from independant fundamentalist baptist in bible belt florida to antitheist
October 17, 2018 at 5:22 pm
Ill make this short and ask questions if any details are wanted.
I am almost 35 years old and this deconversion happened about 10 months ago. It happened for the same reason so many had, and thats because I read the bible, but for me it wasnt the first time I had read it, it was merely the first time I read it with an open mind and doing so allowed me to find the folly of my lifelong beliefs.
Ok to explain my upbringing, I was raised by a mother was was baptist, and the only churches we would attend were independant fundamentalist baptist churches. It was in cape coral florida for the first 7 years of my life untill we moved to jamestown new york, and of course we joined the same denomination in this town. it was when I was sent to a boys home in florida, one which was later closed down for child abuse that I was grounded in the scriptures very hard core. During my 2 years there I had read the bible Gen-Rev 2 times straight through and I think we were in the gospels still when I ran away before I could a third time. I had even been forced to memorize almost 1200 verses from the KJV 1611 word for word and recite them with the threat of getting beat if I didnt, this was part of some of the practice we did there was memorize an amount of scripture and recite it by the end of each week, or there would be consequences.
This boys home was in panama city florida, and we traveled off the property to every state and attended many religious get togethers including camp meetings, missionary conferences, revival meetings, tent meetings. We did this to raise money as missionaries do for support, we would sing in front of congregations and they would take offerings for us during the services and write monthly checks to support us. We usually had on average on the days around 8-10 boys at a time. Well ran away from this boys home because it was a mental and physical hell.
Anyways, I had never once missed a single sunday morning, afternoon, and wednesday night servce ever untill I moved out of my mothers home, but still on my own I attended my local baptist church. Well late last year I decided to abandon the baptist faith because I began realizing they were taking much scripture out of context, and thier "once saved always saved" belief was wrong, the scripture clearly states that there are sins that automatically gives a hell sentence, and some verses say you are in danger if you commit certain sins.
So I had decided to abandon the baptist denomination and rely on god for understanding while reading the scriptures remembering the verse "if any of you lack wisdom lack him ask of god......and it shall be given him". So thats what I did, I decided to start over in the new testament and read with an open mind, to take everything litterally what jesus said, and if I was confused I would pray and ask for wisdom on the subject and what happened was very unexpected. I wanted to know how and what a person was to do to be saved, and stay saved throughout life. I end up finding out there was no one single way of being saved. I found jesus contradicting himself on this subject, claiming works, being baptised, being super righteous, and of course just having faith which contradicts the first several I mentioned.
What put the nail in the coffin with christianity is when I ran into james chapter 2, which funny enough I have the first 2 chaters memorized anyways, basically james flat out calls jesus a lair by telling the listeners that we are not to be decieved, that by works a man is justified, not by faith only, and the entire verse 14-26 emphesizes on this, that works have always been reuired along with faith. This completely discredited jesus when jesus said "for by grace are ye saved through faith and not of works, lest any man should boast". Jesus said he doesnt want us to rely on works at all for a reason, yet james said the opposite, and since james knew jesus and his teachings, to say this is no different than calling jesus a flat out liar.
I had enough contradictions between jesus and the apostles, I realized there was no way this jesus story could be credible if there were so many contradictions. I was always taught, and even believed the KJV 1611 was the perfect word of god, and in fact was the only translation that was inspired by god, and even went as far as being taught that other translations of the bible were of the devil lol.
My journey these last several months have been a ride, finding out how very wrong christianity is, and in fact I decided to learn about culture and religion around the world and throughout history and I have gotton to see the bigger picture, and I see now why religion as a whole is a lie, and cannot believe how so many humans have lived and died in the name of religion. Both people having sacrificed pleasures in life for the sake of thier religion, people who have suffered in the name of someone else's religion, and people killed for the sake of religious laws, and killed for practicing a false religion. saddens me.
I have been hell bent on youtube for these last several months to poke trillions of holes everyone I can find them in youtube videos, and I seem to have become very efficient at it, i get hundreds of likes all the time so I must be leaving some kind of impression LOL. Its thanks to first, knowing the bible as well as I do, and well rounding my knowledge about reality as well such as the truths behind the theory of evolution which im still leanring about thanks to aronra, and other sciences, and other subjects. Its helped me get a good picture painted about reality and of our history as a species, both physically and socially.
Thats my intro. feel free to ask me any questions, ide be happy to talk more about myself if you would like. Im not rebutting anything I mentioned here, we can do that in another part of the forum. I just wanted to find an atheist community today to get to chat and discuss things in. I got youtube videos to finish trolling in before the day ends lol.
