That’s not to say that Christianity doesn’t take from many other religions, especial pagan holidays. Just wanted to point out the bad source.

Thanks for sharing your experiences… I too have gone from Christian to Atheist over the last year or two and it has been, at times, the most painful and sad, and at times the most joyful and liberating experiences of my life.

Christmas last year was when I really felt that the entire religious part of my life was finally dead. It hit me when I heard Christmas Carols in the shopping mall and they sounded like empty noise as opposed the usual feelings that they stirred up in me. Its is a pity, as the majority (baring the last 12 -18 months) of my Christian life was full of positive experiences, mostly with my family during the holidays. I was lucky enough to have parents who have never pushed a religious agenda on their children.

When you wrote: “Sometime in early 2008 I began having new doubts about my belief. I started noticing things that I’d never seen before. I observed that the nonbelievers in my life were as loving and as moral as the believers. I also saw that Christians, on average, were not displaying signs of the process of sanctification that I expected.” it was as if you had taken the start of my journey toward ‘rationality’. So much has happened since then and the adjustment to a new worldview difficult.

The worst part is when you meet those people you went to church with (and my last church was pretty right-wing evangelical fundamentalist, even if they where subtle about it) and the questions start to fly… Nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition!

Many Thanks,

Ryan

I agree with you, and I did read it. I wanted to pose that question to some of the believers.

I wish you well in your life and your understanding of it.

Please explain to me how I could ‘feel’ Santa watching me all year around. How I ‘knew” his elves where spying on me to see if I was naughty or nice. Does this mean Santa Clause existed. Cause at the time I would swear on my life he was real.

Look at Islam, or other religions. Do they not die for their beliefs. Are you saying they do not ‘feel’ Allah the same way you feel the Christian god.

It is created by the mind, the human brain. How can you say you are right and everyone else is wrong? Because you ‘feel’ it?

My mother is a devout Christian, and I do not try to deter her from this path, it gives her purpose. Without it, I feel she would be lost and overcome with depression. My father is an atheist who studied philosophy. When I was young I was brought to Sunday school, went to church, asked jesus into my heart. And I believed it. Then one day, when I was 13 or 14, I wondered how can this be true? As a young man I enjoyed studying world cultures, and I could not comprehend, why my religion was right and the others were wrong. What if I had the wrong religion I wondered. What if the true religion was forgotten in the annals of history in some far forgotten culture. Of course not, I realized, all religion is mans construct, to rationalize that which cannot be explained. Since we are self-aware, and realize our own mortality, it is much easier on the mind to say that when we die we go somewhere. Can you deny that our mind does not create psychological defenses?

It was akin to my discovery that Santa clause was not real. I wanted to belive so bad. But once you truly ’see the light’, you can’t go back.

Questions for Christians: Why do you belive your religion is correct? Truly why? Are you saying Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism etc, atheir great history and number of devout belivers is wrong?

If you were born in India, do you think you would still be a Christian?

I don’t understand given the history of the world and its cultures and civilizations, and the hugeness of the earth, one could subscribe to the Christian faith and dismiss every other possibility simply because they were told to do so.

Just found your blog and I love it!

Basically I was an atheist my whole life and am the proud parent of two grown atheists, 35 and 32, but then something inexplicable happened to me. I had the illness manic depression – you know, extreme moodswings – and then in my late fifties, the illness went away.

I foolishly – and egotistically! – attributed it to the intervention of God! I thereupon began a regime of intense prayer, thanking God for giving me back my healthy mind, and praying for people and for wishes to come true.

Naturally I hid the evidence that my prayers had nothing to do with people’s lives improving and attributed it all to god’s intervention.

I only came to my senses several months ago during a trip to Harrisburg PA where, in the capital building, a table was set up with literature about atheism.

Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle all made sense. Of COURSE there’s no god. It’s a primitive way of trying to explain this inexplicable complex universe. I am glad I made this discovery at the age of 63 so that I can spend the rest of my life marveling at the creations of evolution and the mind of man and the beauty of our world and try to do a little bit of good while I’m still here in making this a better planet.

Thanks again for a great blog, Andy!!!

Here are some more questions to which I believe you will mostly respond “No”: Have you been ever been “born again”?

Your entire argument hinges on the supposition that I wasn’t quite Christian enough. Please see the first part of this series. I believed I was born again. I trusted in Jesus alone for my salvation. I studied the Bible regularly, and prayed daily for God to reveal himself to me in his word. I served in my local church. I confessed my sins daily. I did all of this for most of the first 30 years of my life. I believed I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I thought I felt God’s presence.

If I couldn’t rightfully claim to be born again, I don’t think anybody could.