Calling all ex-fundies!

[funflower]

I'd be interested in hearing your stories of "enlightenment" or "conversion" or whatever it was that led you to renounce your fundamentalist beliefs and where that has led you in spiritual terms....

:popcorn:

[NAO]

1. Funny you should ask...I'm just reading "Losing Faith in Faith"

The de-conversion story of Dan Barker from Evangelical Christan Minister to atheist and president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It's an excellent book - very personal account of the process that led to his deconversion, plus dozens of excellent essays on Freethought topics.

My personal story started when I was taken to Fundamentalist Baptist Church as an infant and all the time I was growing up. I was sent to a Christian School from 4th grade thru 12th grade and then a Christian College.

As a senior in high school, I was required to write a philosphy paper. I don't' think they expected any REAL philosophy, but they called it that anyway. I also happened to be a huge RUSH fan (the Canadian rock band, not the bloated, blowhard oxy-moron radio gasbag.)

So inside the RUSH album "2112" there is this mention of the name "Ayn Rand"...So I'm at the public library browsing the philosophy section looking for material for my research paper and I see a book by Ayn Rand (Philosophy: Who Needs It). So, as usual, it all started with Ayn Rand...

Anyway, I gradually became more and more liberal in my thinking until I encountered Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason", Robert Ingersoll's "Why I Am Agnostic", George Smith's "Atheism: The Case Against God" and many other free thought classics.

The evidence was just overwhelming...Christianity is a complete fraud, the Bible is full of absurdities, contradictions, atrocities, and primitive savagery.

Once I saw "thru" it, it was obvious. But seeing thru a religion you have been taught from the cradle onward is NOT easy.

[funflower]

2. Paine's "The Age of Reason" is brilliant.

It's amazing how long some of us take to "see the light."
:thumbsup:

[hfojvt]

3. so I have this book that I found

called "The Bible vs. Evolution?" by William Jennings Bryan and he closes with this very issue.

"One of our religious papers reported the other day a survey of a great university; it showed that 62% of the men drank, 50% gambled, and only 10% went to church...And we find these people teaching in our universities, we find them even in our theological seminaries. They are undermining the faith of the students...You cannot put enough in the brain of a man to overcome the harm you do to him if you take faith out of his heart. And that is what they are doing."

I went from religion to atheism to religion. I came back by reading "Does God Exist" by Hans Kung and "In His Steps" by Charles Sheldon. Also E.F. Schumacher's "A guide to the perplexed" is very good.

According to the quiz on Beliefnet.com I am living a secular life because I do not believe that things happen for a reason. I hold the existentialist belief that we can make them happen.

[funflower]

5. Since I probably won't get to Kung real soon....

can you give "him" to me in a nutshell?

So now that you are back in the religious camp, are you very not-orthodox? What religion do you practice or are you more of a nonpracticing deist?

[hfojvt]

7. any philosophy which can be put in a nutshell

belongs there.

I read Kung about twenty years ago, so I cannot come close to summarizing it. He goes over many philosopher's writings and argues back and forth on them, culminating with Nietzsche. He then rejects nihilism in favor of existentialism, and rejects atheism in favor of theism.

Looking over his book in search of a good summary, I find one of my "core beliefs" "the metaphysician does not like to be told that his mental activity rests on a prerational, primordial decision..." or this "Reality itself demands a reaction. Within reality I must take a stand, live, act and take up a position as a human being. Every human being decides for himself his fundamental attitude to reality: that basic approach which embraces, colors, characterizes his whole experience, behaviour, action."

Non orthodox? I was fairly comfortable with the Free Methodists and the Nazarenes, although not caught up in the "inerrant word of God" theology. I prefer to focus on the present and future rather than the past. Odd thing for me to say, since I am ordinarily so past-oriented. I forget the author, Barbara something, and the title, and do not have an exact quote, but she said something like - the church focuses on the manger, virgin birth, the wise men, walking on water, feeding the five thousand, and ignores the heart of the message which is God's love for humanity and God's desire for humanity to be decent to each other. So, I consider it somewhat orthodox to go back to the founder and honestly try to answer "what would Jesus do?"

[funflower]

8. Guess I'll have to read the book....

:think:

[RobertSeattle]

4. I grew up and walked away

I went to a hard core southern baptist church (now a mega church) but as I matured as a teenager I realize it was BS. My brother is still in the same church - most of his friends are church members. Even if he had a honest change of heart, it would be devastating to him since his whole life outside of work seems connected to the church and the people - I'd feel very trapped. We obviously don't talk religon when he visits me and my wife...

[funflower]

6. I think it's probably easiest for people who leave as a teen

before they develop a lot of adult relationships centered around their fundamentalist religion. Bet your parents hated it, though.

[Dervill Crow]

9. When my mom died the shell started cracking.

I had asked the pastor of my church to perform a funeral for her, but he was out of town and the assistant pastor did the service. He didn't know mom, had never met her, and had no idea where she was spiritually. She was definitely not a churchgoer. The things he said would have been extremely comforting if she had been "walking with Jesus," but she hadn't set foot in church since she married my dad, and thus her funeral was pretty much an announcement that my mom was probably spending eternity in hell. Maybe not, because she was baptized as a kid, but still I felt enormous guilt that I hadn't actively worked to "save" my mom while she was dying of cancer. I read the bible again looking for some answers and decided that I disagreed with a lot of Paul's doctrine. I liked the historical part of the OT, although Leviticus was a bit annoying, and toyed around with messianic Judaism, figured out that there really isn't such a thing, then Judaism--The Real Deal. I read a bit about Lilith and loved her. Eventually I came to a more inclusive view of god and goddess, and now I'm a practicing pagan. All of this happened over the course of a couple of decades.

Sorry if this falls under the heading of too much information!

[Tux]

10. You're fine

Any story that shows people can overcome tyranny to become free is great.