I think I've mentioned before that I was raised Mormon. I was a True Believer, too, serving the two-year mission and marrying a nice mormon girl in a temple. I paid tithes, didn't smoke or drink, spent hours every week in meetings, etc. I read the Book of Mormon easily 20 times.

Then in my early 30s, I started to be dissatisfied with life. One thing mormonism is very emphatic about is that if you follow the mormon path, you will be happy and blessed. God will take care of you. I wasn't feeling taken care of. Just the opposite. And I was bored. I decided the cure must be More Mormonism! I started studying deeper. There were two things I was reading: more history of the early mormons (Joseph Smith and all that) and more scholarship on the Bible that was done by non-mormons. Another thing to know in this is that Mormons are very literal about the Bible. As much as any fundamentalist. The Flood literally happened, Adam and Eve literally existed and are the literal ancestors of every human, etc.

So, yeah, broadening my horizons in biblical commentary led me to wonder about that literalism. And to see issues with the mormon interpretations. And reading early LDS history led me to some serious issues with how the mormon church came into being, and how Joseph Smith et al behaved. The sanitized version of church history that I was taught in Sunday School was inaccurate (South Park does a great job of covering some of this in their episode "All About Mormons").

Trying to keep this concise. To get to the point, at age 33 I resigned my membership as a Mormon. By this time I had been mentally out for two years. But it's not something you just quit. Especially when your wife is a true believer as well and mormonism places a HUGE emphasis on keeping the family together in the faith. We went through a very rough patch in the marriage, one that was provoked by more than just faith issues. But after hearing what I was learning and her own experiences, my wife lost her faith in the LDS church as well, and eventually lost faith in God entirely.

So I left mormonism behind. There was a moment there when I was angry at God. I don't think I ever doubted that God existed. But I was pissed that I had been raised in a faith that required so much, and that promised so much that it did not deliver. It took a while for me to figure out that God doesn't work that way. It took a while for me to understand the true nature of God. One thing that helped me through all this is rather ironic in retrospect. For a while there I wanted to try out some of the things I had kept myself from as a good little mormon boy. I wanted to party, the way I had never gotten to. I almost destroyed my marriage and myself. I ended up in counseling and in a 12 step program. The 12 step program helped me immensely in coming to a better understanding of God.

Through all this I also continued to read and study. It's what I do. I attended a variety of church services, everything from Baptist to Unitarian. I read books on Taoism and Buddhism and Judaism, especially.

I hope people can understand that leaving Mormonism is not just "leaving a religion". It's a whole lifestyle. When you are a true believing mormon, you center your whole life on it. You give up so much time, money, energy. It has family repercussions--my father in law disowned us! We lost nearly all our friends, because when you are LDS the church tends to be your only source of friendships. There is also the mental hurdle. LDS doctrine teaches that the only people truly damned are people who are in the faith and then reject it. And there are other teachings and attitudes about apostasy that are inculcated. It is not unlike a cult in this regard.

My entire life changed. My attitudes about so many things changed. I had to re-examine just about every thing, because I no longer had the Given Mormon Answer to every question. I've ended up a Christian. Mormons will object and say they are Christian too, but they are wrong. They are outside the historical orthodoxy of Christianity. Their conception of God is entirely different than the real Christian one. I never understood that until I was on the outside. The mormon god is a false one. What that means is that their version of reality is not correct. The universe doesn't work the way they say it does.

I was raised Presbyterian in a church with a strong community. When I went to college, I started actually looking into what I believed and realized over a period of 10 years that it was kind of crazy. Amusingly, strong spoken Christians made me go in and study the bible to look into the things they were saying, and...I had read the whole book, but when I actually started thinking through the things it was saying, it just started sounding fictional. I also realized that the god portrayed in those pages, if judged on human standards, is a horrible person. Why would I want to worship that being, even if the rest of the book was compelling? I wouldn't.

@dipplayer2004: Any particular Christian denomination?

I was raising in good Catholic Ireland, as the majority nobody really cared that much about their religion. It does nothing to distinguish ones-self from anybody else. At about 3, when i first saw snow fall, i asked my mum, "how does God make the snow go back up?" (clearly already questioning Gods power against gravity? Or just, you know, being 3) At the age of 8 i was convinced tuere was no Santa and i pressured my parents into telling me as much, and felt all the more grown up for figuring out the big secret.

