Deconversion Stories

[jaeger115]

For anyone on this forum who'd been an fundie before, I'd like to hear your stories on how you moved from fundie to whatever you are now. Let's start with mine...

My parents are atheists, but they bought me a children's bible (I'll tell you the reason later) and I became hooked. One of my babysitters was a raging fundy with two kids (not a good combination) which she always brought with her to my house. That deadly combination pulled me into the maw of fundy-ness and, ironically, brought me closer to one of my elementary-school friends. She nurtured my "faith" and it went on and on for a few years. I began to feel guilt over my growing sexual urges. One day, I suddenly realized that I had been reading only the children's version of the bible - I had to switch to the adults-only section. And what I found shocked me. Logic hit me in the head at full force, and i saw the light again. I told my friend of my decision to split with christianity, and she exploded in my face and raged on and on right in the back of another friend's GMC. She talked of miracles and miracles that she had read about (funny how she only read about miracles and NEVER saw one!) I demanded evidence again and again and she was unable to provide some convincing pieces. Rearmed with my new logic, I left her a simmering mess in the back of the vehicle as it docked in the garage.

A few years later, I typed in "Creationism vs. Science" in my search engine and it led me right to Mike Wong's site of the same name. That, of course led me to SD.net. I read as much of Wong's sites as I could in preparation for the grand debate which I had foreseen would come in more than a year.

(one year later)
We had became friends again and generally accepted each other's beliefs. Then one day on AIM I let slip one embarrassing thing that I knew that she did (I think you'll figure that out). She found out about it and officially severed our ties. After a long hissy argument over email, it boiled down to both our beliefs.

So began the debate. I gave her a week to prepare. I had defeated her initial arguments on AIM and knew that I would have no trouble beating her again. I was right. She concluded with the admittance that she knew that there was a God, but she didn't know if He really loved her or not. She also admitted to me that she had gone into christianity because she had trusted her parents. Funny how I turned the tables on her. It seems that fate has a strange irony.

After that, my atheism was strongly cemented in place.

[jaeger115]

*groans*

I know that a lot of people are looking at this thread, but no one is answering! Are there any people in this forum who was a fundie?

[Darth Yoshi]

Besides you, apparently none that will speak up. And no, I was never a fundie. Agnostic for two years at the end of elementary, but other than that, I was always atheist.

[ArmorPierce]

I doubt that there were any fundies per se but there are people that used to be more moderate Chritians and I used to be agnostic till the end of middleschool and when I got in highschool I just decided that I know that there isn't any sort of a god and that it was just wishful thinking. This website helped me end thoughts of the supernatural which I thought was possible but since it didn't follow the scientific method I let go of that but that was the website and not the board.

[jaeger115]

Thanks for the input.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well I was always the scientific type.

I was essentially, an evolutionist fundie, reconciling the book of genisis with the evidence at hand, but when it came down to everything else....

After my parents divorced, I was removed from the fundie christian environment, and over the next couple years became more of a moderate chrisitan, still homosphobic though. I came to the conclusion at 13 that I was gay, suffered a period of denial, and self hate. Started to do some reserach, came to the conclusion that god didnt exist at 14. Found this site last summer(found the SW vs ST site earlier) One year later, I came out of the closet, both as a homosexual, and an atheist. Now At 16, My Atheism and devotion to logic are firmly rooted in place.

[Darth Wong]

Rebecca was a Christian; not sure about "fundie", but she felt her faith was very important when I first met her.

Obviously, that's gone by the wayside now. But when it's your wife, you don't DEBATE with her; arguments with one's spouse can garner, at best, a pyrrhic victory. So I just encouraged her to study the history of religion and the Bible and to think for herself.

Many years later, she knew too much about the history of the Bible to take it seriously any more, and she abandoned it. Game, set, and match

[Antediluvian]

For anyone on this forum who'd been an fundie before, I'd like to hear your stories on how you moved from fundie to whatever you are now. Let's start with mine...

My parents are atheists, but they bought me a children's bible (I'll tell you the reason later) and I became hooked. One of my babysitters was a raging fundy with two kids (not a good combination) which she always brought with her to my house. That deadly combination pulled me into the maw of fundy-ness and, ironically, brought me closer to one of my elementary-school friends. She nurtured my "faith" and it went on and on for a few years. I began to feel guilt over my growing sexual urges. One day, I suddenly realized that I had been reading only the children's version of the bible - I had to switch to the adults-only section. And what I found shocked me. Logic hit me in the head at full force, and i saw the light again. I told my friend of my decision to split with christianity, and she exploded in my face and raged on and on right in the back of another friend's GMC. She talked of miracles and miracles that she had read about (funny how she only read about miracles and NEVER saw one!) I demanded evidence again and again and she was unable to provide some convincing pieces. Rearmed with my new logic, I left her a simmering mess in the back of the vehicle as it docked in the garage.

