Why aren't you a Christian?

[chisto]

Hey guys, this is a sincere question.

I like to look into concerns that people raise regarding Christianity.

Also, if there were any compelling reasons that prompted you to transition into atheism from Christianity I would be very interested to hear those as well.

Thanks for your time and responses.

The reason for my transition from christianity to atheism? I think de-convert is an appropriate title (and was a site where I spent a lot of late nights browsing and reading forums).

I was born into a christian household. My father was a youth minister in his younger years. I was a worship leader for almost 8 years in the church that I grew up in.

Hmm, lets see. It always bothered me that all the holy days that where celebrated where originally pagan holidays that the church incorporated into christianity to get the pagans to go along.

I remember the first time I questioned the biblical foundation of an institutional church and asked how doing things through an institutional church was any better than just going out and doing them ourselves. I voiced this once on facebook and this got me in a little bit of trouble with a pastor.

I dated a 'non-christian' for 5 years (was engaged for 4 years) and the moment we started planning the wedding date my pastor out of the blue told me that if I married her I would be asked to step down from praise and worship and threw 2 Corinthians at me. Then he said that, 'we'll cross that road if you choose to marry her'. I decided to leave rather than wait around and see what would happen. Oh, then after I left he went on and married two people together who had both been previously divorced, but neither had divorced because of adultery.

The good part of this was that it made me open my bible and really read it for the first time. The first thing that bugged was when reading through the gospels and noticed that Matthew and Luke both had different lineages for Jesus. No one really has any concrete reason for this and this started a trend of questions without concrete answers.

Lets see... The gospel writers where Greek, reading translated copies of the TNK whose translations where not yet set in stone (and Matthew kind of jumped the gun on the whole 'virgin' prophecy thing). Ask a Jew if being born of a virgin is a requirement for their messiah.

The Jews in the OT had no concept of afterlife or hell but believed EVERYBODY went to Sheol or 'the pit' (also, the 'unknown'). They eventually learned about from their neighbors (the Greeks).

Then I started looking at philosophical side of things and wondered why an all loving god would even create hell, and a people with free will and the ability to sin... and then punish them if they exercise that free will.

I always kind of wondered why angels, who where already in heaven, would want to revolt... unless the place wasn't all that great. (Probably no beer.)

All the cultural genocides said to be committed in the OT by Moses and his crew are a pretty good idea of how 'just and loving' the god of the bible is.

After many conversations with fellow believers (some of whom have also de-converted since) I one day decided that obviously the god of the bible doesn't exist and shortly thereafter I decided that no gods existence could be proven.

I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. Last November was when I became a de-convert and my atheism has grown stronger since. I kind of went longer than I expected... I apologize if I rambled.