Your Testimony
Dave,
I am a new "freethinker" per se. I really like your testimony on the Exchristian.net website. I have never sit down and put together a "testimony". But if I did it would be similar to yours when you describe the years of diligence studying of the Word that you did. I spend most of my live in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist church environment (I'm 35 now). As I read your "testimony" I could identify with everything you wrote. I look back now at the number of years I spent in the church and I wouldn't change a thing. That may sound funny but I look at that time in the church as a test. I waged a war of the mind through a controlling belief system that few overcome. Think about it Dave, we're free and on the other side of this religionist illusion now. Millions of people will never escape because they are afraid or refuse to think and ask the question that we did.
For years I was suspicious of religious fraud, toward the end of my fundamentalism I no longer really believed the Genesis garden account and The Myth of the Great Flood. I knew that the "rapture" was a nineteenth century invention and that 95% of the Jews in Israel today are descended from converts of 8th century CE Khazaria so the prophecies about the end of the world thing is a hoax. I really started digging for answer. By pure change I read an article at the bookstore about Astro-Theology entitled The Origins of Christianity and Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ. I wondered how all these years I never heard about the Pagan origins of the Christ myth Not until I started looking for the whole truth was I able to find the truth at all.
In the fall 1999 Hurricane Floyd was heading straight for the Florida coast where I live. I'm glad that Hurricane Floyd didn't turn west and destroy my home like Andrew did to hundreds of people in Miami 1992. Yet Floyd did hit the Bible belt state of North Carolina, costing them millions of dollars in damage. After everything in Florida had calmed down from the hurricane. I remember sitting in Sunday School and hearing the Sunday School teacher say "We need to thank Jesus for answering our prayers and delivering us from hurricane Floyd". When the instructor said that, I had had enough of that mentality, the camel's back was broke, I haven't returned since. Thinking about what the teacher was saying. Are the prayers of Floridians more righteous than those from someone from North Carolina? Maybe since there are more people in Florida we just out prayed them and turned to storm toward North Carolina.
Steve W
Thanks for your letter Steve.
I agree with you completely. I also miss many of my friends from my Christian days. Unfortunately most of them severed their ties with me altogether, believing by so doing they are obeying Christ. Dogmatic religion is not friendly to those who leave it's harsh grasp.
I think discovering how much Paganism has been infused in Christianity, how the very roots of Christianity are nothing but pagan, is a fascinating study. I wonder at times if the plethora of bible teachers and preachers out there really have no clue about it, or simply keep it to themselves. I am amazed at the ignorance which abounds concerning the origins and relative lateness of the Rapture Eschatological theories, taught everywhere as fact. Right now I am reading Carl Sagan's book, The Demon Haunted World. We humans just love to have our fantasies, it appears.
Anyway, welcome to a growing number of people waking up to reality, and thanks again for the affirmation.
Dave VanAllen
I am a new "freethinker" per se. I really like your testimony on the Exchristian.net website. I have never sit down and put together a "testimony". But if I did it would be similar to yours when you describe the years of diligence studying of the Word that you did. I spend most of my live in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist church environment (I'm 35 now). As I read your "testimony" I could identify with everything you wrote. I look back now at the number of years I spent in the church and I wouldn't change a thing. That may sound funny but I look at that time in the church as a test. I waged a war of the mind through a controlling belief system that few overcome. Think about it Dave, we're free and on the other side of this religionist illusion now. Millions of people will never escape because they are afraid or refuse to think and ask the question that we did.
For years I was suspicious of religious fraud, toward the end of my fundamentalism I no longer really believed the Genesis garden account and The Myth of the Great Flood. I knew that the "rapture" was a nineteenth century invention and that 95% of the Jews in Israel today are descended from converts of 8th century CE Khazaria so the prophecies about the end of the world thing is a hoax. I really started digging for answer. By pure change I read an article at the bookstore about Astro-Theology entitled The Origins of Christianity and Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ. I wondered how all these years I never heard about the Pagan origins of the Christ myth Not until I started looking for the whole truth was I able to find the truth at all.
In the fall 1999 Hurricane Floyd was heading straight for the Florida coast where I live. I'm glad that Hurricane Floyd didn't turn west and destroy my home like Andrew did to hundreds of people in Miami 1992. Yet Floyd did hit the Bible belt state of North Carolina, costing them millions of dollars in damage. After everything in Florida had calmed down from the hurricane. I remember sitting in Sunday School and hearing the Sunday School teacher say "We need to thank Jesus for answering our prayers and delivering us from hurricane Floyd". When the instructor said that, I had had enough of that mentality, the camel's back was broke, I haven't returned since. Thinking about what the teacher was saying. Are the prayers of Floridians more righteous than those from someone from North Carolina? Maybe since there are more people in Florida we just out prayed them and turned to storm toward North Carolina.
Steve W
Thanks for your letter Steve.
I agree with you completely. I also miss many of my friends from my Christian days. Unfortunately most of them severed their ties with me altogether, believing by so doing they are obeying Christ. Dogmatic religion is not friendly to those who leave it's harsh grasp.
I think discovering how much Paganism has been infused in Christianity, how the very roots of Christianity are nothing but pagan, is a fascinating study. I wonder at times if the plethora of bible teachers and preachers out there really have no clue about it, or simply keep it to themselves. I am amazed at the ignorance which abounds concerning the origins and relative lateness of the Rapture Eschatological theories, taught everywhere as fact. Right now I am reading Carl Sagan's book, The Demon Haunted World. We humans just love to have our fantasies, it appears.
Anyway, welcome to a growing number of people waking up to reality, and thanks again for the affirmation.
Dave VanAllen
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