me, Catholicism has been a life changing positive experience for me and let me see spirituality in a different light-strong sense of devotion, practice, and communion. I believe Catholicism is the closest form of Christianity; and, I'm glad I had the experience with it.

With Southern Baptist, I was in and out. I like the emphasis on Bible study. The informal nature, after coming from Catholicism was unsettling. Before I entered the Catholic Church, it was like being home (food downstairs after service, people talking, personal testimonies during sermon, things like that).

--

I left Christianity because of the beliefs rather than the denominations and people. I didn't substitute it with anything, I just had a revelation that what I was trying to be was not who I am. I enjoyed being a Catholic. I will always be a Catholic, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

A couple of things let me astray:

God: When I was in the Church, I tried to see God as an external being. Catholicism is heavily prayer focused, so that's what I did mostly, prayed. Taking the Eucharist or Christ and knowing I was dying to my sins and rising to a full life was a great feeling but if you do not believe in the Father, you cannot believe in Christ.

So that's where it hit. I do not believe Jesus Christ is God. I have a couple of threads on this, so I won't expand. I also knew that what they felt was an external being "giving" love, was an internal "being" to me that is love. God IS life not gave life.​

Sin: What Christians felt people being tainted or have given the temptation to sin to me is I was born innocent with no inherited sin and no temptation to sin. I wasn't born with a temptation to sin, I learned that after I learned the "rules" of what to do and not to do.

I found that without acknowledgement of sin, you see yourself as who you really are not what you are told you are.​

The Church: Christianity, all denominations I came across, in one way or another has a "if you are not with us, you are against us."

Some more explicit (evangelical) others implied (Catholicism). For example, in a Catholic Church, no Christian can take communion unless they are Orthodox Catholic, it's an emergency, or if they take all the sacraments (Baptism in "approved" Churches)

To tell any Christian they cannot have a full relationship with Christ by taking the Eucharist (having communion) is wrong. I never agreed with that from a general/Biblical understanding. From a Catholic/traditional one, I agree. What's weird is, any Catholic can come into any Christian Church and it would not be wrong to that particular Church (not the Catholic) to take Communion--because communion is for all. However, a Catholic cannot take communion at another Church because the hosts are consecrated so they won't be taking Jesus.

The Body of Christ: Christ did not walk alone in His ministry. He had disciples, followers, and lay believers. There were no "non denominational" Christians. He went off of Jewish customs, the laws of Moses, and thus of His Father. The Body of Christ included all Christians who believed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Yet, as soon as I said I am Catholic, every person from work to home roll their eyes as if I became pagan. (Which, I am, but way before Christianity). They branded me pagan no matter how nice they were. The hatred towards Catholics in the words or implication of debates pulled me away from the Church. It was a combination of God and The Church (above). The negatively Catholics receive from outside the Church is terrible.​

The Bible: I didn't have the "science" and "contradiction" view. The Bible wasn't compiled by aliens, real people wrote the Bible and those real people were in a scientific word regardless if they knew it or not. There are many contradictions of the Bible, but that should derail someone from Christ Himself, the Word.

What I found interesting about the Bible is that God does tell the Israelite to kill people. He doesn't imply it. He says it "take over this land, this is your land, kill the women and children." Justice or not, killing is wrong; so that got me.

The ultimatum between life and death. Catholicism has an exclusion to the rule, purgatory; but, I don't see that in scripture so I don't know what that is based on. It's based on scripture, as far as I read, but the Baptist in me I'm shaky with.​

The "if you don't believe in me, than you will die." gig.

If someone held a gun to my head and said, if you don't believe in me you will die, I'd probably be shot. It's not that I don't want to believe. It is that I can't. There is a difference. (This example was on another thread by someone else, I think)​

Jesus: Since Jesus is not God, He is not perfect. He has a perfect relationship with His Father (as scripture says, they are One). Jesus also did not accept people for who they are and what people believed in. Instead, He was an evangelical and tried to get people to follow Him (the Jews and Pharisees). He disregarded the traditions that the Jews wanted Him to uphold because He thought they were putting those traditions over His Father. In Judaism, no one can speak for God; no one is God. I agree that if God is the Creator of all and so forth, a human cannot be equal to Him in that regards. People have a relationship and they are one. However, each person usually have roles int hat relation. In Abrahamic faith, one is of the Father the other the child.

Jesus went outside of that role which made the Jews (His own people) mad. It is one thing to disagree its another to put someone down because of it. (Which is what got Him K/lled)​

Evangelism: In different forms it can be good and bad. Jesus evangelized as well as His followers.

What drove me away was how the Catholic Church evangelized. They have abortion rally and such, which is fine. There is an adult store right around the corner where I live and the manager had the shut the place down because the Church, two or so miles away, protested against her business. Her personal affairs had nothing to do with the Church and their morals.