A few years later, around the age of 11/12 it came time to making my confirmation (just like everyone else in my school year) and i was a firm atheist. I did however know that i could get money by making my confirmation, and after asking my mother whether it was possible to get the money any other way, i eventually lied and pretended to maybe sorta be unsure and just want to make my confirmation 'in case'. (42€ richer i was now mercenary aswell as atheist)

At about the age of 16, i was a strong science student and truely believed the physics could explain all things on a very fundamental level; at which point i read 'The Dao of Physics' which compares modern theoretical physics to eastern mysticism. Crap book in many parts, but it did open my eyes to a non-reductive way of seein the world. And eventually led my to a holistic pantheism, the idea that God and the Universe are one. And apart from refining this idea, and what it means to me, that is pretty much where i stand today. (though my mother came out as agnostic in recent years, which was very nice to see)

I was raised a Methodist Christian. My father was (is) a Methodist and a former youth pastor. My mother was a Baptist. I was brought up more with Methodism, though. My grandmother took me to a Baptist service once, and it legitimately scared me. The sermon involved an atheist man who sat in the back of the church and laughed at the service. The man died, and the pastor portrayed it as being God punishing him for laughing at Him. And the people in the room kept saying "Amen," and it felt like they were celebrating the death of this man. Baptists outright scared me at that point. About a year and a half ago, I started doubting the validity of the Trinity. The nature of it stopped making sense to me. It seemed (and seems) ridiculous. Jesus (PBUH) outright admitted in the Bible that he knew less than God, his Father. If Jesus (PBUH) were the same entity, it wouldn't make sense for one to know less than the other. Moreover, the entire existence of the Holy Spirit made absolutely no sense. What's the purpose of it that God Himself could not do? The Creator is all-powerful, yet He needs a separate self to do the things the Holy Spirit does? There was also the fact of the manipulation of the Bible. Religious scholars, including the pastor of my grandparents' (from the Methodist side) church, admitted that it was changed several times during transcriptions. Scribes changed it to fit their beliefs a number of times. It seemed to all be a lie, and I didn't know what to believe anymore, so I stumbled into a brief period of agnosticism. I had come to the understanding that there as much out there proving the existence of God or gods as there was disproving such an existence. During this period, one of my friends (the same friend who had introduced me to Imran Khan and Pakistani politics about a half a year before) introduced me to Islam. Aside from making more sense than Christianity, Islam DID offer a proof in favor of the existence of God that lays stronger than any proof against it. This was about a year and a half ago.
I still live in a Christian household, and I face ridicule at any given point. They taunt me with stereotypes, and my father won't let me practice much more than eating halal. I still love my family, but I don't appreciate them treating me like I'm some sort of savage. And they also admit that I'm among their favorite of children and that I'm the hardest worker, they just despise my religious choice/realization. Some of the state legislators here openly say they think the religion itself is evil, so I'm hoping to get out of Oklahoma as soon as I possibly can. After converting, I've taken a strong stance of understanding viewpoints better (or at least trying).

"Some of the state legislators here openly say they think the religion itself is evil, so I'm hoping to get out of Oklahoma as soon as I possibly can."

Does it not make sense to try and get these legislators removed? To talk to people about your religion of peace and how can they elect someone so anti-religion? Perhaps asking them, if first Islam is to be attacked, what protects Christianity (or any other religion)?

Jeff, I'm currently exploring Catholicism. Sola scriptura makes no sense to me, so Protestantism is out, and I love the liturgy.

orathaic: Because the idea is too instilled in the mindset of Okies that no matter what I go and tell them, they'll just blow me off. You expect politicians from Oklahoma to be more reasonable than they can realistically be. They aren't anti-religion, they're anti-Islam.

I am a Protestant Christian, but I don't believe the denomination matters a whole lot, I think everyone should have one, but I do not think the denominations should be hostile. Dipplayer, I find your story very inspiring. I grew up in a christian household, but I went through a time of trying to disprove God, as I didn't want him to be real. I read books on many different religions but I found that Christianity is has the most proof and requires lees jumping to conclusions than atheism. So to me, Christianity was and is the only logical choice, I find most atheists that say this are just saying what they have heard, or have done one-sided research. @TrPrado That sermon sounds horrific, I have no idea how that must have been, but don't knock christianity just from your experiences with a few churches. Christianity is the largest organized religion in the world, and as such there are a ridiculous amount of offshoots that do not represent the whole. If I said all Muslims were terrorists who murderd all christians they met, would that make you angry? There are a lot of different views on God within christianity, explore more before you write it off as fake.

