Image by Mrs eNil via Flickr A letter from Transman To all the believers and religious people who come here, I have some small advice for understanding. Quoting Bible verses to us, offering websites and books of apologetics, and trying to bring other arguments or pseudo (or fraud) claims of proof, will not change anything. As many of us have said before, try comparing it with Santa Claus or other fantasy creatures of our childhood. Once you know that they are really just a fantasy, you cannot go back to believing, even if you tried or really, really wanted to. I can't imagine that anyone on this forum would ever go back. Also, to help you a little further, look at the big picture. Most people don't want to insult you, hurt your feelings, or be in any way negative to you, as a person. Often however, when someone says something negative about your particular religion, faith, denomination or god-person, you are personally offended, because you identify with this god, you treat th...

Image by Rayani Melo via Flickr A letter from Evelyn Thank you for this website. I was in pain and searching on line for something, and I decided to search for Jesus is a lie, and I found your website. I read the testimonials, and they sounded like my story. I will write a full story of my experience later but today I would like to share an experience I had Wednesday, December 17. I had spent the morning praying for all of my friends, family, and God's forgiveness. The illusion did help me feel better for a while. I went to my volunteer job and I do not know what happened. A customer was telling me how she looks on the positive side and how it took her a long time to learn. Then she started giving me advice about a joining a bible study. My response shocked myself. I proceeded to tell that I thought God was a sadistic son of a bitch and that Mary had sex with a man and got pregnant, and I would defend anyone's right to be negative. I said more things. I was angry. I told her ...

From B.R. Christianity is an ethos that penetrates all of life and provides answers that are useful in some cases. For example, answers about how to deal with bitterness that otherwise in a bad case of bitterness would eat someone alive, like a bad cavity that eventually abscesses. If Christianity is not true, and someone comes to recognize that, they still have the problems that Christianity tried to solve, but they are without a solution any longer. While Christianity may not have been correct, was at least practical and useful at some level (Christianity would not exist were it not useful at some level for solving the problems of the human condition . It transcends the mere critiques of Marx or Nietzsche for example). At the same time, I am not saying that we should follow a system, or indeed, give our lives for something that is not correct. In fact, the formerly Christian and now agnostic's position in practical terms seems temporarily at least worse, and rather dangerou...

Image by assbach via Flickr From Paul D I would like to say a big Scottish thank you to all the people whom have written testimonies that have been so helpful and comforting to me. My own story is rather long and complicated, and I need to think about how to word things before I go ahead. Until then I am writing this as a reply to all the Christians who write comments on this site in order to convince, scare or browbeat us back in to Christianity. Christians, you are completely missing the point by quoting Bible verses and trying to reason with us, and this is the reason why: You Christians claim to have had a wonderful, life-changing experience, in which the Holy Spirit now lives in you and has given you the very nature of Christ. You say you are full of the Holy Spirit, you are transformed, made anew, born again, etc., and have the love and grace of God in your hearts, and so on. The reason your words fall on deaf ears is not because Satan has deceived us, but because you are...

Image via Wikipedia A letter from DJ I am coming to feel less and less at home here in the Bible Belt , and I wondered if anyone could make a suggestion as to a good place to raise my kids religion-neutral, without being harassed and looked down upon. The more specific the better. Thanks.

Image by Stephen Poff via Flickr From Emily Listen to your mind, and not your heart; The pumping of blood is not an art. Not by design or purpose, intent, Were the systems of your body meant. By natural cause they came to be, Just as you are, and all you see. As by nature we are discerned, From nature can our place be learned. A cousin to all that lives today, We are unique... In one percent of our DNA ! I hope everyone enjoyed this off-the-cuff poetry, inspired by the " Listen to Your Heart " post. This is my first of hopefully many submissions here on ExChristian.net. Though I post only once in a blue moon, I check the site every day for everyone's very insightful comments. You folks have encouraged me to stop being the timid, credulous girl I once was, and become the independent-minded woman I am today. I'm looking forward to posting my ex-timony after finals. :D -Emily

From Jackie i pity those who do not listen to their hearts, but furthermore, who do not listen to Christ. Most of you have been Christians or at least "believers" for most of your lives. How is it, that NOW you decide to turn away from God? Has He not been there for you since He came to you? Have you not any wisdom when Satan is deceiving you? God has shown you the truth, yet you still deny Him. Listen to your hearts. Put all the worldly things aside, and truly listen from within. ...then what do you hear? God Bless

A letter from Jesse I found this site through a search i did on google. I started reading through some of the testimonies and was really interested so i kept on reading. I actually am a Christian, but i'd like to share my testimony as well as long as its alright. I grew up going to church a couple times but by family wasnt really the church going type. My family ended up leaving the church because the pastor was stealing from it and doing other corrupt things. It wasn't until i was a Softmore in high school that i ever went back to a church and i only went there because i was invited by a girl i liked at the time. I ended up staying, very skeptical but at the same time i had met some great people so i kept coming back. My softmore summer i went to a camp and asked Jesus if he was real to show me, and if he did i would follow him. I began crying as i felt an extreme happiness. Come over me, it felt so right. So I took a leap and gave my life to Jesus. Later during that camp i wo...

