For those who have left the Faith what drove you away?

Question

This is primarily directed at Catholics but anyone can answer please post what faith you left though as it makes it easier to understand.

Answer 1

I'm gay.

You people think I'm going to hell.

Screw that!

It goes deeper than that, of course; but I do think being gay can at least help you to understand that the religion is hypocritical and misanthropic, especially as regards human sexuality.

Historically, it's founded on fraud and falsehood; morally it's a vestige of the Bronze Age; intellectually it's revolting nonsense; spiritually it's a dictatorship.

I really don't think there's any excuse for people to persist being "Christian" in a society in which, for practically the first time in centuries, it's not compulsory under threat of death, and in which advances in every field of human knowledge have rather knocked the ground out from beneath the ancient biblical conception of things. But I understand that it takes time for progress to filter down through all the strata of society. I'm content to leave people to believe as they will; but I'm also confident that we ARE making progress, and that I'll see a more enlightened humanity within my lifetime.

(P.S. - I've said all this now, but let me just add that I also understand that the Church has done many positive things for people, that it provides a sense of community, that it helps to assist the less fortunate, etc. It's hardly "all bad," and no reasonable person would claim that it is. But, again, imagine if you were born gay, and were as such ostracized from all this benevolence and goodwill simply for being who you are, knowing that you can NOT change even if you would. It certainly taints your appreciation of all the good that is undeniably done in the name of "Christ." Nor do I believe that religious people necessarily persecute homosexuals out of a need to indulge their baser instincts to hatred, although that does sometimes happen; I think in most cases it's simply due to a misconception, the idea that homosexuals are willfully subversive sociopaths (as per Church propaganda) as opposed to people just trying to live their lives. It's so easy to distance yourself from a group of "Others" and dehumanize them without ever actually dealing with the reality of them as human beings, and it's unfortunate that some brands of Christianity seem to encourage this, since it's so obviously contradictory to the main trend of the Christian message.

Answer 2

There were several events that led to me leaving.

First the church I attended did hold a Bible Study. The only problem was in 3 meeting we never opened or studied the Bible. One priest said the problem is fundamentalists taking the bible too seriousely. When discussing people who have bad days, another priest said "Sometimes you have to really blast God and let Him have it." Personally I don't think the creator is afraid of that priest or any of us.

I began reading the bible and I had some questions. So I asked the priests at the church I attended. The priests could not answer my questions or danced around the question.

One of my questions was "If the bible says there is one mediator between man and God, where does Mary come in? " The priest just talked about Mary being the mother of Jesus.

Another question was "Where are we commanded to pray to anyone except God?" The answer I received was that the bible does not tell us to pray to another but God, however tradition and other writing do.

Now it may just have been the one Catholic church I attended I certainly I would not say all Catholic priests can be represented by the answers I received.

contact me if you wish. Lord Bless

Answer 3

I left the Catholic faith because I couldn't find answers in the bible that supported what the church teaches. For instance, if the apostle James tells us that we should look after widows and orphans, why would a priest keep accepting donations from a widow to have masses said for her late husband in purgatory to the point to where she died from starvation and hypothermia? The book of Timothy tells us that there is one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, but the church has priests that try to act as mediators. Jesus said, "Call no man Father", and yet this command is ignored. The whole purpose and act of baptism is missing in the Catholic doctrine when compared with what the bible tells us. From Sunday to Sunday there is little if any spiritual light shed through the words of the priests, but you can learn about gambling games that are available. Rather than baring the guilt of condoning these things, I chose to leave.

Answer 4

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school from Kindergarden (age 5) through the age of 13. Throughout school age I never truly believed in or prayed to God. I followed blindly and did what I was 'supposed to do' such as confession, first communion, weekly mass, religion classes (which were required), prayer, etc. but never truly believed in my heart and mind that God, Jesus, or the Bible were real.

At the age of 13 I found myself no longer wanting to go to church, which my mother and I did weekly. My mother insisted that if I did not want to go to church when or where she went, I still had to go to church even if it weren't her church. So I tried different churches with friends. Bapstist churches, Non-demoninational, Methodist, etc. and found no interest of belief in any of them.

I can 'texplain it any other way than I just never believed. I never felt strongly about God or Jesus or the Christian faith. I never really felt anything for it at all. It was just a feeling and there aren't words I can use to describe it. It just never rang true to me.

