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Announcement
.: posted Sunday, November 30, 2003 by the WebMaster

ExChristian.Net is in the process of having most of the files switched to another server.

The site will continue to be online during this transition, however, occasional errors may crop up, as well as dead links, and a few comments by posters may be lost due to allowing the site to stay on line while changes are underway.

Please be patient during this time.

The change over will be as expeditious as possible.

The Beginning of My Long, Regretful, Unfinished Story (Rough Draft)
.: posted Saturday, November 29, 2003 by the WebMaster

sent in by Aaron Alahverde

Sometimes I wonder how accurate life stories can be. Some people play up one aspect of their life and the rest just seems to disappear into nothingness. As of now, this story seems to end with the subject being incredibly dissatisfied with what he's done with the first twenty-three years of his life. He, like many, hasn't even reached up even to the level of mediocrity...

I was raised primarily in Assemblies of God and Rhema churches. Like a typical child raised in a hardcore Christian home I didn't take church very seriously. I had my reasons. I had the typical unanswered questions such as "Why did God make Lucifer?", "How do I know I'm worshipping the right god?" and the like. Eventually I ignored my questions; assuming that the scholars had good answers for them. "I'll leave them to handle questions like that." I thought to myself. Making that conclusion I let myself get sucked into the culture of it all.

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Hey
.: posted Saturday, November 29, 2003 by the WebMaster

Really like what you've done here! Quite an exhaustive site . . . okay, enough of the BS. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind linking my site on yours -- whereever you deem appropriate (just not under the nude pictures section, please! LOL!). I will do the same for yours on my next web-update.

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Hello Webmaster
.: posted Friday, November 28, 2003 by the WebMaster

I love your site; it's been very helpful to me in trying to leave christianity. I say trying to, because it's very difficult. My main fear is that I'm making a huge mistake. It is causing a huge deal of cognative dissonance - my mind doesn't believe a word of it but my emotions are harder to convince. You can read my 'testimony' under your forums page. It is called Still trying to Leave.

The thing I have a huge problem with is speaking in tongues. Everything else from Christianity I can see as a lie, or sometimes as a story, along the same lines as Father Christmas, and Fairies. But why can I still speak in tongues?

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Forum is Back Up
.: posted Friday, November 28, 2003 by the WebMaster

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday!

The forums are back up and running. Hopefully the server issues have been effectively resolved.

I’ll take your freak and your heretic and raise you a sheep
.: posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 by the WebMaster

sent in by Erin

You could say that I was raised in the church. I was christened as a baby, I attended scripture classes at school on Thursday mornings from Kindergarten to Year 5 (church and state are not separate in Australia by any means), and my family attended church regularly when I was in Year 4 (yes, it was only for one year). I was even yanked out of the local public school at the age of eleven and a half and enrolled in the local campus of the largest Christian school in the area. At that highly impressionable age, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I ‘knuckled down’ and worked hard, I even willingly attended the start-of-year church service four years in a row, and I went to the local youth group every Friday night from Year 7 to Year 10 (at two different churches mind you – the Anglican church down the road and the Uniting church in the middle of town). But at the very beginning of 2000, my impressions of the church began to change.

For those of you who never attended a Christian school, take my word for it – it is not all it is cracked up to be. Religion is a part of each and every lesson. And I mean each and every. English, Mathematics, languages, Science, it doesn’t matter. And we were FORCED to sit in our roll call rooms while our roll call teachers dished out lie after lie. The teachers at the school I attended are hypocrites and completely insensitive to the students’ needs. They would tell the students to act like good little Christians, and when the students’ backs were turned they themselves would do the complete opposite. And for someone like me, whose self-esteem had already been destroyed by six torturous years in the public school system, who was far too trusting for their own good, and who was insecure both psychologically and emotionally, it was hell on earth. I contemplated suicide in the middle of Year 9, was depressed (but never diagnosed) for the remainder of high school, and tried my damnedest to be sent back to public school from Year 8 onwards. I pretty much just gave up on school – I didn’t want to be there, nor did I care whether I passed or failed.

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Black Heathen
.: posted Thursday, November 27, 2003 by the WebMaster

No need for a long story.I just observed that no one could boast being any better off than the next Church,Temple,Mosque or Synagogue. It was apparent that we are all just spinning our wheels in intellectual dishonesty.

Combine this with the fast that the Happiest people ive ever seen are Children before the God disease takes root. It was plain to see we try too hard to find things that are not lost.

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Leaving Charismania/leaving Christianity
.: posted Monday, November 24, 2003 by the WebMaster

I am a 23 year old from the Dallas area. I have always been drawn to religion, even as a child. I would prefer as a kid to read a good book about world religions than to go play baseball with the other boys. In any case, this extreme fascination with "spiritual things" has also inflicted a lot of psychological damage, I am convinced.