I am almost 35 years old and this deconversion happened about 10 months ago. It happened for the same reason so many had, and thats because I read the bible, but for me it wasnt the first time I had read it, it was merely the first time I read it with an open mind and doing so allowed me to find the folly of my lifelong beliefs.
Ok to explain my upbringing, I was raised by a mother was was baptist, and the only churches we would attend were independant fundamentalist baptist churches. It was in cape coral florida for the first 7 years of my life untill we moved to jamestown new york, and of course we joined the same denomination in this town. it was when I was sent to a boys home in florida, one which was later closed down for child abuse that I was grounded in the scriptures very hard core. During my 2 years there I had read the bible Gen-Rev 2 times straight through and I think we were in the gospels still when I ran away before I could a third time. I had even been forced to memorize almost 1200 verses from the KJV 1611 word for word and recite them with the threat of getting beat if I didnt, this was part of some of the practice we did there was memorize an amount of scripture and recite it by the end of each week, or there would be consequences.
This boys home was in panama city florida, and we traveled off the property to every state and attended many religious get togethers including camp meetings, missionary conferences, revival meetings, tent meetings. We did this to raise money as missionaries do for support, we would sing in front of congregations and they would take offerings for us during the services and write monthly checks to support us. We usually had on average on the days around 8-10 boys at a time. Well ran away from this boys home because it was a mental and physical hell.
Anyways, I had never once missed a single sunday morning, afternoon, and wednesday night servce ever untill I moved out of my mothers home, but still on my own I attended my local baptist church. Well late last year I decided to abandon the baptist faith because I began realizing they were taking much scripture out of context, and thier "once saved always saved" belief was wrong, the scripture clearly states that there are sins that automatically gives a hell sentence, and some verses say you are in danger if you commit certain sins.
So I had decided to abandon the baptist denomination and rely on god for understanding while reading the scriptures remembering the verse "if any of you lack wisdom lack him ask of god......and it shall be given him". So thats what I did, I decided to start over in the new testament and read with an open mind, to take everything litterally what jesus said, and if I was confused I would pray and ask for wisdom on the subject and what happened was very unexpected. I wanted to know how and what a person was to do to be saved, and stay saved throughout life. I end up finding out there was no one single way of being saved. I found jesus contradicting himself on this subject, claiming works, being baptised, being super righteous, and of course just having faith which contradicts the first several I mentioned.
What put the nail in the coffin with christianity is when I ran into james chapter 2, which funny enough I have the first 2 chaters memorized anyways, basically james flat out calls jesus a lair by telling the listeners that we are not to be decieved, that by works a man is justified, not by faith only, and the entire verse 14-26 emphesizes on this, that works have always been reuired along with faith. This completely discredited jesus when jesus said "for by grace are ye saved through faith and not of works, lest any man should boast". Jesus said he doesnt want us to rely on works at all for a reason, yet james said the opposite, and since james knew jesus and his teachings, to say this is no different than calling jesus a flat out liar.
I had enough contradictions between jesus and the apostles, I realized there was no way this jesus story could be credible if there were so many contradictions. I was always taught, and even believed the KJV 1611 was the perfect word of god, and in fact was the only translation that was inspired by god, and even went as far as being taught that other translations of the bible were of the devil lol.
My journey these last several months have been a ride, finding out how very wrong christianity is, and in fact I decided to learn about culture and religion around the world and throughout history and I have gotton to see the bigger picture, and I see now why religion as a whole is a lie, and cannot believe how so many humans have lived and died in the name of religion. Both people having sacrificed pleasures in life for the sake of thier religion, people who have suffered in the name of someone else's religion, and people killed for the sake of religious laws, and killed for practicing a false religion. saddens me.
I have been hell bent on youtube for these last several months to poke trillions of holes everyone I can find them in youtube videos, and I seem to have become very efficient at it, i get hundreds of likes all the time so I must be leaving some kind of impression LOL. Its thanks to first, knowing the bible as well as I do, and well rounding my knowledge about reality as well such as the truths behind the theory of evolution which im still leanring about thanks to aronra, and other sciences, and other subjects. Its helped me get a good picture painted about reality and of our history as a species, both physically and socially.
Thats my intro. feel free to ask me any questions, ide be happy to talk more about myself if you would like. Im not rebutting anything I mentioned here, we can do that in another part of the forum. I just wanted to find an atheist community today to get to chat and discuss things in. I got youtube videos to finish trolling in before the day ends lol.
