experienceproject.com
ONE OF MILLIONS WHO GOT SMART! CAN YOU?!
"I used to be a Christian. I believed that Jesus was my personal Savior and died for my sins. I believed the Apostle's Creed, although, at the time I didn't know it was the Apostle's Creed. Though, it is as best as you can describe my once beliefs:
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty; the creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord..."
I not only believed in Christianity, it was my way of life. It influenced my thinking, the decisions I made and I had many personal experiences. I had a "personal relationship" with Jesus Christ. Losing my faith, was like losing my best friend. I wasn't someone who simply believed and than decided one day that I no longer believed. I didn't choose to walk away from Jesus. He disappeared before my eyes, as I tried desperately to cling to Him.
If you are offended by criticisms of Christianity, please do not read any further. I am simply here to give my honest account of why I left the faith. Perhaps, there are others reading this who may identify with me. As I know of many ex-Christians who, like me, through much study, thought, and, yes, prayer no longer believe.
Most Christians know little of the history of Christianity. They know little of it's theology, nor do they know how the Bible was put together. They only know what they have been told by pastors, other Christians, and a few really bad, but popular, apologetic books. When you start mentioning things like Arminianism, eschatology, or even dispensationalism, they have no idea what you are talking about.
I have to admit that I had been, when I was most faithful, in the category of ignorance. I know more about Christianity now, that I don't believe, than I ever did when I was a Christian. Even most pastors do not know much about Christian history beyond Darby's dispensation, nor do most have a good grasp of it's theology, other than the bad apologetics I'm mentioning. If even pastors, don't know, how can they possibly teach their congregation?
Now I do admit that reading theology and history is boring to most people. Learning about Christianity by word of mouth, listening to your own heart, and reading the really bad, but entertaining and easy to read, apologetic books is much easier than sifting through scholarly authors, who seem to have no personality and takes a right leaning brain, like mine, forever to get through.
However, here in lies the problem, most people rely on word of mouth, bad apologetics, and their personal feelings when it comes to their Christian faith. Rather than seek answers to their questions through hard work, they accept pat answers because it's easier.
I will not cover everything here, as it would take pages of text to explain it all. As it was a process of two years, a lot of reading, and much thought.
To sum up two years of my life, the only evidence for Christianity that I found was inside Christianity and the Bible. It came from people who had an agenda to defend the Christian faith. If Christianity were true than it would only be reasonable to conclude that there would be much evidence FOR Christianity outside of the Bible and the faith. However, there is nothing. Not only is there no evidence outside the Bible or Christianity, there is much more evidence that it's not true.
When I first started reading Christian history and theology, I never thought I would end up as a non-believer. It was my intent to strengthen my faith and be able to witness and defend my faith, as so few people can, without an emotional ploy. I wanted an intellectual reason to believe in Christianity other than an emotional one.
Through, all my reading I also learned about two very important logical fallacies that Christians use all the time to defend their faith, especially in the popular apologetics books I read, which is why I say they are bad apologetics. They are circular reasoning aka begging the question and appeal to authority.
What I found when reading the popular Christian apologetics, if you weed out the two above logical fallacies, there isn't much substance. Christians have to use circular reasoning and appeal to authority, which are logical fallacies, to make their case. If Christianity is true than the evidence should speak for itself, without having to resort to intellectually dishonest tactics.
The only conclusion, as a reasonably intelligent thinking person, I could come to, was that Christianity was not true and that Jesus, as portrayed in the Bible, never existed. This was a difficult and painful reality I had to face and as a reasonably intelligent thinking person, I had no choice." |
