So why'd you LEAVE Christianity or Organized Religion?

[AlbinoMonkeyC]

Yes, this is a direct response to the Why'd you come back to Christianity thread, only it's open for all peoples who left a faith. Why'd you leave? Was it the politics, personal beliefs classed with that of what you were brought up with, just didn't feel right, why?

[DigiFluid]

Never really bought into any of it in the first place. Kind of joined up/became very curious in my early-/mid-teens, read a couple of religious texts (including the Bible) cover to cover. Came (back) to the conclusion that it was all just fairy tale nonsense.

[jelgate]

Yes, this is a direct response to the Why'd you come back to Christianity thread, only it's open for all peoples who left a faith. Why'd you leave? Was it the politics, personal beliefs classed with that of what you were brought up with, just didn't feel right, why?

Why can't we all just get alone?

[Ukko]

Why can't we all just get alone?

When people learn to do as i tell them without question, then we can all get along, my way.

[P-90_177]

When people learn to do as i tell them without question, then we can all get along, my way.

When do you expect this to happen?


Anyway speaking personally I was raised a Christian by my mum but I neer believed. Never believed in Santa either despite her best efforts.
I guess in the way my mind works even at a young age I classed them as very similar entities. Additionally given my academic interests I can quite easily read a text like the bible and see exactly for what it is and what it was designed to be by it's authors.

[shipper hannah]

I was actually in a church choir from ages 8 to 17 (although I only went to services until I was 15 because I had "work"). I realised I was an atheist at about 14, but I continued to go because I felt a sense of obligation - numbers were dwindling and they were nice.

When I was young I always assumed God was sort of like Santa Claus.. I guess I never really believed in either.

[Ukko]

When do you expect this to happen?


Anyway speaking personally I was raised a Christian by my mum but I neer believed. Never believed in Santa either despite her best efforts.
I guess in the way my mind works even at a young age I classed them as very similar entities. Additionally given my academic interests I can quite easily read a text like the bible and see exactly for what it is and what it was designed to be by it's authors.

Some time around the year 2016. Watch out for the signs, you'll know them when you see them...you all will!

[Gatefan1976]

Some time around the year 2016. Watch out for the signs, you'll know them when you see them...you all will!

It's hard to miss a ship made from the nails of dead men with a Ukkobot at the helm..........

[s09119]

Why can't we all just get alone?

We have quite a few threads dealing with how religion (especially Christianity) is good or just needs to be understood better, it's not exactly antagonistic to have a forum for opposing views.

Yes, this is a direct response to the Why'd you come back to Christianity thread, only it's open for all peoples who left a faith. Why'd you leave? Was it the politics, personal beliefs classed with that of what you were brought up with, just didn't feel right, why?

I was raised Roman Catholic but I always had serious issues with dogma and the Bible. I read the book cover to cover in high school, and managed to get through the Torah and Koran for good measure just to have the experience (which I recommend doing, by the way). Once I'd read them, I realized just how full of outdated and downright immoral material they are, from endorsing slavery to oppression of women and minorities. And the contradictions between the different gospels didn't help much. I prayed quite a bit as a kid, but found that oftentimes just plugging along eventually made things better. I never felt that it was fate or some deity intervening in my life, though, just my own hard work and perseverance. The first time I found myself doubting was in CCD one night when I asked a question about why God would only allow people to believed in Jesus into heaven. It never made sense to me (and still doesn't) why perfectly good, moral people are condemned to Purgatory or Hell simply because they're Muslim, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, or any other non-Christian group. My teacher's response was something along the lines of, "Because to worship another god is a sin and violates the ten commandments," and nothing else. Circular logic; this is bad because I say it's bad, I don't need any other proof. Hearing that God could really be that petty and cruel to even the most perfect of people really broke my faith.

But I decided I'd had it with religion entirely after a class in high school in which we were talking about the 9/11 attacks. I was talking about how senseless and awful it was to even consider your god taking pleasure in the murder of thousands of innocents. All that death and destruction and terror, plunging out country into war and debt. A very devout friend of mine just smiled and reminded me of the twisted metal cross they found in the wreckage of the towers, pointing out that "God never wanted us to lose hope." I'm sorry, but that was too much. To suggest that God would allow such senseless violence on Earth and do nothing whatsoever, make no effort to prevent it with his infinite power but form a wrecked cross as a sign that he still cared? If that's the god that's up there, he can go to Hell himself, because I have no interest in stoking the ego of a creature like that. Before mass media showed up, God didn't seem to mind influencing our free will by sending down angels or his son to show us that he really was up there. Faith wasn't all that was required before photography and video cameras, he'd actually send down representatives to interact with mankind. But now that we can prove these things, all he's willing to do is bend some metal and put it among the corpses of innocents? I've never felt so sick in my life as I did after that class.

