I grew up in Kirkby, to the north of Liverpool, on a really rough council estate where walking down to the little 'fellowship' building with a bible in your hand was a sure fire recipe for being spat at and having stones thrown at you. Well, of course there is no greater accolade than suffering like Stephen, with the face of an angel.

My problem was that unlike all the other holy, (Marks and Spencer/Next-wearing) humble young people in the church, I was the daughter of parents who had left the original church commune back in the seventies, before I was born. They were back in the fellowship, of course (no one escapes - it's like Star Trek's 'Borg'!) but no longer elders. Because my sister and I were their children, we weren't in the choir like the holy ones. We didn't teach in Sunday School like the holy ones (the holy kids were the daughters and occasionally sons of the other leaders). Of course, we thought it was nothing to do with our parents, because they never talked about that aspect of their lives. We thought it was because we just weren't holy enough, or because I wore makeup and doctor marten boots.

As I got older, I still thought it was because I wasn't holy enough - but to be fair, by that time it was true - I was drinking, and taking drugs, going out with boys etc - and my policy on all this was to lie, lie, and then lie some more to my parents. My Mum occasionally made a few lucky guesses - I thought this was her discernment. I thought of God as Mum's chief spy.

I wasn't allowed to live away when I went to university; I had to stay at home & go to Liverpool university. Not that I minded too much; I stayed in friends' rooms most of the time, but I still had to go home on Wednesday for bible study and Sunday for the fellowship main meeting. I met a wonderful man there called Stuart, but as soon as my parents found out, they threatened me with kicking me out of the house. Grief, I loved him - but the threat of bringing me in front of the elders of the fellowship to confess my sin, and be told of the dangers of hell (and I still believed in it all, even then) was too much. I "gave him up", and he moved away. Poor, poor Stuart. I don't think he realised the extent of the power my Mum, and the fellowship had over me. If I'd been stronger... if I'd had more money & could have left home... if he'd had his own place and I could have moved in... if his parents had had a big house and would have let me live with him...

But luckily I met someone else I loved, an atheist called Ivan, just after university. Again, my parents found out - and kicked me out - and I went to live with him and his parents. Then we moved to London for two and a half years, and then back to Merseyside where we live now, in St Helens. However, I resisted atheism for many years; in fact, until last October or so. Ivan was - is - wonderful. He never once pushed me into atheism or talked to me about my faith to put it down.

In October, in St Helens Town Centre, I met a man who used to go to the fellowship. He had been my parents' friend. He told me he was still a Christian, but more liberal now, and had realised the fellowship was little more than a cult. Well, that was my final straw. I realised that if Christianity was real, it would be fundimentalist, otherwise it would be a different religion all together. And as I started to wake up to the fact fundimentalism was wrong, I started to realise all of Christianity was false. It was actually more like being 'born again' than being 'born again' was in the first place!

I still had questions - why could I speak in tongues? What WAS prophesy and why could my Dad do it? How had I been healed of asthma as a child? But gradually these kind of questions were answered. In December, around about Christmas, funnily enough, I made the decision that I was a full-on atheist. I didn't believe in God. Any God.

I no longer fear hell, but I no longer have heaven to which I can look forward. I think it's a fair swap. But I know what you mean; I occasionally get those moments of "just what if?" and it scares me terribly. What if it's all true and I'm a sinner and I'm going to hell? What if the frightening God of the old testiment is real and this is his world? What if the end times really are on their way and we're about to go through awful trials and tribulations (our fellowship believed in the rapture at the end of the end times, not the beginning)?

When I was a Christian, if I started to doubt for a second, I'd think on pure things / good things / all that jazz. Now, I know how to employ the same strategies; just the other way around. If I start to doubt I have a few "of my favourite things" - questions I ask myself, like "if hell is real, where on earth is it?" "if consciousness is held in the brain, how can it exist after the brain dies?" "if God is good, why all the old testament?" "why have I never heard God's voice with my ears?" "why has no one ever been healed of an amputated limb?"

Some ex-Christians say, "of course, I'd be happy to be proved wrong." Well, I wouldn't. Not if it was the Christian God. Not the practical-joking God of Abraham (kill yer son! ahh - only kiddin'!), not the blind faith God of the Gospels (Thomas; how dare you question something just because it's impossible!) not the homophobic and misogynistic God of the new testament (Gays - hell; women - hell, unless you shut up and wear a hat).

There are many more things I could say about my time as a Christian; how it was having people throw bricks through your window for believing in God and how no one else in the fellowship came to see us because my Mum and Dad and my sister and I weren't 'holy' enough (I now see they just didn't like us particularly and used God as an excuse); how it was going out with an atheist at first when you believed that God was real and hated atheists and might well kill Ivan by getting someone to push him in front of a tube (when he didn't come back until late at night if he went out with his friends, I would be so, so, so scared that God had killed him); how it was being bullied at school for a belief that you now KNOW is false... so many more things.

I still have some anger - I just don't know to whom to direct it. My parents? My Dad e-mails me from time to time, but my Mum doesn't speak to me any more. My sister hasn't spoken to me for two years. And I don't care. I did at first, but now I don't. You can't have a relationship with someone who really thinks you're going to hell.

Most of my anger is gone now. I just get on with my life; I'm glad I escaped sooner rather than later.

Details