I share my journey here not to get attention, change anyone’s mind about their religion or to say they are wrong…I share my journey because I know there are 1000’s like me seeking answers and trying to find their way.
The journey out of organized religion and into agnosticism or atheism is not easy…it’s not like a snap decision…it took me 18 months to finally know I was done…we had left our church of 13 years under less than good terms, from there we visited several different churches…we finally settled on one that was really small. The pastor was an older woman in her late 70’s she had been pastor there for several years. We were welcomed with open arms…some friends of ours started attending there as well. They had no Sunday school teacher so I was ask to teach…I was honored and after a week of prayer felt like it was what I was to do. I accepted. Our friend was ask if he’d like to preach one evening and he was great! He began to preach on occasion to give Sister Helen a break. All was good. We all felt god had sent us there to help this church. Months wore on things just didn’t seem right. Little things in her sermons felt off. We had a guest preacher one Wednesday evening who spoke truth about the salvation process. The next Sunday Helen stood at the pulpit and ran this man into the dirt. It was awful…my husband and I had known this man for years and knew his heart! What he said was straight from scripture! In that moment I looked up at my husband and said I’m done…I can’t do this anymore. We walked out never to return. This was the hardest decision I had ever made. My husband and I spent much time in conversation and trying to figure out where do we go from here..nothing had made sense to us for several years…we had for years been questioning so many things…we began studying and asking questions..the more we talked, read, studied and ask questions the more questions we had. No one could or would answer our questions. Everyone it seemed had the same canned answers. It was frustrating to say the least…
I began buying books, reading online, looking into different religions..I discovered so many lies I had been told…It took me 7 years to finally say I no longer believe in god…at least in the sense I was taught…
The Bible is contradictory and when one can read it from an objective perspective it just doesn’t make sense…I’ll explain a bit more in a minute…
Most of my family and my husbands family are Christian’s..we are told pretty often we are hell bound and need to get back into church….sigh…it’s hard…we didn’t walk away from our faith because it was easier…it’s harder than anything we have ever done in our life! Most people in our area are Christian’s…we lost friends and family when we left. People we loved dearly and we thought loved us quit talking to us. We would see them in the grocery store and they go the other way. It was awful and so very hurtful. Anyway, those who think when people make this decision they do it on a whim, do it to “live in sin”, “to validate sin”, or “to make life easier” well, I’m here to tell you, we made our life far more complicated and hard by leaving…no one does that on purpose!
Please note this is a very, very condensed version of events…so much happened that led to this decision over an 18 month to 2 year period.
Some of the questions that arose were why does god allow bad things like child abuse, sex trafficking, murder, war, torture, domestic violence, just major suffering of any kind…
Mainstream Christianity says god is all powerful, all knowing and all loving…meaning he wants the best for everyone…but here’s the problem…
Some souls go to hell for eternity, the worst fate imaginable…does god know ahead time who is going to hell? Can he prevent it? Does he choose not to prevent it?
So if god wants to prevent souls from going to hell but can’t he’s not all powerful…
If can prevent it but doesn’t, he’s not all loving…
If he doesn’t know who is going to hell until the end then he’s not all knowing!
How does this make sense?
Some argue it’s free will, but if choosing not to believe in god leads to eternal suffering how is that a fair choice?
That’s like an abuser saying love me or I’ll beat you!
That’s not love and absolutely not a logical or fair choice.
Even if we accept that argument, remember hell is eternal…
An all loving being would at the very least give us another chance
But hell is forever, there are no second chances
So either god can’t prevent people from going to hell
Meaning he’s not all powerful
Or he won’t meaning he’s not all loving
Or he don’t know who’s going so he’s not all knowing.
Let’s look at child abuse, cancer, human trafficking…we can ask these same questions using these scenarios
If he allows these things even if he can intervene and stop it, this means he’s not all loving
If he can’t stop it , he’s not all powerful
If he doesn’t know it’s going to happen…that makes him not all knowing!
No matter how you slice it, it doesn’t make sense…I cannot reconcile these things in my mind.
Just this one contradiction proves that the god of the Bible as described in traditional Christianity is a logical impossibility!
People argue that their experience proves there’s a god. Your experience does not prove to everyone god exists…it proves it to you! I could say I had an experience that convinced me the solar system was made of cheese and fruit and you need to believe that now because I experienced it! See how silly that is?
The garden of Eden story in Genesis…read it objectively…who tricked who? Was god actually the serpent? When he ask Adam where art thou because he and Eve hid, if he was all knowing he already knew where they were? Is this not manipulative?
Why did he lie and tell them they would “surely die” as soon as they ate from the tree?
All that happened is that they gained knowledge…
He also ask Adam if he ate from the tree, Adam blamed Eve, he threw her under the bus…wouldn’t an all knowing god already know that? Kinda manipulative huh?
Why did god not want their eyes opened?
Wouldn’t an all loving god have forgiven them rather than cursing them and us forever?
And why didn’t he just stop them from eating the fruit to begin with? What did he make it so appealing? Why not make it unappealing so they would not want to eat it.
So he’s not all powerful…
So god cursed all of mankind for ever because Eve made a mistake and ate from a tree. Women more cursed than men. Why not just extend forgiveness? Isn’t that what a truly loving god would do? As a parent are we not forgiving of children when they mess up. Even if our child/ren do something we tell them not to do we do not exile them from our home. We forgive, explain and move on. Isn’t this the very least our father(god) should do for us? For Eve? I just really struggle with this whole story…and many more stories in the Bible.
So many questions no one can answer…the generic answers of you just have to believe, have faith…they no longer work for me or others…
I had to learn to let go…just like the trees lose their leaves one at time, we too must shed things that no longer serve us one at a time.
More later…until next time..
THL
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