Did you used to be a Christian then turned away?
368388
Um no\nbelieve in Him for can you to tell the sun to rise?Can you tell the clouds to rain? Did you make the stars shine in the night time sky? Were you there when He layed the foundations of the heavens and the earth? Mad all the animals in their various ways? Did the ocean come from your womb? Did you incept your soul? Do the heavens obey your commands? Have you raised the dead? Have you told the earth to quake? Has your only Son been Crucified so our sins may be forgiven? Can you bind the Pleiades? Have you let the wild donkey free? Have you cut the channels for the rain, a path for the thunderstorm? Have you fathered the rain and the dew? Have you fixed limits for the seas and told its waves to halt? Were you there when the morning stars snag together and the angels lept in joy? Did you shut up the sea in its gates? Haave you been shown the gates of the shadow of death? Jave you jjourneyed to the springs of the ses or walked in the recesses of the deep? What is the way to the abode of light? Where does darkness reside? What is the way to the place from which the lightning is spread over the earth? Have you been to the origins of the east winds? Have you seen the storehouses of the snow and hail? Have you ever give orders to the morning, or shown dawn its place? Have you the wisdom to count the clouds or the stars in their glory? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you loose the bounds of orion, or bring the constellations forth in their seasons? Do you provide food to the raven when its young cry out in hunger?\nCan you tip the waterjars of the heavens when the dust grows hard? Have you made the desert wastes sprout with grass? DO you send the lightning forth and it reports back to you saying i am here? Do you command the gates of death? Can you take away the labor pains of the sheep on the mountain and the doe in the forest? Do you satisfy the hunger of the lions as they wait in the thicket? Did you set up Gods dominion over the Earth? Can you look on proud and haughty men and bring them low? Can your voice thunder from the clouds? Did yyou give the horse his strngth or the hawk its wisdom? Are you a Savior of Man, the Son of God? Does the moon stay in its orbit and shine every night because you told it to? Can you block out the light of the sun and rein in the moon? Will show all the world your glory, and slay many from your words? Can you judge all peoples and bring them to eternal life or forced to bring them to eternal damnation?....................... He has, He is, and He will forever.\nI believe because I chose my path, which is the only to salvation, that is, through The Lord Almighty, Jesus Christ.
838392
It was not one single event. I was just an honest Christian trying to do what the bible said do and people who do not believe that baptism is essential for salvation, kept attacking me and especially those who believe in miracles and tongue speaking and I had to always defend scripture. That wasn't too bad until these people infiltrated the churches of Christ and I started getting attacked even at church by people who wanted to use instrumental music and believe in once saved always saved. \n\nIf God cannot keep his one and only church holy and clear of false teachers, then why should I bother to keep defending the gospel?\n\nEven that did not make me turn but I kept reading scripture and the errors kept jumping out at me until I finally had to realized the bible is not the perfect word of God I once thought it was.\n\nI lost my my whole family due to church differances and even my children and many jobs , but I was willing to die for what i beleived the bible said. \n\nI haven't seen or heard from any family for over 10 years and my dad died hating me for my religious beleifs. He thought I was demon possessed when I served Christ. I wonder what he would think now that I am Wiccan? \n\nI am now pagan, Wicca to be exact and since we believe all paths lead to Deity, i no longer have to defend God's truth. \n\nI now believe in personal truth and not absolute truth.
353392
when i was 15, 2 very close friends were killed in a car accident, i was miserable and confused. i discovered that it wasn't that god had abandoned me, he never existed in the first place. i have spent a lot of time reading about it and discovered what a bag of shite religion is,\n\nsince loosing my faith, my life has improved ten fold, instead of wasting time on a false deity, i am living life for me.\n\nconsequencially my fiance wants to get married in a church, but i refuse.\n\ni kinda upset my parents as well!
291455
Yes, I was raised Catholic and converted to Wicca when I was 21.  I had become increasingly unhappy about some of their theology and will be honest the way the sex scandal was handled was my last straw.  At that point I still did believe in Christianity.  But when I searched for the sect that mirrored what I thought I read the bible more and more and things just didn't make much sense any more. Then the more I read and looked the inconsistencies and contradictions jumped out.  The OT horrified me beyond belief and I couldn't understand the shift from the OT to the NT, it was as if God had a personality transplant.  Then I began finding out the changes that had been done to it, stuff taken out, re-written, gutted, etc.  and my disbelief grew.   The end finally came while I was watching George Carlin, believe it or not.  When he did his skit about how God and Santa sounded about the same, I was floored.  I sat there as that played through my mind and it made sense.  My faith officially died.  After that I read the books of many faiths from around the world.  Wicca matched what I believed best and my journey ended with it.
