What is an "Ex Believer", anyway?

This is clearly from the point of view of someone starting out in a Christian family though. Some of us who weren't all that immersed in the Christian worldview, if at all, also did some heavy thinking and question-asking, but we were already in the upside-down world and already explored it and at least some of us would have liked to find an alternative. I myself didn't know I was looking for an alternative but I do remember the sense of discovering that the world I was living in was upside-down so it's interesting you chose that metaphor.Anyway I wasn't looking for God. Oh off and on I'd wondered but came up against a blank wall. I was aware of the psychobabble notions of God but there's no reality there. It never would have occurred to me to consider traditional Christianity as a source of answers. The question couldn't even occur to me. I was imbued with modern secularist sometimes pseudospiritualized concepts that were all dead ends. I don't think I had a coherent worldview, except maybe some pieces of Christianized western civilization stuck in odd places in my head, among the atheist bits and the pagan bits and the totally inchoate bits. That all came together for me eventually, after God found me.I gather you were about as deep as one can get into traditional Christianity, but it makes me wonder, questions like Do you know you were born again? How do you know? Did you have one image of God for some period of time and then a completely other image of God? Did you go from loving God to hating him when your image changed, or how would you put that? I find it hard to understand going from belief to disbelief based on your apprehension that God was different than you'd thought.I know I can't lose my belief/faith. I think it has something to do with having come to it from the other direction than you did, but I don't think I could exactly say why.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But it had to mean something to him once. He was on track to become a pastor and heavily immersed in everything Christian, which from the sound of it was completely traditional if on the extreme side. Sometimes people are born again and don't have a clear memory of it but most people I know do have a clear memory of it, so he is likely to as well. Of course I am wondering if such an experience is crucial in the perseverance of the saints. Perhaps Aussie has an opinion.

Nice to hear your wife and daughter get all of you on on the weekends. You're about my daughter's age by the way.All I meant by "traditional" was denominations where standard biblical doctrine is held -- such as saved by grace through faith etc... as opposed to, say, liberal, or "prosperity doctrine" or something cultic, led by a personality or that sort of thing. Charismatic churches are a bit on the fringe but they too hold to the standard doctrines. (I belonged to a charismatic church for a few years and also did a lot of reading trying to convince myself whether the "spiritual gifts" are for today or ceased in the early church. I found it extremely difficult to come to a definite conclusion. Finally a few years ago a conference at John MacArthur's church convinced me the whole movement is false, by showing that the "gifts" practiced today are simply not those practiced in the early church.)So your experience was pretty traditional.I suppose I'm trying to understand if there are safeguards against falling away, such as being born again for instance.