Predictable, but excellent reading! -- <font size = "4">The Drunks Bar </font size "4">

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Date Posted: 21:32:51 05/12/03 Mon
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Predictable, but excellent reading!

For those who haven't had a chance, or would not previously read some very emotionally packed reasons why someone has decided not to remain a X-tian, the following is reposted especially for you:

Why I am no longer a Christian

After careful deliberation, I've decided to post this little essay in several spots. For some people it is background, for some people I suppose it is a challenge or thumbing my nose at you. All depends on your world view I suppose.

I clearly remember my first prayer. I was three years old. I'd been left alone in a room in front of a picture of people and buildings burning in hell, with a big white cross stretched out over it and happy families walking into heaven. Shaking with fear, I begged Jesus not to let me burn in hell forever and ever. Thus I got "saved."
I memorized Bible verses, watered the flowers because Jesus made the flowers and I should take care of them, went to church, tithed, prayed sveral times a day, prayed, was beaten frequently for my transgressions, and would tearfully thank Jesus afterwards for having loving parents willing to so painfully teach me about sin. I went to a Christian school, was taught what was right and wrong.
I received the gift of tongues when I was 8 years old. Later that day, I received my first clue as to what was going on around me, although I wasn't able to put it into context until much later. I was very unpopular. The other good little Christian children teased me mercilessly everytime a teacher was not around. We went into the chapel as a group to ask God for the gift of tongues. I sat there quietly with the rest of the class and suddenly this indescribalbly joyful feeling swept over me. It took a few minutes for me to realize I was speaking but couldn't understand anything I was saying. I also realized I was crying from joy.
As the day went on, I would find myself still talking in this strange language, without conscious volition. And then I went around a corner and there was a group of children who had also been in the chapel with me and received praise and adulation for having received the gift of tongues as well. "Look," sneered one of the group. "She's still acting happy. What's wrong with her?" This confused me. How could they not feel happy? It was years before it occurred to me they had all been faking it. But I had not.

Things went on, years went by. We left the church we were attending to join a church started by a friend of ours, because they had decided the church we attended was not truly right with God. Together we started a new church all on fire for God and all of that. I helped teach Sunday School to the younger children. I was 10 years old. We didn't celebrate Halloween. We didn't listen to the radio. We didn't have cable. We shut out all that was "worldly." We went to Mardi Gras to hand out tracts to people (yes, I really did!) When I asked God for forgiveness of my sins, I made sure to ask to be forgiven for both concious and unconcious sin, lest I have committed sin unawares.

I could go on and on with this, but the main purpose of the background info here is that, in spite of what hard-hearted "christians" have told me, I was indeed "really" Christian, sincerely, utterly. Not perfect obviously, but continually striving to be closer to God and to do his will, even though even the other church goers despised me and mocked me.

Then one day my stepfather began to molest me.

At first I didn't know what to do, how to react. He gave me an order. Well, I was supposed to obey my parents. He explained to me that this was not a sin since he was not physically related to me. I was confused. I didn't know what to do. I got away for a few minutes and in the privacy of my room I prayed to God to stop this terrible thing from happening.

Well guess what? Nothing happened. The phone didn't ring. My mother didn't wake up. Nothing happened to distract him from his evil intent. I won't go into detail here except to say a lot of things happened. A week later, I finally protested while he was abusing me. Later that day he asked me to come into my room and shut the door. He then said he wanted to apologize because he 'spoke with god' and realized what he did was wrong. He then went on to say that if I didn't forgive him, I would be equally guilty with him and would go to hell. And if I told anyone what had happenned, it would show I hadn't forgiven him. And it would tear the family apart, and that would be a sin on my conscience. And that his soul was pure and clean now since he's repented, and any further problems were all on me basically.

So now I started to have some problems. I couldn't forget what had happened. I couldn't forget that God had ignored my plea for help just when I needed him most. I now felt seperated from God for being angry about having been abused. And there was no one I could talk to. If I did talk to anyone, I would be sinning by disobeying my stepfather. I was confused. Had I committed adultery with him against my mother? I looked in the Bible for comfort and found none. Either what happened was not a sin by any verse I could find, or if it was I was equally a sinner with him.

I decided God had ignored my prayers because I hadn't been a good enough Christian. Then followed several years of frantically trying anything I could to be be a better Christian. But whatever I did I could not feel GOd, could not find an answer. I went to church, took notes, prayed and prayed and prayed. I kept meticulous records throughout the day of every sin I committed and listed each one as I asked for forgiveness at night.