Roman statue of the goddess Luna/Selene . Image via Wikipedia From James As I have been reviewing many of the articles on this website I have noticed something that needs to be addressed. Like many of the people here I have had a religious past - Christianity, New Age , Unity, and Wicca . The one thing I have noticed a lot in the articles is the equating of the discrepancies in the Bible with proof of the non-existence of a deity . Disproving the Bible does in no way disprove god. It only disproves the divine authorship of the Bible. Disproving any particular religion does not disprove god either. Religion, and religious texts, are the by-product of people who ponder the questions about god/gods and how they interact with man. What began as innocent stories and speculations, over time became sacred texts and then religions. This is undoubtedly where the bible came from. Bible criticism has brought many bible facts to light through research and very timely investigations. Many are tu...

A letter from Benny This website is pathetic...You bash pastors for asking money for their religion and you have a donate button right on the front page... If you left Christianity and have no religion then there is no reason to recruit anyone else... what is it going to win you? A darker non-existence when you die? What then, if you "express" your non-christianity then you get to be some kind of spooky ghost that floats around the earth after you die? Just another attempt at making money, just like you are accusing church people of doing...sad, so sad... And I had hoped people really were sincere about their religious doubt, but you fools just are hoping to capitalize on it...figures...

From Matthew I have been de-converted for around three months now. It's actually been much better leaving a religion that had scarred me emotionally. Primarily, I had an emotional reason for questioning the religion. Now, through my journey, I am compelled to think about answers to What about earth and the human race? Don't these things witness to some kinda higher power? How do we rationalise that? What do we hold onto when facing problems in life? How do we endure it, and what do we hold onto? How do we get finally out of this religion thing once and for all? I don't want to go back into the shell for reason because of fear or unfulfilled answers, but I want to be free totally & be at peace with my existence. Looking forward to your comments.

From John I Googled ' Catholic lies' to see what would come up ... and here I am, with you. I was reared catholic and ditched the insanity of catholicism as soon as I could. why? well, if the teachers of Christianity taught by slapping the crap out of kids and kicking them (a priest in high school almost broke my shin bone), I wasn't going to be much of a student. Catholicism has nothing to do with faith or spirituality and everything to do with the collection of wealth and political power. The church's methods have been among the most brutal in history. speaking of history, a good primer is the book on Faith, part of Will Durant 's brilliant series, " The Story of Civilization ." I like what my Aunt Ruth, your typical intelligent, educated, thinking and thoughtful atheist says, when speaking about the ideas of gods: Why all the mystery? did this intergalactic hero really need to create an earth and solar system billions of years ago and then only 2000 y...

Sent in by Jason I just discovered this website today. I wish I had found it about a year ago. I recently moved from Tucson, AZ to a small town in central WA. I grew up in the Midwest and was a devout Christian until I was 15. I finally realized then that I was surrounded by hypocrites and people judging my every move. Now I am happily married to a woman who had a similar upbringing. Christianity was shoved in her face until she couldn't take the B.S. anymore either. We were married in Tucson where we had lots of friends with very similar beliefs and a good support system. We have a beautiful 5-year-old daughter and wanted to live in a small town in the Pacific Northwest . We live in the best school district with small class sizes, and there is virtually no crime here! We live a modest life, and we both have good jobs. Our neighbors have three kids 16, 9 and a 5-year-old. They are a very nice family from Mexico with whom we let our 5-year-old go over and play. Our daugh...

From Jonathan I have been viewing the posts on this site for a couple of months now. I feel very connected to the people and the stories that I read on here. I would say that I am a spiritual person that leans towards humanitarian thinking (I have not studied it much) and more agnostic than atheist. I was going to a United Church of Christ church and loved the spiritualism there, but not the push to be a liberal activist. With that little sliver of who I am I want to know how everyone has survived there families that are worried about them, praying for them, still believe god has a plan for your life and that it will manifest itself. I have turned to my parents as of late for support because I have been living a desperate, unplanned (without goals) life for the past 10 years (I am 32). I have struggled with addiction issues these past 10 years too (I have a theory that this happens to a lot of people raised as I was) and have tried 12 step groups, but I found that they reminded me ...

From ML I was a Christian. Jesus was my rock, my world, my everything. My curious mind got the better of me. I found that Jesus was the sun. And now I don't know what to hold on to!!! I know the truth now! Where to, from here???? Child of Horus , Mithra , Krishna , Dionysus , Jesus....