That bothered me in how the Church can interfere in other people's lives by their beliefs.​

I didn't want to be a part of that.

Latin Mass: THIS is what put the icing on the cake. The inquisition, the torture, the protestant conflict with Catholicism, the pope, the preventing people to read their bibles, the Luther argument, the, the, the....reminding me of the Roman statues in front of the US Capitol building and lined up in DC....the influence we have from history.

I didn't want to be a part of the history of murder.


These are reasons why I left Christianity. I love the experience, but without the faith, you cannot be in communion with others.

I pay my respects from time to time. I took vows that I won't forget. I don't want to have a relationship with someone I don't love.

That is how Christianity left me with; and, that is why I left.
--
THE END

I am an ex-Christian who became an atheist almost a year ago. Six months ago I started on an eclectic spiritual path centered on meditation. I gave up Christianity, or at least a literal understanding of it, due to Biblical inconsistencies and science denial. What was your trajectory out of Christianity, and where did you end up?

 

[FTNZ]

I was raised in a fundamentalist protestant home and it never occurred to me that Christianity was anything other than the one correct view of "god" and faith. I stopped attending church at 15 and was a sort of default Apatheist for many years before converting back to Christianity in my late 20s. A few years later I drifted into liberal Christianity then a sort of default Deism (I didn't know there was a term for it at the time).

Then in my early 40s I started to read more of the bible, in an effort to increase my understanding of it. I could not reconcile the many contradictions and the illogic that I started seeing for the first time. One day it occurred to me that maybe the bible didn't make sense because God was just a concept made up by humans. Suddenly everything fell into place and I realised I no longer believed in the god I had grown up with.

Then I started reading about this online and learned about the history of skepticism, doubt and atheism. I became an anti-theist because of the widespread harm that I saw certain types of religious belief causing or enabling in the world. I gained an appreciation for the scientific method and the skeptical approach to knowledge and belief. I now consider myself an agnostic atheist anti-theist skeptical materialist humanist. I don't believe there is sufficient evidence of anything supernatural and I want humanity to progress on the basis of scientific inquiry, rationalism and political freedom. I am a member of RF to learn more about religion and its alternatives.

 

[Mequa]

Having been brought up a lukewarm Anglican, and already decided on agnosticism at the age of 10, I later reverted to a hardcore Bible believer at the age of 13 when my Dad got involved in the Jehovah's Witnesses.

At the age of 19, having studied some psychology and philosophy at University level, despite the warnings of my dad that it would ruin my faith, it did indeed ruin my faith and I discovered that Christianity in any form had become literally incredible to me.

I had never gone through a normal adolescent rebellion, and due to my Christian upbringing, I had remained neurotically meek and obedient... until the age of 21. Then I rebelled HARD, threw "morality" to the dogs, and became as big an ******* as I could possibly muster. For a good few years at least. "Individuation" I believe is what Carl Jung called that process. It took me just as long to find my moral compass sans "religion" after raging against the guilt and slavery imposed by religious values.

Now, at the age of 32, I am convinced of my classical Epicurean values, and the advantage which comes with not being a dick and seeking out genuine, loyal friendships with like-minded individuals... who are as rare as diamonds.

 

[arthra]

I was raised in a Baptist Church and my family was nominally Baptist.. I accepted Jesus and was baptized. Later when I was a teenager I began to search various religions and found that the Bhagavad Gita had some verses that I felt were very much like the Gospel of John particularly the devotional verses... I began to see that Krishna and Jesus were very much alike.. At a Baptist prayer meeting I read passages from the Gita and they were well received by everyone! this started me thinking that there was a golden thread through the major religions. During the 1960's the peace movement and the civil rights movement were very strong and I began to see that the Baha'i Faith embodied the ideals of world peace and race unity... The Faith also accepted the main Founders of the world religions... By becoming a Baha'i I didn't have to renounce any of the past Manifestations of God... including Jesus so I became a Baha'i.

 

[Sundance]

As for me, I grew up to a non-denominational Christian mother and a father who believed in God but didn't identify with any specific religion, so I ended up going to various different churches with my mother. It was cool. In sixth grade, I had been introduced to other religions and became curious about what they taught, especially Hinduism. Then, in my eighth grade English class, while watching the play Our Town, I heard the stage manager talk briefly about the different churches in Grover's Corners, including Methodist, Presbyterian, and one I hadn't heard of then..Unitarian. I had asked my teacher who Unitarians were. She told me something I later discovered was a bit incorrect: "Unitarians believe in everything." I thought, "hmmm..I should do my own research into Unitarianism, y'know, check 'em out." I did, after two years, and from what I had read about the religion (after initially digging into Hinduism) Unitarian Universalism seemed like the religion for me. I was so amazed that I wanted to know how to join. I was perusing through and came across these two brief statements:

Unitarian Universalism is a caring, open-minded religion that encourages seekers to follow their own spiritual paths. Our faith draws on many religious sources, welcoming people with different beliefs. We are united by shared values, not by creed or dogma...

and also

There is no formal conversion process, so becoming a Unitarian Universalist (UU) is simply a matter of self-identification. Newcomers are always welcome at UU churches. Membership in local congregations is voluntary and does not require renouncing other religious affiliations or practices.