@TrPrado, it is sad to see such an example of democracy in (failed) action. Good luck!

Don't worry, Petyr, it wasn't the sermon that pulled me from Christianity. That only kept me of the mind that I wasn't a fan of the Baptist denomination. The Methodists were a very kind lot.

I'm not going to try to convert you over the internet :) ( that has never worked, ever ) But as long as you made up your own mind thats great, you actually think for yourself, thats more than most atheists ( even though they say we religious people don't :)

Wow, great thread, and great posts.

I've shared my conversion story at great length in another thread, so this is the short version. I was raised Lutheran, which was my mom's family religion since before 1575, when a great-great ... became the first Lutheran bishop of Stavanger, Norway. I believed what they taught me in Sunday School--I am Jesus' little lamb, he died on the cross to pay for my sins, etc., and I was confirmed at age 13 or 14 by memorizing much of Martin Luther's Small Catechism and spouting it back on demand. Then in high school I found that something was missing in my life. I knew I was missing something in the spiritual dimension of my life, and I knew it had something to do with God. I tried "not sinning," and found that I could not, even in the best of circumstances. For the first time, I actually spoke to God like he was real and asked him for help with some problems in my life. Then I was invited to an evangelical youth retreat, and heard the news that changed my life--That I needed to make the decision to accept God's love and forgiveness for myself--accept Jesus' death on the cross as payment for all my sins. When I did that, I had an actual conversion experience (which I had never even heard of before), which really blew me away, and the next few weeks and months were like a honeymoon with Jesus. Everything in my life fell into place, I recognized other believers I had never met before in public places, and they recognized me. I still attended the Lutheran church and got to see my mom accept Jesus (guilt had kept her at arm's length from God before), but was more and more uncomfortable with "the form of righteousness but not the substance thereof." The pastor counseled me to stay there and work for change from within, but when I turned 18 I read the document I would have to say, and found that I didn't agree with what it said about "all the works of Martin Luther" being correct interpretations of scripture because I read what he said about Jews and some of the Catholic leaders, and it was not just disagreements about religion but actually seemed to be full of hatred. At that point I also asked about some church teachings that I couldn't find in the Bible, like infant baptism and "Does the communion PHYSICALLY turn into Jesus' body and blood?" etc. I realized I could never be an adult member of the Lutheran Church and started visiting other churches, and at that time Calvary Chapel of San Diego was just moving into the old North Park Theater, and it was a time of incredible revival. I consider myself an evangelical Christian who came out of the later part of the Jesus Movement in California but am currently a member of a "stubborn little Baptist church" and God is working in many people's lives.

"read the document I would have to sign to become an adult member"

Born as a son to atheists, I was an agnost for most of my life so far. Meeting all kinds of religions and beliefs, none of which ever seemed right or realistic to me, I've developed my own belief which I think is pretty novel in some regards, but I have a very hard time explaining it and I guess I'm done trying to do it in conversation groups larger than two, and doing it typing doesn't exactly appeal to me either.

It's too abstract, basically. I can even back parts up with mathematical principles etc., but if I do so it's hard to convince people it's a religion to me rather than a scientific model etc.

I think I could explain if I could look the person in the eyes and see their reactions and emotions, so I'd know exactly their concerns etc. so I can use the right arguments and explanations.

I don't consider my story to be a conversion at all, and it hardly classifies as leaving a religion because I am still a part of it in that I am still a member of my congregation and I doubt that will actually change until they start asking me to pay dues (at 21 or when independent, of which I am neither), at which point I'll say no and walk away from it. Still, it's worth telling, and I apologize in advance - I am terrible with the idea of brevity.

I am somewhere between atheism and animism right now, which is a very strange combination, but that's not unusual for me. I expect that in time I will stare into the faces of the spirits and other entities I have started to feel in the last few years of my life and that I'll realize that I'm not crazy for believing that they exist in some form. I was raised Jewish, though not strictly - reform Judaism is essentially agnosticism in everyday life with a few religious events thrown in yearly, mostly just for symbolic purposes. I went to services whenever the family went, and I went through consecration when I was young. I trained for eight years for my Bar Mitzvah and I had a blast. I made a lot of friends and I am consistently asked back to my synagogue to read from Torah during the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur), so I guess I was good at it.