Although I did not go to church I still proclaimed myself to be Catholic since I had never known how to be anything else. People would ask what religion I was and I would say Catholic. Or I would say "I was raised Catholic but I no longer practice the religion." Eventually I thought to myself now what does that mean? Why is it that I have no interest in this religion in which I was raised?

I did not just one day decide that I didn't believe in God. For quite a while I was just neutral and didn't care either way, to be honest. I started visiting Yahoo! Answers while I was bored at work and began being drawn to Sean's (or Jim Darwin if you prefer) questions and quickly became a regular on the Religion and Spirituality Section. The more I read on this forum, the more interested I became in finding out what my own beliefs are. I started reading and researching more and more until I decided that I knew what I did not believe, but never could find what I DID believe.

I thought of myself as Agnostic for quite a while. Still I was leaning more toward the neutral side. I knew I didn't believe in the Christian faith or the Christian God but thought I may find another religion that suited my beliefs but all I kept finding was what I did not believe. People would ask me what I believed in and I could never tell them. I would tell them "I don't know what I believe yet, all I know so far is what I do not believe and I am still resarching that."

I started seeing a lot of recommendations for a book called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and after a while as I learned more and more about what I do and do not believe, I decided to pick it up. I am still in the process of reading it but it seems that he perfectly explains my views on the topic of religion and the Christian God. Over time I realized that I am in fact an Atheist although I would not attribute that fact solely to Richard Dawkins, the book was a help...and so was Yahoo Answers, believe it or not.

Answer 5

I actually left the baptist faith, and came to the catholic faith. At first it was my parents who had decided to convert after befriending a catholic woman and her family, my parents knew nothing conclusive about the church and they were taught very ignorant things by their own parents as many baptist have been taught. Anyways, my parents said that it was my decision to what I wanted to do since I wasn't baptized a baptist yet I decided to study the catholic faith and God made me realize where his True church was. 2 years later and I was baptized and confirmed and it's been a treat every since to be a catholic and I thank God everyday for bringing me to his Church. My personal opinion to why catholics leave the church. Some catholics don't get proper catechist education and it's becoming more common, anyways so they get told by someone that the catholic church is unbiblical and since they don't know what the church truly teaches they start to believe it.

Answer 6

I grew up Christain, and I was always very confused because alot of the people I attended church with secluded me because I was different. Alot of the adults viewed me as strange because I was a very shy individual, and sort of kept to myself. I experienced worse ridicule by the youth within the church that I went to than I did in school. It was horrible, I hated church. I left it as an adolescent, only to return again when I was about 20. I was very into it, yet still didn't feel like I belonged there. After a few years of this, I began to delve more deeply into the scriptures, trying to find out why I felt this way, and trying to discover more of the truth, because something just did not feel right. I left Christainity after two years of comparing scriptures and different interpretations of them. There was always something that did not quite fit with something else. It was like trying to put together a giant puzzle, and finally finding a peice that fit with another, only to discover that it didn't fit with another peice, so it couldn't possibly be in the correct place. There seemed to be peices missing, and that was the only explanation as to why that puzzle was never completed. I began to seek the rest of the truth elsewhere, first by reading the "Conversations with God " books by Neale donald Walsch, and I started to see a new side to things. Then I discovered "The Secret" , then a series of movies called "What the Bleep". It slowly all began to fall into place. I am still searching, I still feel that there is more out there for me to discover, but I can feel myself getting closer and closer to it. One day it will be completed.

Answer 7

Christian (non-specific). I left for several reasons. The main reason, I guess, was that there were too many conflicts and constraints and contradictions. Adhering to its philosophies, I wouldn't be able to follow my heart and become a psychic/spiritual author without some degree of "negative reaction". And, in my experience, far too many are too judgemental and secular, basically hiding behind their religion instead of applying it to their everyday lives, not only for themselves but for other people too.

Answer 8

I left my own path and Iam in the process of becoming a Catholic. The Lord led me to His Church.

Answer 9

I left Christianity because of a couple of things. One, the answer of "Because the Bible says so" wasn't enough (because there are A LOT of things that the Bible says, why aren't ALL of them still followed?), and the other was someone telling me that my father must have done something bad to have died so young, and he was now burning in Hell.

Answer 10

I'm a former Christian.

I left because I knew in my heart that there was no god.

Once I was older (late teens) and saw how so many "Christians" conducted themselves outside of church, it disgusted me to think that I was associated with people like that. If I'm wrong, and there really is a God, I'd bet big money that there are one hell of a lot more "Christians" in hell, and a lot more atheists in heaven, rather than vice versa.