Carrie

Ah, fellow heathens, how refreshing! Actually I�m just now converting to heathenism. I�ve been in a fundamentalist Christian church / cult for the past 6 years (since I was 20). I totally believed the Bible was God�s word, and boy do I feel stupid! But I finally started using my brain again, amen.

I always did have tons of nagging doubt, but I just ignored it and tried to be a good little Christian. But I was a terrible Christian. I never even wanted to have my �quiet times� or pray, because reading the Bible made me doubt it even more, and whenever I prayed I just felt like screaming at God. One day I did scream at him, and that was it. I started down the road of trying to prove the Bible wrong, and I did. It�s not that hard to see the faults in it once you let yourself.

So I�m going to get with my �discipler� and our women�s ministry leader pretty soon and go over the 20+ pages of my problems with the Bible, and I know they won�t have any answers. So that should be fun! And that will be when I tell them that I�m officially leaving the church. It will be hard though because all of my friends are in it, including my husband. He�ll probably always be a brain washed believer, but I�ll still love him and stay with him. He�s lots of fun. I just need to go and make some heathen friends. It will be nice to hang out with people and not feel pressured to try to save their damned souls. In the cult I�ve been in, we are supposed to �reach out� to people all the time and convince them to our way of thinking, and basically if they don�t join our church they are doomed. It sucks.

But actually a lot of good has come out of my experience as a fundie-mental-ist. And it�s a pretty good cult, as far as cults go. I�ve become a lot more outgoing, and I learned to be good, and I learned a lot about what the other half believes and how they can believe it so strongly. I need to try and stay understanding of them, because I�ve been there, and I know how true and good it can seem. But it�s not true and good, so I�m outta there!

I may not ever know what is true, but I need to figure out for myself what is good and okay. I think maybe I'll go back to smoking pot. I told my mom what�s going on with me, and she brought me up some weed! Watch I�ll probably get all freaked out that I�m going to burn in hell or something. I think it�s going to take time for me to get totally un-brainwashed. But don�t go praying for me, cuz that shit don�t work!

Heathen

Welcome to the dark side and welcome to the boards Good luck in your meeting. I know how that feels not to have any atheist friends, because I don't have very many either. Anyway, have fun.

copernicus

Nonsense, Heathen. We're all friends here. Stick around. If you're having doubts about religion, Heathen and Carrie, this is the place to be. Internet Infidels is a safe haven for people who want a dose of sanity.

Heathen

All right! But seriously, like Carrie, I've never had any friends in person that were atheist, and I've only known other atheists through the internet.

Abacus

Hi Carrie! It sounds like you're figuring what a pile of shit fundamentalist Christianity is. And I bet it feels good to start seeing it for what it is. Anyways, welcome!