I still find myself being bitter and disgusted at the lies that I was fed as a child about Christianity and salvation. Not only the lies I was fed then, but the utter disownment by that same group and theology once I walked away from their brand of faith. Here is the path that I took. I was brought up in a devout baptist christian household. We went to church every sunday, almost no exceptions. At age 9 I decided to become a christian and so I explained my feelings to my pastor after youth group one wednesday night. We talked about it and what it meant and the ins-and-outs of salvation. I said yes! I want this! So that night I sat with my pastor and prayed for salvation and became a christian. I went home and told my parents and they were thrilled. We hugged and mom cried tears of joy. I didn't start questioning my faith until about the age of 19. So for 19 years of my life, 10 of those years of being a true die-hard christian, I was told a myriad of things. I was told explicitly by my pastor, my parents, my relatives, my friends, and the bible that when I received christ as my personal savior I was washed clean of my sins. Past, present, and future. There was absolutely nothing that I could do to lose my salvation. I was changed from the inside out and washed clean forever. This brought me such great joy. The idea that my afterlife was secured and I would spend eternity in the grace of god was so amazing.
Fast forward to about the age of 19. I had started becoming much more intellectually driven in all aspects of my life. I had taken up writing and studying. Reading the bible deeper and trying to extract every ounce of wisdom that I could find. Spending hours meditating on the stories and laws laid down thousands of years ago. But as I read these things, I started finding lots of things that just...didn't add up. Things I was never told before. Stories that no one had ever told me about, even gone so far as to hide them from their congregation. Stories of mass genocide, unnecessary torture, cutting babies from mother's wombs, tribal bloodshed, endorsements of slavery. The list started to grow faster and faster. Even finding passages that said you actually can lose your salvation. What a whirlwind I was caught up in. I talked to my brother and friends about these things and just started trying to justify them somehow. Eventually, I just couldn't. There was no justification for these things, these atrocities in the old testament. I still remember the day I told my brother that I no longer accept the old testament. I rejected it as the divine words and preachment of god. This was clearly written by man, and so I simply put my faith back where it should be: In christ, and the new testament. Over the next few years, until about the age of 23 or 24 I gave myself a mission. My faith was faltering and I knew something had to change. I actively said, OK, it is time to settle this. I am sick and tired of being so confused about things. From now on, I am going to find the truth! Where it lies and what it ends up being, I don't care. I believe god is real, and I believe in christ, and I believe the gospel message is true. In finding the truth, I will truly find god at the heart of it. But I must do this unbias, neutral, and objectively. No bias, no looking for evidence to support my presuppositions, and my research must include all different views and ideas. Do not look for validation for your ideas, put your ideas to the test. If they do not stand up, then you must drop them.
And so I did. My pilgrimage to truth began, and years later when I was around 23 or 24 I had the astonishing realization...I...I am an atheist. There really is, no actual evidence for god's existence. Years and years of rigorous research and testing and meditation, now led me to my current tentative conclusion: I see no viable reason to believe that a god exists. I'm not closed to it if i find new evidence for one, but as it stands I live my life as though there is none. I call out to him and he stays silent. Thus, I walked away from my faith entirely. The part that infuriates me to this day is the way those same christians who supported me and loved me and told me all of these great stories about not being able to lose your salvation, now completely switched gears. Atheists, as they taught me when I was young, are evil. Blasphemers against god, always trying to tear down the walls of morality and destroy society. Tools of the devil. So one day I thought back and became curious. Wasn't I told as a christian that when I received salvation that I was washed clean from all of my sins? Past. Present. And more importantly, future. When I became a christian at age 9, if a god exists, he knew the sins of my future and knew I would become and atheist. So am I not forgiven for that as well, even if I'm wrong about god's existence? Otherwise, I was lied to as a child by everyone around me.
I decided to post this on an online debate forum seeking to debate christians on this point. The responses I got were absolutely absurd. The overwhelming response was, I kid you not, "well, you just were never a real christian. Otherwise, you never would have fallen away." What?? Are you serious? My family remained silent on the issue. They refused to give me answers to what they thought. They too thought I was damned for my beliefs. Even though they always said there is no way to lose your salvation, the second I said I was an atheist, now I had immediately lost salvation. Now on the other side of the fence, I saw the indoctrinating lies fed to children. You cannot lose your salvation...as long as you never leave the faith. You are a real christian...unless you leave the faith, then you never were. Christian after christian feeding me statements attempting to explain my experiences as if they had been inside my head the entire time watching it all. All rules changed once I became an atheist. The rules that I had been told for decades all of a sudden changed. I even asked the question, "if I had died while still a christian, would I still have gone to heaven?" and still have yet to get an answer. The lies and ridiculousness spewed at me out of ignorance had so many glaring loopholes that even the religious couldn't answer them. Lie covering lie, but they all did know one thing enough to answer: I was not a christian anymore, and atheists are evil. So I have been salty about that ever since. I don't see myself getting over it anytime soon.