So, I decided to become a Unitarian Universalist. In retrospect, it may be the best decision that I've made thus far... especially in lieu of my coming out as bisexual. The spiritual path that I'm on right now is that of an aspiring Christian Quaker. I hope Quakers dig African-American bisexuals....

 

[oldbadger]

My youth was a journey of mindless idiocy, doing everything I was told to. I was baptised in infancy, and confirmed at 14. At confirmation lessons one boy continuously laughed out loud as the doctrine was injected into the rest of us and he got chucked out of the class. I though that he was very bad...... I now realise that he was very good, wise and honest. In my early twenties I continued to be a total idiot, and became a Bahai before I knew anything about it. In 2011 I joined RF and discovered that I am a Deist. But I followed the 'historical Jesus' threads very closely, and now like Jesus the Healer very much, although I dumped Christ the Saviour long ago.

 

[Sand Dancer]

After years of studying the Bible, I realized that much of it was taken from earlier myth, and as much as I love Jesus, I found that other teachers have said the same thing. This is just recently that I left Christianity, and it still seems weird to me to say that I am ex-Christian, but I can't unscrew my brain to believe anymore and am done with making excuses for it.

 

[Desert Snake]

Well...
It was a foggy afternoon, on RF... Jayhawker had just got done informing me that 'Jesus''s, name, in Aramaic, or Hebrew, was Yeshua. This got me thinking. What else don't I know about Jesus? Is there something more to this character, than the shadowy figure, that I 'sort of' knew about, but never had explored? So, I started to formulate an hypothesis, about who this Jesus character is. The clues were all there; this is a deity that is worshipped as an Israelite G-d, and to some extent, is a ''person'', varying on belief. The character of Jesus is itself, quite fascinating. Adherence to Jesus, can be a very 'real' religious experience. As time went on, *I realized that, for many Xians, 'Jesus', is not really a god. He is some sort of quasi-deified Rabbi. This would not be something I'm interested in. So I dropped any pretext of a ''Xian'' adherence.
It was fun, but not practical for me. I guess, technically, since I never really called myself a ''Christian'', I wasn't really dropping anything. Oh well .

* I had known this somewhat, previously, but in no detail. As a non-Xian ,hadn't thought about it.

 

[EyeofOdin]

My exodus from Christianity was one of the saddest experiences in my life.

Firstly, I loved what I was calling "God". I however couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of eternal damnation. Didn't seen just or godly in my unusually progressive mind.

In middle school I started learning mythologies of pagans, particularly Greek, Egyptian and Nordic. I couldn't help but notice similarities between biblical characters and pagan gods. Everyone visualizes Father God almost exactly like Zeus. Odin, Dionysus and Osiris all had stories really similar to Jesus'. Afterlife seemed to be stitched from Nordic Hel, Greek Hades/Olympus and Egyptian paradise of Osiris. Christmas and Easter seemed blatantly stolen from Anglo-Saxon Yule and Eostre.

Doing more digging I accidentally stumbled on the phrase "Canaanite Paganism". I'd heard the word "Canaan" from Sunday school as a nation of heathen, barbaric and sinful people who were wrongly in The Holy Land. Turns out the Canaanites were the Hebrews' ancestors and everything Old Testament comes from polytheistic, middle-eastern worship.

Abraham called his God "El", meaning "deity", but sometimes "Elohim" which can mean "deities" or "God most high" ie patron deity. Abraham more likely accepted a pantheon in worship but gave special worship to El, the chieftain God, so he may receive special treatment.

Later Yahweh, God of war (like a Canaanite Ares), Asherah, goddess of love and Baal, God of storms (like Thor) become significant. The priests of Yahweh began to compete with the ones of Baal. The "Yahwists", to compete better, allied with the El priests and syncretized the two. This explains why Abraham interacts with a God who apparently is not alone, as he refers to others "let us make man in our image" or "the sons of God", but suddenly he's very bloodthirsty and genocidal after he introduces himself to Moses as Yahweh.

Full blown Monotheism isn't established until Isaiah "I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no God".

I brought this up in my childhood church but I was brushed off.

Things didn't get bad until I came out gay at 15 years old. The church, having proclaimed themselves as progressive and open, shut down and revealed a lot of cold shoulder-homophobia.

I was determined to explore spirit most authentically, so because spirit was first experienced by indigenous pagans, who apparently knew magic that works on some level, I started exploring paganism.