I grew up in a split home. On certain weekends, I would attend the religious science church, Christian Science Church, and Unitarian church with my Mother. On other weekends, I would attend the non-denominational Charismatic/pentecostal Church with my father. Dad became a "born again Christian" after the divorce. Pain will lead you to some absurd extremes.


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Where are the pictures?
.: posted Sunday, November 23, 2003 by the WebMaster

All Picture Galleries are temporarily down due to a server issue. The problem is being addressed.

Betrayal of Heart and Mind
.: posted Sunday, November 23, 2003 by the WebMaster

sent in by Maria

This is quite a long and terrible story, and I hope readers will forgive any lack of articulation or misspellings.

>From the very beginning, I was born into a life of difficulty and hardship. I was born the oldest child, into a household of domestic abuse, alcoholism-- my father was in and out of the picture after age 4-- in and out of jail for drugs, abuse toward my mother, ect. Due to these troubles, my mom temporarily decided to seek help and counsel by attending a local Baptist church. The pastor, a real Man of God, instructed my mother to do the will of god and submit, to reconcile with my abusive father-- at least until he finally put her head through our back door and she was rushed to the hospital after fleeing with myself and my younger brother and sister-- the church didn't quite know how to respond to that, though they would eventually come up with some very interesting solutions. Sometime in the middle of these happenings, I remember attending an "adult" service for the first time-- there was no one there to do children's church that evening and so I sat with my mother, at 5, and listened to the preacher scream. I do not remember what compelled me to go up to the altar at that age. But I did. And I remember praying with the ministers wife. O Please Forgive My Five Year Old Sins!

Anyway, after my father was sentenced to 45 days in jail (reduced sentence) for putting my mother in the hospital, and after my mother felt that she was temporarily safe from him (we had gone to a women's shelter for almost the entire second half of my first grade year-- I completed most the assignments at the shelter and my mom would mail them back to the elementary school) we stopped going to church on Sundays and begin going to a beach about an hour north. For awhile, I forgot about god, but before long I was wondering why we stopped going-- a mystery that would remain so for several more years. In the meanwhile, my father was in and out of jail for various things-- mom had a restraining order against him but he still came around. There were several things going on at the same time-- I for one, was diagnosed with a rare syndrome and had two major reconstructive surgeries before age 11- meanwhile my dad did things like-- jump our car and try to kidnap us on memorial day, then broke into the house one night and beat my mother nearly unconscious against the bathroom door--

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Psychology of Deconversion
.: posted Saturday, November 22, 2003 by the WebMaster

sent in by Kevin

I’m wondering if anybody else out there has experienced anything similar to what I went through when I renounced “the Faith.”

When I first realized that I had sold my soul to a lie and was living my life for a future promise of everlasting life that was probably bogus I found myself with a problem. On the one hand, I felt wonderfully liberated from an enslaving mythology. I had become the captain of my own ship, and aside from chance circumstances that I cannot control, I was more or less back in charge of my life.

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Doggie Nativity Set
.: posted Saturday, November 22, 2003 by the WebMaster

Just in time for Christmas! It's the Doggie Nativity Set.

Now if ExChristian.Net had come up with an idea like this, it would undoubtedly be boycotted or at least accused of being purposefully blasphemous. I get the distinct impression that there are a whole bunch of cuddly Christians out there who think this Nativity is just the cutest thing.

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Hell's Expanding Borders
.: posted Saturday, November 22, 2003 by the WebMaster

sent in by Hawman

I have heard more than one preacher make the statement that “ Hell’s borders are constantly having to be expanded because so many are dying in their sins!”

After reading the front-page article of my local newspaper and seeing its corresponding web page, I know it’s true. At least the expanding borders part. The headline trumps, Hawkins County Commission Set To Consider Resolution Recognizing God.

Just recently our state legislators wisely denied a state resolution, so now our wonderful local elected officials think they need to take up the cause. I wish that I could shortly report that they decided the state officials were right, but I fear that won’t be the result in this god-fearing little town! Just like terrorists, you get rid of one and three more pop up!

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What Would Jesus Drive?
.: posted Friday, November 21, 2003 by the WebMaster

At first glance this seems like a joke, but the people at whatwouldjesusdrive.org are totally serious about it. It appears that the Environmentalist's message has found a home in modern Evangelicalism.

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A Professor's Defence, Give some help for me friend
.: posted Friday, November 21, 2003 by the WebMaster

I've been debating for a while with a friend who's at college. This a response to an email I sent him. He had a professor answer the questions I asked he couldn't reply to (props to my skills!) I'd like some of you guys to look at it and add in your thoughts before I send the response. My replies are in three aserisks.

Thomas,

I don't quite follow the context of your discussion. It seems as though Rick is hitting several issues. What is his own position? It is always easier to criticize other positions than to promote your own.*** I'm an atheist who believes that Christianity is a very dangerous relgion.***

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