How the "Christian" Spell was broken

Anyone on this Forum who insist that they were for many many years a Christian but got out, some of us would like to hear about your EXODUS.

Now we'll be more impressed if you don't hedge on details about when you THOUGHT you loved Jesus and were either saved or born again.

Here's FMF's chance to shine. He's a strong "Been There Done That" recovering evangelical.

You guys are going to show some of us the way out, the way to "recovery".

It would be helpful to explain if you can remember the time your first decided that you WOULD become a follower of Jesus. Then you can tell us about how you decided your beliefs were not real.

Oh, I can do the same thing because I had a serious case of backsliding which led to me forsaking Christianity for many other things. But I will wait to read some other's experiences.

FMF? The floor is yours

FMF fires off

I am a non-Christian and what I happened to believe in the past is irrelevant, regardless of how sincere and convinced I may have been about those beliefs at that those times in the past. So there you have it.

So. Back to the question you have been evading.

What if sonhouse opens his whole being [as you put it] and calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus, with the pure intention [as you see it] of allowing the Lord Jesus to come into his life [in the sense that you intend] ~ and, regardless, nothing happens?

Would that be evidence pointing towards you simply imagining that "the Lord answers" you when you claim to do those things mentioned above?

If what you believed in the past is so irrelevant how come you keep mentioning that for thirty years - what you believed ?

Originally posted by sonship
Anyone on this Forum who insist that they were for many many years a Christian but got out, some of us would like to hear about your EXODUS.

Now we'll be more impressed if you don't hedge on details about when you THOUGHT you loved Jesus and were either saved or born again.

Here's FMF's chance to shine. He's a strong "Been There Done That" recoveri ...[text shortened]... any other things. But I will wait to read some other's experiences.

FMF? The floor is yours

I gradually came to realize that the Bible did not provide me with credible evidence to support the claims that Christians make about God and about the divinity of Jesus ~ and the significance of his life ~ which were a set of notions and hopes that I had internalized and held to be true for many years.

I say to all those who are still Christians and those who might become Christians (because of the efforts of people like sonship): if your beliefs give you comfort and purpose in your lives, and if they help you to come to terms with the inevitability of death, then good for you.

I have no regrets. I haven't felt that I've been in any kind of "recovery". And I don't urge anyone to follow suit. I have no theories about supernatural beings or any such concepts as "life after death" to offer you with which you might want to replace your own.

Originally posted by sonship
If what you believed in the past is so irrelevant how come you keep mentioning that for thirty years - what you believed ?

To keep the fact that I used to be a Christian secret would seem an odd thing to do.

Originally posted by sonship
You won't tell anything about your decades of being a Christian because your are fraudulently making sensational personal testimonial about something that probably never occurred.

I am entirely comfortable with you taking this view.

Originally posted by FMF

I gradually came to realize that the Bible did not provide me with credible evidence to support the claims that Christians make about God and about the divinity of Jesus ~ and the significance of his life ~ which were a set of notions and hopes that I had internalized and held to be true for many years.

You gradually realized that who you thought was the Lord you had in your heart was not ?

Plenty people evolve into being skeptical about the Bible's claims. This doesn't mean they were Christians before.

Betrand Russell probably "gradually" decided the Bible was poppycock.
Why do you advertize that you reversed what you held as a previous belief ?

I say to all those who are still Christians and those who might become Christians (because of the efforts of people like sonship): if your beliefs give you comfort and purpose in your lives, and if they help you to come to terms with the inevitability of death, then good for you.

That's kind of hypocritical. Are you encouraging people to believe what is NOT TRUE ?
"Its good for you" ?

Deception is good for me?
A lie is good for me?
A total falsehood is good for me if it gives me purpose ?
A fictional myth is good if it makes me feel good ??

I have no regrets. I haven't felt that I've been in any kind of "recovery". And I don't urge anyone to follow suit. I have no theories about supernatural beings or any such concepts as "life after death" to offer you with which you might want to replace your own.

Before your gradual evolving into a non-Christian you assumed then that "life after death" would be your experience ?

