Raised in a Christian home, the inevitable happened age 10, I gave my life to Jesus at the prompting of my Sunday school teacher. I was very happy as a Christian and couldn't understand why more people weren't saved. The Christian message just made so much sense to me. The height of my Christian "career" was leading my best friend at high school to Christ. By that stage I was fully immersed in the whole deal, attending bible study, leading bible studies, a leader for a church youth group and teaching Sunday school.

In my early 20s I noticed something I hadn't heard in any sermons, there was a footnote in the bible for Mark 16:9-20 indicating a scribe had appended these verses to the original gospel. I then realised the possibility that the Bible may not be 100% reliable. Over the next few years I came to dislike the church's position on the role of women and it's treatment of homosexuals. To me it just felt wrong.

At around 28 I bought and read "River out of Eden" by Richard Dawkins so that I could properly understand evolution. For Americans this would seem to be a radical step to take as a Christian, however I was raised as a Christian to accept evolution (as most other Australian Christians do) but always thought Gods hand was necessary to guide the process. In reading this book I suddenly realised then evolution was far more powerful than what I initially thought, God did not seem necessary to guide the process at all. These things took place over a number of years, I was still a strong Christian but in retrospect these were the first cracks in my faith.

Then at age 31 I remembered the original Richard Dawkins book and wanted to read another by him. At the bookshop there were quite a few of his books so I went to the internet to see if I could find recommendations on the best one. In doing that search I stumbled across the Secular Web, and in finding that web site I found articles that destroyed my faith in the bible and Christianity. As a last ditch attempt to save my faith I read various Christian books such as More than a Carpenter - McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol 1 & 2 - McDowell and various apologetic articles.

In the end it did no good, I concluded I did not believe Christianity was true due to contradictions in the Gospel resurrection accounts and the gospels being unreliable as a historical record. That the culture of the 1st century was very superstitious with messiahs a dime-a-dozen, the atrocities in the old testament and that prayer doesn't work was icing on the cake.

There was no anger at God, no deep hurt and no tragedy in my life that caused me to stop believing. I simply wasn't able to believe once I examined the evidence and found it was crushingly against Christianity being true.

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