Fast forward to about the age of 19. I had started becoming much more intellectually driven in all aspects of my life. I had taken up writing and studying. Reading the bible deeper and trying to extract every ounce of wisdom that I could find. Spending hours meditating on the stories and laws laid down thousands of years ago. But as I read these things, I started finding lots of things that just...didn't add up. Things I was never told before. Stories that no one had ever told me about, even gone so far as to hide them from their congregation. Stories of mass genocide, unnecessary torture, cutting babies from mother's wombs, tribal bloodshed, endorsements of slavery. The list started to grow faster and faster. Even finding passages that said you actually can lose your salvation. What a whirlwind I was caught up in. I talked to my brother and friends about these things and just started trying to justify them somehow. Eventually, I just couldn't. There was no justification for these things, these atrocities in the old testament. I still remember the day I told my brother that I no longer accept the old testament. I rejected it as the divine words and preachment of god. This was clearly written by man, and so I simply put my faith back where it should be: In christ, and the new testament. Over the next few years, until about the age of 23 or 24 I gave myself a mission. My faith was faltering and I knew something had to change. I actively said, OK, it is time to settle this. I am sick and tired of being so confused about things. From now on, I am going to find the truth! Where it lies and what it ends up being, I don't care. I believe god is real, and I believe in christ, and I believe the gospel message is true. In finding the truth, I will truly find god at the heart of it. But I must do this unbias, neutral, and objectively. No bias, no looking for evidence to support my presuppositions, and my research must include all different views and ideas. Do not look for validation for your ideas, put your ideas to the test. If they do not stand up, then you must drop them.
And so I did. My pilgrimage to truth began, and years later when I was around 23 or 24 I had the astonishing realization...I...I am an atheist. There really is, no actual evidence for god's existence. Years and years of rigorous research and testing and meditation, now led me to my current tentative conclusion: I see no viable reason to believe that a god exists. I'm not closed to it if i find new evidence for one, but as it stands I live my life as though there is none. I call out to him and he stays silent. Thus, I walked away from my faith entirely. The part that infuriates me to this day is the way those same christians who supported me and loved me and told me all of these great stories about not being able to lose your salvation, now completely switched gears. Atheists, as they taught me when I was young, are evil. Blasphemers against god, always trying to tear down the walls of morality and destroy society. Tools of the devil. So one day I thought back and became curious. Wasn't I told as a christian that when I received salvation that I was washed clean from all of my sins? Past. Present. And more importantly, future. When I became a christian at age 9, if a god exists, he knew the sins of my future and knew I would become and atheist. So am I not forgiven for that as well, even if I'm wrong about god's existence? Otherwise, I was lied to as a child by everyone around me.
I decided to post this on an online debate forum seeking to debate christians on this point. The responses I got were absolutely absurd. The overwhelming response was, I kid you not, "well, you just were never a real christian. Otherwise, you never would have fallen away." What?? Are you serious? My family remained silent on the issue. They refused to give me answers to what they thought. They too thought I was damned for my beliefs. Even though they always said there is no way to lose your salvation, the second I said I was an atheist, now I had immediately lost salvation. Now on the other side of the fence, I saw the indoctrinating lies fed to children. You cannot lose your salvation...as long as you never leave the faith. You are a real christian...unless you leave the faith, then you never were. Christian after christian feeding me statements attempting to explain my experiences as if they had been inside my head the entire time watching it all. All rules changed once I became an atheist. The rules that I had been told for decades all of a sudden changed. I even asked the question, "if I had died while still a christian, would I still have gone to heaven?" and still have yet to get an answer. The lies and ridiculousness spewed at me out of ignorance had so many glaring loopholes that even the religious couldn't answer them. Lie covering lie, but they all did know one thing enough to answer: I was not a christian anymore, and atheists are evil. So I have been salty about that ever since. I don't see myself getting over it anytime soon.
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