Hello,

As a disclaimer, my email may appear unfocused. That is because I've been through a lot lately. Recently, I have decided to purge all traces of christianity from my life because it has brought nothing but frustration, heartache, and pain. In fairness though, I do not yet know if it was christianity in and of itself or what I have been taught about it. I say this because some things I am told by christians are based not on evidence within the bible but opinions. Let me start from the beginning:

I didn't become a christian out of a desire, but fear chased me to church. I had an intense fear of hell, fear that I had committed the unpardonable sin, thus I ran to church. Eventually I got saved, filled with the holy spirit, baptized, the whole nine yards. Yet, I could not shake the fact that I was there because of fear and not because I wanted to be. As time went on, my walk became more genuine. As soon as my walk became genuine, the shit hit the fan. I was taught and told things that just didn't sit right with me. The first of which was that I could not wear pants or make-up because it was unchristian. I really believed that I would go to hell for engaging in such. Not only that, but I could not wear braids or wear my hair natural. I am black and let me make it clear that this was a black church teaching that nonsense about hair. All of this left me feeling way too restricted and even less feminine. Other young ladies my age were concerned with men, career, etc, but I was worried about pants. Speaking of men, I didn't have many relationships because "unsaved men" were off limits. When you barely find saved men, there is nothing left for a lady to do but be alone. NO MORE!

Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. I had the "opportunity" to listen to a black preacher who claimed that God purposely allowed slavery because of paganism in Africa. He went on to say that an NOI muslim read his book about his views and got saved. Although I accepted that on the surface, it angered me deep down inside. I wondered, "why would God punish black people for that when there were and are many cultures who don't embrace christianity? Today, no group in the US is more into god than black people (just watch any award show and you will find a black celebrity thanking god for an award, who cares that the video or music is the most ungodly thing on earth). This issue lingers with me even to this day. But I still decided to give god a chance.

Next, there is the book of Job. I must admit that I cannot stand that book. How could a god agree to let satan torture a man (taking his children, health, etc) just to prove Job will not reject him? In other words, god needed to boost his ego. After sending Job into one tragedy after the next, Job decides to ask God questions. God's response was something along the lines of: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? You mean to tell me that God allowed a man to suffer tremendously and could only come up with that arrogant response? I mean give Job a break, he was traumatized. Needless to say. I tried to give god another break. I thought, perhaps the story of Job isn't meant to be taken as historical fact, but as fiction to teach a lesson. That I could deal with. But again, the story continues.

Tithing: I was a faithful tither, giving a tenth (and sometimes more) of my increase whether income or gifts. I gave and gave and gave. The windows of heaven never opened and I have always seen a curse on my finances. I was led to believe that tithing was mandatory until I actually studied the issue for myself. I will never tithe again, but I lost a lot of money after years of that yoke.

What really drove a wedge between God and I is the issue of faith. As a child, and until recently (I'm 33), I was made to believe that a miracle took place in regards to my health. I am a carrier for a genetic disease that was supposedly healed when I was a kid. I was tested last year and lo and behold, I am still a carrier.

Christians believe (and according to the bible) that without faith, it is impossible to please God. I would go on to say that 90% of people could not please God and the remaining 10% are still "waiting for their promises"....holding onto faith,hhmmm. I am still waiting to meet one person who ask in faith in Jesus' name and received whatsoever they asked for. If you lose a leg or an arm, it will not grow back no matter how much faith you have. Not everyone's entire household will be saved (according to Acts).

In spite of all of this, I was still willing to give God a chance. I finally became pregnant after a couple of years of trying. Each visit, I thought I saw God relieve my fears by keeping my baby safe. Everything was going great until I hit approx 18 weeks. Sadly, my child died in the womb and I was forced to endure delivering a dead but beautiful boy. I named him Joshua, but I should have named him "christian" because with his death, my christian walk died too. I can finally say that I want absolutely nothing to do with the biblical god. How much can one person take? The strange thing is, I feel free and at peace. I love it. Because of my conversion roughly 16 years ago, I don't know that I can truly throw christianity out the window but I CAN and WILL surpress it. There has always been a part of me that detests the god of the bible and my recent tragedy brought that to light. It is sad because I had actually been getting back to God during my pregnancy. So I have decided that while I may not go around trashing God (I have no need to, so why waste my precious energy?) I will no longer acknowledge him in my life or in the world. I guess you can say that I am indifferent.

So I have decided to chat with more ex-christians to see if the xtian "worldview" offers the path that I desire. This is all still a process for me.

That is only a small part of my story and I hope I didn't bore anyone.

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