828379
Did you ever lose your faith?
232070
I didn't stay.\nNeither did King David\nor Jesus\nor Paul\nor...
760416
I chose my faith. My parents and I were not believers while I grew up. But, my mom got hired as a secretary at a church. I began attending the youth group at the church and was the first person in my family to accept Jesus. Then my mom. Then my dad. No one forced me; I decided on my own. Not only that but I have since researched my faith, and spent 4 years of college studying my faith further; now I am the youth director for my church. :) Good question!
346862
It was a process for me, over time. I stopped going to church, after my mother died, and *they* {the christians} told me she no longer had time for me, and I shouldn't 'try talking to her...so followed no path, or religion for many years after that.  Was pretty PO'd at God...didn't matter which one..\n   After I got married, and was pregnant with my son, my husband and I started going to a little baptist church. I can't really say I had any problems with that church, the people were nice, good to us. But it just didn't ..DO anything for me..\n  I started reading up on other religions...and realized, they were all saying, pretty much the same thing. Just said or called it by a different name. And came, again to the relization, that I'd had as a child, that I really don't think any ONE religion...is Right, or Wrong.  They all have the same message...underneath..it's just how the 'People' interpret it..and they allll interpret everything, in about 20 different ways or more..LOL \n  So then they add 'rules' 'regulations' 'laws'...until the real message, get's lost in a jumble of un-related context, which confuses the heck out of everyone, until their numb in the mind and just follow blindly along, out of fear.\n  The Power's that be, gave us..FREE WILL for a reason..So that we can think for ourselves, and seek out the truth on our own. I think everyone's Truth, is their own...I think everyone's journey, is their own personal walk through this life, and every life. It's what you do with it.
764615
i was raised Christian and when i began to question things i became agnostic verging on atheist ( when i was about 17 )\nthis lasted for years ... but i did study during those years\nand i researched the paranormal and all those things that i questioned since young due to my own experiences\ni started going to spiritualist church only a year ago ... but have held the same beliefs as they do for the past 7 years ... so it seemed a natural progress for me to take on spiritualism as my faith
1043995
I know of two people who through their talks with me have reconsidered what they believe.\n\nOne with his believe in the big bang.\n\nA second person went from being a strong Christian to a deist.\n\nThrough my conversations with you specifically I now believe the possiblity of my consciousness joining a greater consciousness when I die,  and continue my spiritually journey on this path.\n\nIf that is a conversion to whatever label that is, I wouldn't say I've converted, I would say its something I strongly consider.
692492
I did convert. as recently as last friday I was a Christian, but I looked around and see how much fun everyone else is having so I convert to a regular person. I feel so free.
176784
I just wanted to say that I have read your questions and answers to several questions (including my own) and I find you to be very level-headed and well-spoken. I used to practice Christianity and then evolved into feeling differently - a lot of the reasons I did had to do with the way Christians around me looked at issues - it got under my skin. But your views that are influenced by your beliefs are not at all offensive, even to someone who may not believe in the same things as you. I am glad to read what you have to say, as I am more inclined to listen to someone who is rational, if nothing else.
851938
if you were truly saved .by asking christ into your heart and believed he came in . then your saved even though you became back slidden. GOD didnt move away you .ask his forgiveness and he will forgive you and continue to pray and read your bible daily.
28409
I am a non-denominational, right-wing conservative, born-again, fundemetalist(in a nice way) Christian.\n\nI knew there had to be a God. But was this God personal, or some force? In 1971, I had a personal encounter after asking Christ to forgive my sins and fill me with His Spirit. This was at the peak of the Jesus People movement. (yes, I am an old Jesus Freak) From that moment on, I knew that He was a personal God. From that point on I have been trying to teach the Bible to whoever was curious or searching.
194689
I did change my religion.  I used to be Christian and now I am Wiccan.  I changed religions after a long path of study and realization that Christainity wasn't what I was looking for.  \n\nAll the things I was lacking for in religion, I found in Wicca.  I never thought I would be spiritual again until i started studying Wicca.  \n\ni know its true because I have attuned myself with Nature.  \n\nBut I don't think that any religion is right for everyone.
286314
You didn't, you just accepted the truth that there is one God and many ways of worshipping Him and accepting Him into your lives.  Viva la difference!\n\nLucky future kids though...twice the holidays :)
32040
I don't. I used to though.\n\ni'm just not sure why you say 'i always wondered"....when 80% of the country is Christian. what is there to wonder?