While I was preparing for confirmation (yes, all you Christians, that's a Jewish thing), I became very outdoorsy, eventually becoming a conservationist, survivalist, guide, and climber. Getting back to nature - where I believe I belong - really affected me, primarily in that I began to feel that everything I did was impactful, and not only things like burning fossil fuels either or any of that. Literally every step I take stirs up millions upon millions of years of evolution and preparation, and it astounds me. Every time I climb, I take a stone back with me from the highest point I reach (typically a summit) as a souvenir, and it sometimes just dawns on me that that probably sat there for a good chunk of forever, and I simply took it. Is it wrong? I don't think so, but it just blows me away, and watching everything work the way it's meant to work instead of the way we shape it in civilization made me wonder what I was doing worshipping a never-before-seen figure when I could be dedicating my life to the things and places that are actually here.

As such, I've drifted away from Jewish mythology. I don't believe that any one deity could ever be anywhere near strong enough or wise enough to create the world, and I don't believe that we as a civilization will live long enough to find out exactly how things began beyond the Big Bang. Yet, at the same time, I don't believe that the conception of things is beyond human reason, and while I am more than happy to admit that I don't know, concepts that are beyond the scope of any logic, such as an all-powerful, all-knowing deity, do not work for me. I don't know where exactly I stand, but I know that I'm in the process of unlearning everything that's been taught to me and refocusing on what is real.

If anyone would like to get back to nature, I am happy to help you do so, and I'm not saying that you should leave your life behind and build a cabin outside of Fairbanks, but that when you take a vacation to New York City, drive two hours out to the mountains for a day and just be there. I know I'm not the only one that can feel the world rotating when I get away.

I was raised as an Evangelical Lutheran, and maintained those beliefs (although neither a devout follower, I went to church once a week and that was about it) for quite some time.

Unfortunately, my church decided to build a multimillion-dollar addition for no reason.

In disgust, I stopped attending church and began re-evaluating my beliefs. I still hold nominally Protestant Christian beliefs and continue to self-identify as one, but I am not a conventional Christian by any stretch of the imagination. I have found that my beliefs align most closely with Theistic Rationalism, because I do not have a literal interpretation of the Old Testament (particularly the early chapters of Genesis, and I do not view the Old Testament as anything more than historical context for the New Testament) and I believe that reason is necessary, sufficient, and able to resolve conflict between the Bible and science.

I take Luther's idea of the Church coming between believers and God one step further, in that I do not believe it is necessary to attend church services. My relationship with God is between me and Him. I don't need another human figure (i.e. a pastor) to tell me what to believe or how to act.

Instead of conventional worship, I read the Bible (New Testament only) on occasion (usually 30min-1 hour per week) and give glory to God by generally being a good person to everyone I encounter.

^esp. to those that carry ;)

I was old enough to understand that my parents became christians (protestants) and was baptised at five (where I caused some confusion in the church when I asked why I had to renounce the devil).

I subsequently received a thorough protestant education from kindergarten to public school and am by consequence well versed in theologic issues. I had a strong exposure to judaism for several reasons, so that I'm highly familiar with Jewish religious life and catholicism when I served a voluntary year with Arche en France. I have a superficial knowledge of islam, mostly political islam and some through missionaries (by several strands including those that support ISIS). The same goes for the LDS (and I'm proud in an ugly macho sense to have dated an mormon girl during her 2 years of mission without ever being tinted by thoughts of conversion). For interest and school I learnt a lot of classic religions (esp. Hellenistic ones) and to a lesser extent about Shinto and Japanese Buddhism. I know a tiny bit about Taoism as a religion, albeit I'm only interested in Taoism as a philosophy, which is quite different.

I tried to be religious as well as a believer mostly during elementary school. I just wasn't able to become either. I like classic protestant music quite a bit and this was the only reason for enjoying service. Since early on, I was repelled by theology that aimed for emotions rather than intellect and argument, but I like the latter from times to times.

I'm not an atheist, which I would define as actively rejecting anything religious, so I think agnostic would describe it better. Simply speaking, I never needed religion and consider it as some kind of hobby. As such, I try to respect believers in their choice, pretty much like someone who choose to like football instead of rugby or whatever. I reserve myself the right though tackle their arguments (if I think these are invalid or stupid, I should be able to say it in their face as they did with the arguments - else I wouldn't know about said arguments). The same reciprocity applies to satire and the like – a religion who treats non-believers as "incomplete"or even more deprecating cannot claim a similar attack as undue disrespect. To respond to dipplayer: Everybody may have a religion.

