The Other side of the Jesus coin

Reading through a bunch of e-mails i received from people that claim to be Christians, I noticed that there was a common thread appearing throughout them all.Nothing spectacular, just that they kept on bleating on about how wonderful life is now that they have found Jesus, I'm sure you know the type, 'I was nasty, now im saved, you are nasty , you need to get saved.'What I was thinking about was that the complete opposite has happened to me.Up until I was about 22-23 I considered my self a Christian, then I had doubts and then I came to realise that I couldn't believe this anymore. The weird thing is, when i was a Chrsitian my life was shit, sorry about the terminology but that sums it up.I had lost my parents, my family had scattered to the four corners of the Earth, except for one sister who still remains close. I had no academic qualifications, no job, prefered to have a drink rather than a meal, had a few run ins with the law, you know the kind of things.But when I decided that I wasn't sure about Christianty and I started to enquire about getting an education, my life started to change for the better, eventually I gave up Chrsitianity and my life has never been better! I got a great girlfriend that I love dearly, a great job that I love, Im studying more, I'm in contact with family members again, my life is perfect without Jesus.Friends that I havent seen for years cannot believe the difference in me, they are astounded at the turnaround.My question is then:Has anyone experienced the same thing, has your life improved for turning your back on Chrsitianity?Best Wishes
Brian.------------------
Remembering events that never happened is a dangerous thing!

I think you'll find that life improvements stem from
a consious effort to take control of one's destiny.How you or anyone comes to do that is largely irrelvant,
whatever works for you, works.

I think many people have a 'never looked back since' story. But I would say Christians do seem to boast that their own life-change is considerably better than the guy who leaves his city job to live in the country, or the trash man who decided to work with orphan children.There are many coins with many sides. Just make sure you flip the right one. As someone probably said sometime

I know that I have been guilty of saying that my life is so much better now that I am a Christian. Which is a misleading statement in a way. It's not that my life suddenly became perfect and carefree, it's just that when things are tough I know that things are in God's hands.In many ways being a Christian is much more difficult than my previous life. Non-Christians know how a Christian is supposed to conduct themselves better than Christians do, and they are more than happy to point out if you've fallen short of your own standards.It's hard in our excitement about our relationship with God to convey clearly the difference in our lives, and unfortunately we make misleading statements like this all the time.------------------
Saved by an incredible Grace.

Yeah, mine was the classic bored of church style rebellion during highschool though. I started reading philosophy and realised that my brain can do amazing things without religious barriers. also i thought sunday mornings were better spent sleeping, i hate singing and reading scripture was about as fulfilling as eating toilet paper. I see religion now as an item in a supermarket with many brands competing with each other, i'm just there for the free coffee.

I have only had one brief period when I considered the existance of a christian god, for a few weeks as a child. I quickly noticed that whenever I questioned my belief I became paranoid that I was offending god, and soon realised that religious faith is a psychological trap. It is a form of mental paralysis. Maybe it makes masses more manageable if their behaviour is more predictable. Dont most organisms undergoe repression of various behaviours in order to function in a eusocial system??

AFAIK, the so-called neuter castes in social insects are born with a tendency to work/sacrifice themselves for the group they're born at. This may explain why kidnapped young worker ants are easily tricked into slavery by other ant species.In termites, the queen and king emits some kind of chemicals that prevent potential reproductives to reach sexual maturity, thereby keeping dominance over the whole nest... if one dies, the pheromone control is loosened and new kings/queens may appear.Anyway, I've been turning my back to Christianity since birth (I'm from a different religion) and I don't feel like converting. I'm content with what I have.

When you considered yourself Christian, what did you believe? That is, what have you stopped believing? In what ways has this decision influenced your life (on a day to day basis -- activities your take part in, friends you hang out with, hobbies, vices, etc.)? Usually "getting religion" is associated with cleaning up one's life and setting new goals and your story confuses me -- for instance the alcohol part (i.e. did your church buddies like to and encourage you to drink alot?).

Yup, the same thing happened to me, more or less.