A few years later, I typed in "Creationism vs. Science" in my search engine and it led me right to Mike Wong's site of the same name. That, of course led me to SD.net. I read as much of Wong's sites as I could in preparation for the grand debate which I had foreseen would come in more than a year.

(one year later)
We had became friends again and generally accepted each other's beliefs. Then one day on AIM I let slip one embarrassing thing that I knew that she did (I think you'll figure that out). She found out about it and officially severed our ties. After a long hissy argument over email, it boiled down to both our beliefs.

So began the debate. I gave her a week to prepare. I had defeated her initial arguments on AIM and knew that I would have no trouble beating her again. I was right. She concluded with the admittance that she knew that there was a God, but she didn't know if He really loved her or not. She also admitted to me that she had gone into christianity because she had trusted her parents. Funny how I turned the tables on her. It seems that fate has a strange irony.

After that, my atheism was strongly cemented in place.

I wasn't a fundie at first, but my mom became one and through her influence I became one as well. I was vulnerable, I suppose, I really had no friends and my dad had abandoned us, running off with another woman. So I fell into fundamentalism when I was about 13.

I stayed that way for a few years, fairly unshakable, until I went to college. Then I started having doubts, and when I met my last gf, my beliefs really began to shake.

However, it wasn't until 2001 that I walked away from Christianity for good.

I was surfing the Web and stumbled across a site showing the flaws in Christianity, the Bible, and the atrocities of Yaweh. It was a wake-up call. It showed my growing disgust with Christianity wasn't a bad thing, and in fact, was perfectly justified.

After I accepted this, I felt a great weight lift off my shoulders. That was such a relief.

So now, here I am. A happy little agnostic.

[Tosho]

As a child in a conservative christian household I always felt akward that I was a (secret) agnostic I talked to my older sister about this and she gave me a Bible, I started to read it eagerly. I sopped in the middle of Exodus because it was so damn boring but before that I must say that I was quited horrified at what I read in Genesis. Years later (I was a moderate christian at the time) I tried again, this time with the New Testament. In this case in addition to being horrified at Jesus's command that if I or any other man should upon a women with lust in my eye I would better off gouging the offending eye out of my head rather than spend eternity in hell (I must admit it worried me very badly as early as the age 4 I remember having sexual feelings for some of the atractive women on television. I didn't know what I wanted to do to them, but I knew I wanted to do something to them ) I also decended into fumdamentalism which grew stronger when I was introduced to creationism. All of a sudden I found sd.net, at first I was repulsed but Mike's logic, sense of humour and IMO charisma helped me realise that creationism is pure B.S. I felt that If the Judeo-Christian existed in his holy book there would be no controdiction with what science found. Evolution being a clear controdiction made me realize The god of the Bible could not exist. I tried every non-abrahmic religion I could find, none of them "fit" (Buddhism came close though.) In the last few months of my "spiritual" journey I have been, in this order: Deist, Agnostic, and Atheist, I strongly suspect that I shall be an Atheist to my grave.

[Raptor 597]

I was the smart Fundies with a high IQ curbve. Everything was more liberal then the Fundies around me except for evolution and the Rapture. Thats what would set me off so I suppose I wasn't that bad off just a bitch of a vehement aganist evolution. It all began too crumble when I started jerking off and began too realise I was a hypocrite. I was taking more and more steps towards moderate Christianity when I stepped onto Mike's Trek page but it took me a year too gain the courage too surf the YEC vs TOE page. After that I started too doubt their being a God and thewalls were tumbling down. Then, Loki as he is registered on this board showed me m old beliefs and countered them all. It was the nail in the coffin.

[Mr Flibble]

I was never a fundie, but I was a moderate christian. I started questioning christianity when I was about 12, but did not really give it up. I had (and still have) a lot of pressure from family to be christian as my father is an anglican priest and my aunt is heavily involved in the church. My family would accpet others being atheist, but would not accept me being one, they would just trya and reconvert me, so I have yet to tell them. I also get pressure from a couple of friends, one of which is almost a funide and keeps pestering me for spiritual advice because of my dad. My education also pressured christianity onto me because I went only to anglican schools (still better than our public schools). When I was in high school I got very close to becoming agnostic but times like christmas, and my depressed episodes would push me back to christianity. It wasn't until last year that I finally shrugged off christianity and became atheist. Just prior to then I was suffering from my worst bout of depression due to a feeling of isolation, depression can make you really stupid family issues and my laziness at uni were also part of the problem. At that time my christian faith actually grew, but I became increasingly depressed as I felt God had rejected me and hated me, I now know of course it is because god doesn't exist. I tried to kill myself, but thankfully stopped myself at the last moment because of my fear of death, I had believed in christianity much more I would have probably killed myself because of the security about an afterlife would give me. After this I sought medical help. Medication and going to a shrink fixed the depression. And as part of my recovery I engaged a little self rediscovery and realised that I did not need christianity to be happy, and that it did not logically make sense. Mike's site helped me with this a lot. I then towards the end became atheist and there has been no going back, have been recovering very well, but slowly, from my depression.