I haven't set foot in a church since. The more I see, the more I want nothing to with religion. It's not just the vengeful god of the Old Testament who killed thousands for daring to question him or wiped out mankind when they exercised their supposed free will and stopped believing in him. It's not all the awful, bigoted things in the Bible that have been used to oppress people across history from Rome right up to me in America. It's not even the blatant hypocrisy of the Church, putting the Pope in a gilded throne and giving him a private jet to fly around the world when he's supposed to live a humble life without personal pleasures. It's more the people, the religious who read a book preaching to give what you can to the poor, to ask the rich to keep giving more to make the world better... but who's only response to the state of our planet is to insist we ban gay marriage, take away women's rights, and install the name of Jesus Christ in every school and on every government document in the country.

Gandhi was right. Christ was a figure worthy of our respect, if he ever existed. Christians are nothing like him.

EDIT: Wow this is long. Sorry, I've never actually typed out how I went from Christian to agnostic, got a little involved in my writing I guess. Still, felt good to finally put all that in words.

[Ukko]

It's hard to miss a ship made from the nails of dead men with a Ukkobot at the helm..........

You will be punished for giving away Ukko's secrets, along with s09 for his long post.

[Col.Foley]

I do not know if I ever 'left' Christianity per se. I just eventually 'stopped going' or my mother would not take me who was always responsible for my religious education. And then one day I decided to be agnostic. But I did not do so with any malice. No ill will, and I constantly strive to allow myself to be a better person and respect people no matter their faith.

I do remember being scared by some of the things I was thinking, some other things did not make sense to me, I would become a real devil child the only two times I went to Church. And the faith that I belonged to was really into end times theology. That was one of the points that they kept on bringing home. Probably what caused my fear but what would shape a large part of my fascination for such things later on in my life.

I believed, and still believe to some extent, that no religion can hold the complete truth. I sort of always believed in God but that we humans could not understand him, or really came close, or at least I did not find a faith system that I agreed with. But that is changing, they do exxist. And really there have been some rather interesting revelations along the way.

I think a lot of people get so peeved at religion to where they say, why can't we get along? Why won't God let in an atheist, an agnostic, a muslim, or a Jew? Can't we just all worship the same God? Well apart from atheists, and agnostics, I find that most people in the west do. Two of the three major religions in the west can draw their roots back to the third.

I do not blame God for all the evils commited in His name, I do not believe that God is evil and manipulative and a micromanager, nor do I believe that he lets us suffer needless. I feel no ill will or malice to anyone, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Buddhist. And I recognize that most Christians try and live as their prophet, their God, demands of them.

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

When I was at school the headteacher was particularly religious.. every morning we had to sing hymns.. all the school plays were straight out of the bible.. I didn't believe in it any more than I believed in the tooth fairy or father christmas.. And I didn't like having it forced on me... that was enough to make me never want to be part of it..

A few years ago I had to go to a christening for one of my cousin's children.. and they had a prayer at the beginning... It was all things like "lead us away from etc..." "show us this..." "keep us away from..." "free us from all thought and responsibility"

Also being in the church made my skin sizzle

[EvilSpaceAlien]

Well let's see. I was raised an agnostic and became an atheist. Not one of those hardcore extreme atheists mind you, I just don't believe anything. Well, except for basic morals and common sense. I'm just more interested in the daily goings on of my life I suppose. Issues regarding the philosophical or the metaphysical are of little concern to me.

[lordofseas]

My neocortex and frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes started working.

[jeri]

I was raised a Catholic, 8 years of catholic schooling, which was a good upbringing. But my dad was a Protestant backslider, and tolerance was key in our home. My grandparents (dad's) lived right across the street, and often took my brother and myself to their church, after mass! Yikes! It wasn't really bad, but I saw at a young age, things were pretty much the same. My dad always believed "do unto others, as you would have them do unto you".
Witnessing the family squabbles over religion, I began to see the real problems where with religion and not with God. I believe religion is a man made control device. If people need the support and it makes them feel secure, fine. But please don't tell me how to believe. I do not believe in original sin, and believe goodness is in our nature. Evil happens when we give into it. We do evil because we are unhappy. But that's another story.