When I was 15 I was sent to boarding school. An unusual thing happened - I made friends! Soon I had more friends than I'd ever had in my life. I joined the Christian youth organization and also made a lot of friends in my dorm.

One day I was talking with one of my friends and she revealed that she was not Christian. I was shocked and concerned and tried to conince her of the rightness of Christianity. She didn't listen. I went back to my room and tried to work this out in my head. I was very concerned. Should I keep talking to her and try to show her the light of Christ? Or should I eschew her friendship so she did not drag me down into sin with her?

I brought the problem to another one of my friends. They told me they were not Christian either. Now I was truly disturbed. I had assumed all of my friends were Christians - after all, they were all well-behaved and nice! I knew, because I had been taught, that all non-Christians were loud, crude, mean hearted and utterly lacking in any qualities which I would find appealing. I took a poll. NONE of the good friends I made were Christian.

Meanwhile, in the Christian youth group I had joined, I couldn't get close to anyone there. The longer I belonged to their group, the more put-off I was by their holier than thou attitude to the other kids on campus. If I were to pick a word to describe them, it would be "snobs." This became even more confusing. Wasn't being closer to Jesus supposed to make you more loving and pleasant to be around? This was nothing like a Chick Tract!

I began discussing this with my friends who were not Christian. I explanied the risk of going to hell if I did not believe. They asked, quiote logically, what evidence I had to go on. Why, the Bible, of course. But how does one know the Bible is true? Why, the Bible says the Bible is true! But is there any proof outside of the Bible to prove its veracity? Well... no, actually.

Well, not being stupid, I had to see the logic of this. Of course, I still had an emotional attachement to Christianity. But the longer I observed things going on around me, the more I saw that Christians punished: independent thinkers; anyone who questioned its precepts; all women; all intelligent people; all non-conformists; and everyone who disagreed with them in any way. This was exactly opposite what I had been taught about Jesus - that he wanted people to love and care for one another.

In other words, Christianity is a farce, and Christians a pack of hypocritical liars.

I get Christinas who try to convince me tht this is not true from time to time. None of them are ever able to make any reasonable argument in their favor. They fall back on old standards: Well, I must have prayed in the wrong way when I asked God to help save me from my stepfather' abuse. Excuse me? God is sitting up there with a checklist of all the "correct" things a child is supposed to say and feel while praying for help out of a desperate situation? They tell me: well those people weren't real Christians. Excuse me? The hundreds and hundreds of people I met who went to church, were ministers, read the Bible and lived by its laws weren't Christians? They say, Well, od allows people free will so of course he wouldn't have stopped youre stepfather from doing those things. Excuse me? God never intervenes to save children because it might intervene with some predators 'free will'? WELL WHAT GOOD IS HE THEN?

The excuses Christians make for God's bad behavior go on and on, the excuses they make for other Christians bad behavior go on and on. Funny, there are excuses for everyone but me. NOT ONE SINGLE CHRISTIAN HAS EVER HAD COMPASSION FOR ME. When I was supporting myself and my young son by reading tarot cards on the streets, CHRISTIANS came to the square and verbally abused me, sometimes physically assaulted me and destroyed my belongings, chased my business away. NONE OF THEM EVER OFFERED TO HELP ME OUT OF MY SITUATION. Even when I asked them for help, they told me I just had to quit working and wait for God to send me a miracle. Well, if God couldn't bother with me when I was ahelpless child and a devout Christian, why would he bother now?

The truth of the matter is that there is no big dude in the sky running things. The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. It is not backed up my logic or by my experience in life. There is absolutely no reason why I should buy into this tripe. Yes, then the Christians bring up the last trick in their bag - FEAR OF HELL. "What if you're wrong?" they slyly ask, hoping to make me start trembling with fear and fall to my knees to repent. All I can say to that is - fear is a bad, bad reason to pick a religion. And that's all it is, a religion like so many others. Lots of religions say you are damned if you choose the wrong path. Some guy god is - he puts hundreds of religions in a humas path and then promises to burn you for all eternity if you make the wrong choice! What a guy!

What a crock.

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Replies:

Just wonderin' who the author is.... -- Leo P�tsch, 11:38:58 05/14/03 Wed
- General identity -- NKLS Cody, 11:25:30 05/15/03 Thu
  - Hopin' for a happy ending -- Leo P, 15:43:59 05/20/03 Tue