Are we talking about sunday school days when maybe your parents dragged you off to hear things as a child? I can see that accounting for a few years as a youngster. But I cannot see that accounting for the better part of three decades.

Tell us about any time you voluntarily read perhaps an entire Gospel and re-evaluated what you previously believed.

Or maybe you saw a movie about Jesus and decided from other's arguments that you did not want any longer to be a Christian ?

Originally posted by sonship

I gradually came to realize that the Bible did not provide me with credible evidence to support the claims that Christians make about God and about the divinity of Jesus ~ and the significance of his life ~ which were a set of notions and hopes that I had internalized and held to be true for many years.

You gradually realized that who yo ...[text shortened]... ut Jesus and decided from other's arguments that you did not want any longer to be a Christian ?

It was a gradual process. It was not 'a decision'.

Originally posted by sonship
That's kind of hypocritical. Are you encouraging people to believe what is NOT TRUE ?
"Its good for you" ?

Deception is good for me?
A lie is good for me?
A total falsehood is good for me if it gives me purpose ?
A fictional myth is good if it makes me feel good ??

I am not "encouraging people to believe" anything in particular. I said that if belief in supernatural things gives people solace and perhaps a sense of meaning to their lives [that they might not otherwise feel], especially in the face of death, then that's OK by me. I am happy for them that they derive these comforts and fortification. If it results in them acting in a morally sound way, then I welcome that too.

Originally posted by sonship
Why do you advertize that you reversed what you held as a previous belief ?

Better to mention it than conceal it, I think. Do you think I should have kept it secret?

Originally posted by sonship
Are we talking about sunday school days when maybe your parents dragged you off to hear things as a child? I can see that accounting for a few years as a youngster. But I cannot see that accounting for the better part of three decades.

I think you are being presumptuous - and overestimating - the significance to me of what you can and cannot see in this matter.

Originally posted by sonship

I gradually came to realize that the Bible did not provide me with credible evidence to support the claims that Christians make about God and about the divinity of Jesus ~ and the significance of his life ~ which were a set of notions and hopes that I had internalized and held to be true for many years.

You gradually realized that who yo ...[text shortened]... ut Jesus and decided from other's arguments that you did not want any longer to be a Christian ?

'That's kind of hypocritical. Are you encouraging people to believe what is NOT TRUE ?
"Its good for you" ? ...Deception is good for me?'



I think that's a bit of an unfair misquote Sonship. What FMF actually said was 'if your beliefs give you comfort and purpose in your lives...'then good for you.' (Or, 'I'm happy for you' ) - This is not the same as saying 'it is good for you' to believe a deception.

As an atheist, I would say the same thing to someone who was clearly benefiting from having a faith, even if I thought that faith to be false. If I saw it was giving them comfort and hope i would say 'good luck to you' and do nothing to shake that faith. But that wouldn't be me saying 'it's good for you to believe a lie.'

Originally posted by FMF
To keep the fact that I used to be a Christian secret would seem an odd thing to do.

I would be interested in what you believed as a Christian.
Did you believe in eternal hell, that Jesus was God, that the dead go straight to heaven, etc.?

Originally posted by sonship
some of us would like to hear about your EXODUS.

I was playing Sonic on my GENESIS, which everyone JUDGES as the one of the KINGS of video games. This guy named JOHN is a hipster who CHRONICLES his days playing Atari, and that sales NUMBERS don't mean quality. That's when I had the REVELATION that he's a tool

Originally posted by checkbaiter
I would be interested in [b] what you believed as a Christian.
Did you believe in eternal hell, that Jesus was God, that the dead go straight to heaven, etc.?[/b]

It's immaterial. You're about a decade late with these questions (back when such tenets were still personally relevant to me or when their intellectual and spiritual hold on me was weakening).

I post here as a non-Christian and I'm not interested in explaining or comparing theological notions which I have discarded.

The degree to which my former Christian beliefs may have coincided or conflicted with the current beliefs of Christians here on this message board is of zero interest to me. 🙂