KenLynch

This goes out to all ex-fundamental religious peoples. Just want to know what originally convinced you before you were a fundie?

For myself it was the fear of hell. A fundie friend of mine told me if I didn't become a Christian then I would go to hell when I died, which was something I'd never heard before. I believed in heaven because that's what a lot of people are brought up to believe, but hell was just for really bad people. Of course, becoming a Christinan was only the start, the church then starts to erode away any belief it considers heretical; evolution is wrong, sex before marriage is wrong, same sex relationships are wrong, long hair for men is wrong, heavy metal music is wrong, role playing games are wrong, horror movies are wrong, etc. etc.

Fortunately both my wife and I began to see through it all and have ourselves fully planted in reality.

So, do you have a similar story to tell?

Capn_Danger

Role-playing games WRONG? The bastards!

Anyways, I was just looking for meaning and purpose in the universe when I met mormon missionaries. It gave me that; it was nice having all the answers in front of you, and what not. I really did believe in it doctrinally, though; I made a point to know my religion.

What kept me in was fear, of course. Its all bad juju if you tried to think critically about your beliefs- god didn't like that sort of thing, and it invariably led to "apostatsy", which was worse than you and your whole family being gored to death and devoured by mad boars. I like what one of the church's apostles said in regards to the teaching of church history: "Not everything that is true is helpful" and "Just because it is is true doesn't mean it should be taught". I'm going to stop now before I descend into a rant. You get the picture, anyways...

I look back on it and it seems just plain nuts, even though I've only been out of it since October. Believing that God could talk to me through my feelings, not seeing all of contradictions, fallacies, and just cop-outs that hold the religion together. I just hope my wife sees the light eventually.

Crucifiction

I was a born and bred Fundamentalist for the first decade or so of my life. It mostly came from my grandparents; they actually encouraged my interest in paleontology, but I distinctly remember my grandmother saying something to the effect that "if you read about something in your science books and it goes against the Bible, it's wrong".

Luckily, my parents are very... well, not atheistic, but at the very most deistic; so I actually had a chance to deconvert at a very early age; about six or seven years ago. I'm now seventeen.

I fear it's the same for many Fundamentalists. If they were allowed access to books and other media discussing evolution and abiogenesis at an early age, they'd realize how sheer inane their religion is. Unfortunately, Christianity {and most other religions} tries to keep any information that might possibly go against their faith from falling into the hands of one of the sheep that makes up the flock; and by the time they're old enough to get ahold of the information themselves, they've been completely and irrevocably brainwashed into accepting what they were indoctrinated with.

Nowadays, whenever I bring up my atheism in front of my grandma, she claims it's because of the death of my real father. I was already questionin my faith before then; my grandmother recognized this, and tried her damndest to tell me that the only reason I felt that way was because of the recent death of my father. I almost bought into it, but I now realize that she was simply trying to drag me back screaming into the fold.

Luckily enough, I've had more of an effect on her than she on me; and it seems to me that she's been questioning her faith a lot recently. Sadly, I doubt she'll "see the light", as it were; due to the fact that my grandfather is, for all intents and purposes, on his deathbed, and she's getting along in age as well. I fear she's too old to seriously challenge the indoctrination my severely Catholic great grandparents implanted into her mind when she was my age.

Kassiana

I was a thirteen year old atheist at the time who read a fundie Christian tract intending to debunk it and ended up converting instead. But I got better.

Queen of Swords

I think one of the appeals of fundamentalism is that it paints the world in black and white. Everything is simplistic and easily-spelled-out; no heavy thinking or even further reading is required. That was one reason why I converted when I was sixteen; I was disillusioned with Catholicism, naive and completely unaware of the problems inherent in fundamentalism. An unhealthy dose of scare tactics - convert or burn, and the burning will be your own damn fault for being human - probably assisted in the process as well.

Further appeals of fundamentalism : if someone criticizes you, hurray for christianity, because this is exactly what the bible predicted would happen to believers! Truly, only a divinely inspired book could be so accurate.

trendkill

Born and raised (Mormon, actually, but I got deja vu from parts of COAS's Salvation Story, and I get the impression it's similar to fundamentalism in many aspects). Would never have worked on me any other way.

southernhybrid

Childhood indoctrination=fear of hell, and emotional satisfaction of being one of the chosen. I always had unanswered questions and finally started to face them on my own while attending a fundy college. The truth does set you free.

Bwana

Observation seems to indicate fear is the major motivational factor behind most irrational thought. At least here in America, it seems we as a nation went to war because of fear, we worship god out of fear of going to hell (although this works best when one is very young, then as one gets older, other reasons are given during debates, but the root fear is there), racism, and the list is endless. I suppose, or hope, that there is rational and irrational fear, and mine is rational. Irrational fear is what motivates the irrational behavior. There must be some reason that my friends from other countries don’t seem to have irrational fears of being robbed or murdered or blown up, and some live where that is a very real possibility. I think it comes from the general corporately funded media. In a two words, fear sells. “If it bleeds, it leads,�? has been the mantra for so long, people are afraid to go downtown. With a county in this state of fear, it does not take much to push people into believing just about anything if it provides them the feeling of security. Americans gladly gave up rights under the Patriot Act, because they thought it would take away some of that fear. To get on subject, in religion, the person gives up control of their lives. There is a comfort in turning over the decisions, and therefore the blame, to a supposed all powerful being. I know, because that is the way I spent my childhood, as a fundamental Christian. It is, in fact, a sort of reverting back to childhood, or one aspect of childhood, to give up your life to a heavenly “father.�? See what I mean? Daddy will make it better and protect you. To have an all powerful daddy is even more like when we were kids and our parents could do no wrong. Maybe the concept of god is just an extension of the idea of daddy that we had as children. I don’t know I could be wrong.