[Durandal]

My deconversion story is posted on my website.

[SWPIGWANG]

Many years later, she knew too much about the history of the Bible to take it seriously any more, and she abandoned it. Game, set, and match

I'd think it is the result of cognitive dissonance from doing it up the ass too much. /jab

[Wicked Pilot]

I grew up in a very propressive Baptist church in Baton Rouge. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but don't let that fool you. The people there are very progressive for southern Baptist. There are women in leadership positions, people of different races in the congregation, none of that "Catholics are going to hell, vote Republican" bullshit. The congregation was even involved with a local elementry school, fixing up stuff, volunteering time to help teachers, not once using it as an oppertunity to witness because they knew such action was inappropiate. This church represented all that could be good about Christianity. During that time when I attended I was a Christian, but not a very strong one thought. There were no illousions of creationism being valid or uther such nonsense. Fast forward to college, I move from urban south Louisiana to rural north Louisiana. I get involved with the Baptist Student Union on campus, and low and behold they are a bunch of hateful, intolerant assholes. Almost all of them are obnixious fundies, and they make up one third of my student body. My association with them ended rather quickly. I started reading the Bible more objectively from that point on, and tide turned. Reading DW's site was the final nail in the coffin, and I am now Wicked Pilot, Harbinger of Doom. You will all bow down before me!

Just to add, even to this day, some three years later, I have still never met an athiest in the flesh, only online. Being an infadel can sure be lonely.

[Tosho]

Just to add, even to this day, some three years later, I have still never met an athiest in the flesh, only online. Being an infadel can sure be lonely.

I haven't either.

[jaeger115]

Hmmm..... Read through most of it. I didn't realize Mother Teresa did these things!

I recently got this insight: Religion is like drugs. You experiment with it and find that you like it. After doing it some more, you get addicted. The experience takes you on a roller coaster of highs and lows and only ends when you attempt to break the cycle. Trying to get off a religion is damn like trying to get off crack.

[jaeger115]

Just to add, even to this day, some three years later, I have still never met an athiest in the flesh, only online. Being an infadel can sure be lonely.

I have. Plenty of them.

[Darth Wong]

Just to add, even to this day, some three years later, I have still never met an athiest in the flesh, only online. Being an infadel can sure be lonely.

Next time you're in Toronto, give me a call

[Lagmonster]

Just to add, even to this day, some three years later, I have still never met an athiest in the flesh, only online. Being an infadel can sure be lonely.

Now, don't take that too hard. You might not be too surprised to learn that most atheists don't proclaim that fact out loud, or refuse to comment, or lie outright and say they're agnostic. Often this is because of fear of reprisal or shunning from religious parents, friends, or authorities.

I know a woman who is 43 years old, and STILL hasn't told her devout mother that she's an atheist, and has been one for thirty years! She goes to church with her mom on holidays when she visits, and supports those reigious events and charities that her mom participates in. Her reasoning is that her mother believes so blindly that faith is the only path to righteousness and whatnot that it would hurt her feelings to see her only daughter 'fall from grace', or whatever they're calling it these days.

[Darth Wong]

Good point; few of us wear it on our sleeves in public (well, I do, but that's just me).

[God Emperor]

I have a friend that is raised atheists.

[Wicked Pilot]

Good point; few of us wear it on our sleeves in public (well, I do, but that's just me).

Just want to point out, you're in Toronto, I'm in the very bottom of the Bible Belt, somewhere near the Bible Crotch Hem. Ah well, on May 24th, I graduate, and on June 22nd, I go active. Hopefully the Air Force will sent be somewhere cool, like Canada.

[Icehawk]

My family has always been pretty liberal with religion. We would go to church on sundays occasionally, as well as Christmas and Easter when I was younger, and the church we went to was even fairly moderate (United branch). However, I was always into tech/science things since I could first talk, and always had a sort of scientific look on life. Come to think of it, I would say I was a deist/liberal christian for most of my life. I blindly believed in a God but just figured he didn't have much to do with our lives and evolution.

However, after coming across Wongs Evolution vs Creationism website I eventually decided that I just couldn't tollerate having blind faith and following any religion anymore. Its taken almost a year to completely get over it but I am quite confident now and couldn't possibly go back with what I know now.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Good point; few of us wear it on our sleeves in public (well, I do, but that's just me).

I too wear my atheism on my sleeve

[jaeger115]

I too wear my atheism on my sleeve

Me too.