I'm glad I left Christianity. The people I've met, history I've learned and relationships with spirits I've had wouldn't be if it weren't for my exodus.

Apparently too I started a ripple effect. People noticed my questions and value of my points, and some teens at the time even started wearing Heathen Hammers, Ankhs or Witchy Pentacles. Unfortunately the church is now falling apart.

 

[Sand Dancer]

My exodus from Christianity was one of the saddest experiences in my life.

Firstly, I loved what I was calling "God". I however couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of eternal damnation. Didn't seen just or godly in my unusually progressive mind.

In middle school I started learning mythologies of pagans, particularly Greek, Egyptian and Nordic. I couldn't help but notice similarities between biblical characters and pagan gods. Everyone visualizes Father God almost exactly like Zeus. Odin, Dionysus and Osiris all had stories really similar to Jesus'. Afterlife seemed to be stitched from Nordic Hel, Greek Hades/Olympus and Egyptian paradise of Osiris. Christmas and Easter seemed blatantly stolen from Anglo-Saxon Yule and Eostre.

Doing more digging I accidentally stumbled on the phrase "Canaanite Paganism". I'd heard the word "Canaan" from Sunday school as a nation of heathen, barbaric and sinful people who were wrongly in The Holy Land. Turns out the Canaanites were the Hebrews' ancestors and everything Old Testament comes from polytheistic, middle-eastern worship.

Abraham called his God "El", meaning "deity", but sometimes "Elohim" which can mean "deities" or "God most high" ie patron deity. Abraham more likely accepted a pantheon in worship but gave special worship to El, the chieftain God, so he may receive special treatment.

Later Yahweh, God of war (like a Canaanite Ares), Asherah, goddess of love and Baal, God of storms (like Thor) become significant. The priests of Yahweh began to compete with the ones of Baal. The "Yahwists", to compete better, allied with the El priests and syncretized the two. This explains why Abraham interacts with a God who apparently is not alone, as he refers to others "let us make man in our image" or "the sons of God", but suddenly he's very bloodthirsty and genocidal after he introduces himself to Moses as Yahweh.

Full blown Monotheism isn't established until Isaiah "I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no God".

I brought this up in my childhood church but I was brushed off.

Things didn't get bad until I came out gay at 15 years old. The church, having proclaimed themselves as progressive and open, shut down and revealed a lot of cold shoulder-homophobia.

I was determined to explore spirit most authentically, so because spirit was first experienced by indigenous pagans, who apparently knew magic that works on some level, I started exploring paganism.

I'm glad I left Christianity. The people I've met, history I've learned and relationships with spirits I've had wouldn't be if it weren't for my exodus.

Apparently too I started a ripple effect. People noticed my questions and value of my points, and some teens at the time even started wearing Heathen Hammers, Ankhs or Witchy Pentacles. Unfortunately the church is now falling apart.

Great post!

 

[roger1440]

I don’t see myself as an “ex-Christian”. What I do see is that the more I study the Bible the farther I get from literal fundamentalism and so called orthodoxy. The orthodox base their opinion on tradition. I base my opinion on study. I believe it is the orthodox that has an heretical opinion and I have an orthodox opinion.

The word orthodox means, “true or right opinion”. The word heterodox means to have “another opinion”.

Hot Jewish chicks do not get knocked up by God. Dead people do not rise from the dead. But if Jesus really turned water into wine, he is most definitely invited to my next party.

 

[SpentaMaynu]

I am a bit ashamed to admit that my search started with anger towards my dad's (a pastor in one of the Pentecostal churches) interpretation of the Bible. O my anger pushed me to search first by reading a lot of books about other religions by Christians, then by writers belonging to other religions. I studied Christian theology (and could already see that there was many I did not agree on). At last I studied Religion at university. I went from Conservative Christian to Liberal (as opposed to Conservative, Fundamentalist and Ortodox) Christianity. Saw myself as a Deist and then as Buddhist for a while and went to Hindu temples a lot (still do and am proud to be as comfortable in a temple of any sort as I am in a church). At last I discovered the Perenial philosophy and realised that Love is the basis of all or most religions. Today I see myself as a Pluralist or Omnist believing that we should learn from as much religions as possible. I still believe that Jesus is God, but not that Jesus is the only Name of God. One God, many Names, many Manifestations

 

[Awoon]

Christianity was tremendously great as a youth. Jesus was alive and God's power was present in so many ways. It was a beautiful and magical time.

Eventually....

Got older and things started coming out of the woodwork that caused considerable head scratching. Blimey that! Major discovery! One religion is no different than another, and no more different than anything else at it's core!

House of cards collapsed. Stain glass shattered into a zillion pieces, and chucked away the rose colored glasses.

Good run but had to go.

Nice !!!