I do not reject the existence of God. (in my case, I accept God as He is depicted by conventional Protestant Christian theology, and my acceptance of "this" God is backed [in my mind] by reason and historical evidence/facts)

However, I *personally* reject the necessity of *organized* religion. What gives any earthly man the right to tell me how to interact with God? A divinity credential? A goofy-looking white rectangular collar? The mandate of an old guy in the Vatican? No. If I have to deal with God, I'll deal with Him myself.

That being said, I recognize the right of all men to peaceably practice their own religions/beliefs, organized or not. I (in principle) *support* the efforts of other Christian denominations. Christian missionaries (actually, anyone of any faith who does good things for good people) can rock on, but I won't be joining them anytime soon.

Furthermore, I am always open to peaceful debate/discussion with those of different views than mine, to include "more devout" Christians.

I am actually not an Anglican anymore; more of a mad Methodist these days :-)

^ watch your faith, cause you might become puritan somewhere down that road.

So misleading CA.

'twasn't misleading at all when I joined the site. Kinda stuck with the name now though :-)

My story may not count as a traditional religious conversion, but I would certainly classify it as a fundamental change of life philosophy. I grew up in a loosely Lutheran church, and my family pretty much attended on Sundays only. When in school, I accepted the concept of Jesus as my savior, but that was largely because I was afraid of the alternative. Furthermore, in the Midwest, Christianity was the most accepted form of religion, and my ultimate goal was to be respected and admired by everyone.

Looking back, I realize that the guiding principle of my "religion" was Americanism. I wanted to go to the best school, get the best job, marry a girl from school, and start my family complete with the picket fence and everything. Then life happened, and shortly after college, my romantic aspirations came crashing to the ground, and with these aspirations, my concept of God collapsed too.

At this point, I threw everything into my job, trying to climb the corporate ladder, and I was successful, being promoted to the HQ of a large corporation. Unfortunately, I soon found that this life was empty, and through a series of strangely supernatural events, I ended up having a personal experience with the living Christian God. I realized that the nominal faith I had claimed was a perversion of Christianity, and that was when I realized that I had been living a life of Americanism. I realized that Jesus did not come to provide "fire insurance" from hell, but that Christianity was a different thing altogether. If Jesus is who he says he is (and I believe that he is...), then he also wants my whole life. This isn't a situation where there are "50 shades of gray." ;-) Instead, my understanding of the biblical narrative is a one question test. Do you believe God is who he says he is? (through the Bible or otherwise) And I do, and I have changed my life to reflect that.

I no longer work for that company (for several reasons). In fact, I am in school learning more about the Bible, but I love talking about these things, so I was glad to see this post. Also, I wanted to ask a few questions to some of the folks above, which I'll do in another post (since this one may be too long for people to still be reading).

TrPrado, I am sorry to hear about your experiences with the Baptists, and I can relate to your questions about the Trinity. I admit that I do not fully understand the Trinity either. However, I would like to know more about the "changes" to the Scriptures that you mentioned. Do you know any examples of that? According to my knowledge, the Scriptures we have today are incredibly reliable as ancient documents. There are marginal notes on some Scriptures, but it is generally apparent when the text has been changed. I'd love to chat more if anyone has interest.

Gunfighter, I'd also like to learn more about your perspective. Your post reflected an affinity for Luther and the New Testament, yet rejects the concept of an "organized" community of believers. In my reading, both the New Testament and Luther support the community of faith. Have you found this approach to your faith to be helpful? And how do you reconcile your personal faith with the New Testament picture of community? (I'm thinking about Acts or 1 Corinthians 12, for example)

I always like to hear about people's journeys, and I hope to provide/receive insight whenever possible.

I despise most organised religions to be honest and trace back many of man-kinds worst atrocities to the practice of them.

It is not good enough for a religion to profess peace and love, only to turn their backs on it at the first opportunity.

I was lucky in going to a liberal private school, who did their best (despite being Methodist/Uniting Protestants) to actually educate us on the major world religions to foster understanding.

The problem is, the more you understand about organised religion in its many forms, the more you realise just how flawed they are, and end up being simple tools to exploit for the committing of humanity's worst crimes.

Fuck them all.

Glad to entertain your opinion, Wusti.

Next.

Mine is as valid as anyone elses, Bo - respect isn't subjective.