‘Usually "getting religion" is associated with cleaning up one's life and setting new goals and your story confuses me -- for instance the alcohol part (i.e. did your church buddies like to and encourage you to drink a lot?).’What is to say that my ‘getting atheist religion’ didn’t clean up my life and set new goals? I certainly managed to discard many prejudices that are part of the Christian faith. I also find my life without Jesus a lot more enjoyable and satisfying, and I certainly feel more content within myself.No, my church buddies didn't encourage me to drink.'When you considered yourself Christian, what did you believe? That is, what have you stopped believing?'I believed that the purpose of my life was to worship God by following the teachings and the example of Jesus, I believed in the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory, I believed that Jesus became man for the purpose of our salvation, I believed in the promised renewal and guidance of the Holy Spirit, I believed in the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus, and in the gift of Eternal Life, I believed in working hard for the advancement of the Kingdom of God throughout the world, and I believed that the Word of God was contained in the Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament.‘In what ways has this decision influenced your life (on a day to day basis -- activities your take part in, friends you hang out with, hobbies, vices, etc.)?’It means that I no longer have to worship God. I have more time to get on with more important things. It means that I don’t have to consult a book, or pray to help me make decisions, I don’t have to waste time praying to a nonexistent being, I don’t have to carry around a constant feeling of guilt about something that had nothing to do with me, I don’t have to defend ridiculous beliefs like that of creation and the Flood, I don’t have to go around telling people that they need to hear the ‘Good News’, I don’t have to indoctrinate innocent children with fairy tales about a failed ‘messiah’, the list goes on and on.Activities haven’t changed that much, I obviously don’t have to go to Church on a Sunday, I don’t have to pray, I don’t have to feel guilty about checking out a good looking woman, I don’t have to study the New Testament (I do study the Old through choice), when I help someone I help them because I feel it is the right thing to do and not because of the hope of a reward at the end of time.‘If you now think that Jesus was a myth and that he wasn’t God, what convinced you that he was God in the first place? If you can be deceived once surely you can be deceived again.’The thing that convinced me that Jesus was God in the first place was that in the society that I grew up in people just accepted that he was God. My story is the same as countless others, a child indoctrinated before I had time to make up my own mind. In my house, school and society in general, it was just a fact that Jesus was God. What makes me so sure that I am correct now is that my worldview can be supported by evidence. It is a fact that the Bible has been edited to make Jesus appear to be the messiah, just look at the blatant false prophecies in Matthew to support that. I have studied archaeology and theology at University, and I am currently studying for another degree in theology, and when you study at that level, and have the resources available to you, it is a clear as day that the vast majority of the Bible events are fictitious. The Bible is not a reliable collection of books, it is pure propaganda, there may be history within the text but it needs sifting out.Best WishesBrian.PS, sorry about the time it took for me to reply.------------------
Remembering events that never happened is a dangerous thing!

Some questions that I think might occur to believers:Are you just as likely to do "good deeds", eg, charity work, visit the elderly, etc, now that you're no longer a believer?Is your behavior just as good now as it was when you were a believer? For example, you mentioned enjoying the freedom of checking out a good woman without guilt, which leads to the question, is there any difference in the way you treat women now than before? Or is it just a matter of, as a purely hypothetical example, experiencing less guilt after taking advantage of them?Are you any more or less likely to obey the law?Are you any more or less honest than before?I guess the bottom line question is, clearly you feel better about yourself without Jesus, but are you really a better person?--Percy

by what yard stick do you measure ‘betterness’. I personally profess to being a short term act utilitarian with a phobia of maths homework. Does that make me ‘worse’. On the serious side, I find that I treat women and homosexuals in a much more open way than when I was religious. I also have a much broader mind when it comes to interpreting science and culture, not to mention art, music and after dinner excursions. I have to admit, I’m a sinner and I’m loving it!

My story pretty much matches others here except that in college I decided to do something about being a Christian and actually converted. I became a proper Christian, not just someone who was raised in that faith but who had never really thought about it.I already believed Jesus was God and the Bible was His Word - had never questioned it. So - I prayed the prayer to ask Jesus into my life, joined a cell group for bible study, attended the university meetings, witnessed to students, read THE FOSSILS SAY NO and believed it (I was studying a science course at the time), prayed and prayed and prayed. Wondered when I was going to feel different, feel saved, feel born again.Six months down the track - I felt no different and thought, bugger this. I admit I am not a spiritual or overly emotional person. In my experience, personality plays a role in how well a religion like modern Christianity "works" for you. But that's a separate issue.Bottom line is, being born again sure felt a lot like not being born again. I could have just gone back to my safe automaton Sunday-Christian church-going ways, but instead I started to think about things. Why believe something just because someone else tells you it's true? That's what my "faith" was based on - childhood indoctrination. I had to have proof. Even an internal "sense" that it was true would have been proof enough - after all, this is what most believers rely on. They just "know". Well, I didn't know. I read THE FOSSILS SAY YES and began to do some genuine research. I began to think for myself instead of contorting my mind into the doublethink required to reconcile a biology degree with a young earth.I was not a bad person before, did not become a better person during, and am not a worse person now. I'm just a regular person, no longer living a lie. If I do face judgement at the end of it all, I will say, "You gave me this mind, I used it."------------------
o--greyline--o

greyline,What were you expecting to feel? If you didn't ever have peace in your life why do you think you were ever born again?[This message has been edited by drummachine, 03-20-2003]

I never said I never had peace in my life - not sure where you got that from.Your second question is an interesting one. I was told that if I asked in prayer for Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my life, then I would be born again in Christ. That's what I prayed, in all sincerity.I think that this method of conversion, "being born again" - where a strong emotional experience is felt - only works on certain personalities in certain circumstances. If you're at rock bottom because of personal problems or feelings of guilt, then obviously salvation is going to look very appealing. I had a fantastic childhood and no personal problems at the time - I guess I wasn't emotionally or intellectually able to be bribed by salvation or blackmailed by eternal damnation.Those are my thoughts in retrospect. At the time I was sincere because I "knew" that the Christian teachings I'd been raised to believe were true.------------------
o--greyline--o