Former Christians, what changed your mind?

Question

For me, it was the hipocracy of it all. I have seen an anti-abortion demonstrator get an abortion. I have seen a preacher get in a fist in the pulpit and a man bring a shotgun into the church because he didn't like what the preacher had to say.
I also just could not believe that any entity that could create the entire universe would really care about a person's sexual preference (before anyone makes a comment, I am straight but I have many Gay friends that I could not have as a Christian). It just didn't make any sense to me.

For those Christians that answered. I just want to say that I didn't choose men over God. I chose me over God. I felt that I was much better at running my own life than a diety that no one ever heard or saw. I am also not bashing Christians. I have known many good people who are Christians, but I think that they are good people because they are good people, not because they are Christians. Being a Christian, in my experience does not make you a good person. I have met more people in church that scare me than I have ever met out of it.

Answer 1

I agree with you - it was the hipocracy that made me see through them. My father was a preacher and yet he turned a blind eye to the fact that my mother was using his entire paycheck for drugs. The whole congregation loved him because he was such a great guy, yet he verbally and emotionally abused my siblings and I for our whole childhood. It wasn't just him - the whole bible is full of contradictions, christians can't even agree on fundemental "truths" within different religions that all claim to follow the bible. I don't hate christians - I really don't hate anybody. But in my opinion, the only reason a person would be part of any religion is because they choose to be led instead of thinking for themselves.

Answer 2

I can give you a decent case for why Jesus isn't a god. And maybe Muhammad being a prophet of god too, although admittedly I know less about that. I think it's unlikely Jesus performed miracles because the people who wrote down the gospels were not eyewitnesses. We can establish that based on Acts describing John and Peter as being common uneducated men (Acts 4:13) who certainly would not have known how to write in Koine Greek, and it's equally unlikely that most of the other disciples were literate, so it stands to reason that the gospels must have been written by someone else. That would explain the thirty year gap between when the events took place and when they were recorded. It took time to convert people to Christianity who were capable of writing in Greek, which was an upper class, educated language. Added to this the relatively small number of people Jesus converted when compared to Judaea's population as given by Josephus and Cassius Dio in the Judeo-Roman wars, and the fact that Philo, who was specifically writing about Judaea at this time (and is the best source of information we have on Pontius Pilate) and yet didn't think to record Jesus' life, makes it seem likely to me that Jesus was no miracle worker. For more on this you can read Bart Erhman's 'Misquoting Jesus'. This is just a brief summary of why I don't believe, I could go on for awhile. Note that I'm not claiming there isn't a god, just why I don't believe in the Christian description of god.

Answer 3

When I was very young I believed all the Sunday School stories. Then, when I was nine, we moved and my parents joined a Pentecostal church -- which I utterly despised. That's where I first heard the word atheist and immediately decided I was one. It was as if that awful church showed me the true depth of Christian hypocrisy. I remember the preacher railing against science and technology -- while speaking over an electronic public address system, in a church illuminated with electric lights, to a congregation which had driven to church in their own automobiles. At nine years, I already knew I was destined to be a scientist and I wanted no part of people who all but worshipped the ignorant past.

When I was twelve, guest preachers brought live rattlesnakes into the church and announced the snakes could detect if people were faking their faith. Well, I most certainly was faking, because my parents literally forced me to attend that horrible church. I only attended for the sake of peace at home. Sure enough, when it was my turn to kiss the rattlesnake's head, it struck at me. I flinched, just in time and it was a very near miss. ...scared me so badly I pissed my pants in front of the entire congregation. I can still recall how the preacher crowed that his sacred snakes had uncovered another faker, as I ran crying from the church with my hands over my crotch.

That was the last time I ever attended a church and I eventually ran away from home and turned myself in to the Juvenile Authorities. Eventually, a Juvenile Court judge issued an injunction preventing my father from beating me, and preventing him from forcing me to attend that awful church. Mom was diagnosed as a hallucinating schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. My young life got a lot better after Child Protective Services began to protect my sister and I from my brutal Christian father and my insane Christian mother.

I never again attended a church after the rattlesnake incident. When my sister got married, I could not force myself to go inside the Catholic church, so I watched through an open door. To this day churches still give me the creeps.

Answer 4

My family was definitely a large contributing factor. They looked down upon non-believers and those of different faiths, and I followed; they were disgusted by homosexuals and abortionists, and I followed... until I realized that "blind follower" is synonymous with "robot." I also never seemed to get any satisfying answers about it all, which greatly frustrated me. Later, I came across people who questioned theism and presented logical arguments , rather than refusing to question at all, which I appreciated much more. Several people made fun of my religion, which offended me at the time, but also forced me to think that maybe they had reason to do so. I am more happy as an atheist than I was as a confused, terrified Christian.

Answer 5

I 'left' because I didn't believe in God. Simple as that.

But I have since found so many things that would have turned my stomach by now if I had kept my Christian identity.

There is one thing that has changed in all these years, though. I have now learned to love Christians because they are humans, like me. Why should I attack their beliefs when they do not affect me? I could cause harm in that way, which is something I refuse to do.

Answer 6

Well believe it or not, most of christianity is a cult. They control what you do or say. I choose to follow Jesus, not people. I have also encorporated a little Buddhism into my faith. I have turned completely vegan. I don't look at the ten commandments as really commands, but guidlines. No one is perfect, not even the protestors and preachers. I have many gay friends too, so I definately know what you mean.

Answer 7

People, even christians are human beings. Every one makes mistakes. It is not wise to follow a faith because of people, you follow a faith based on the principles and because of God.

Being gay is no more or no less a sin than lying, cheating, murder or adultery. If the society starts becoming increasingly permissive about all sins, what is considered a legitimate sin then?

Answer 8

For me, it's just that I knew from a young age that Christianity was not my path. I left it when I was very young, that is if I ever really got into it to begin with, and never looked back.

Answer 9

Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Jim Baker, Oral Roberts, Ted Haggert, Jerry Falwell etc etc etc

Answer 10

Lack of evidence for a deity in the first place, contradictions within the Bible, contradictions within the particular deity itself, hypocrisy, unwillingness to even consider other viewpoints, inability to view the world objectively, etc.

Raptor Jesus seems to be my long-lost twin.