Deconversion stories from Biblical Errancy
Mark J
Letter #224 from Mark J
When I was a young child I was forced to attend an Episcopalian church every Sunday morning. There are no words to describe how much I hated this church and its empty religion. When I reached the eighth grade I was told that I wouldn't have to go any more so I have never been back since other than to attend my sister's wedding. During the last couple of years of high school I started taking drugs. It is hard to explain but I feel that drugs somehow opened my mind up to religion, which I always hated so much. I also listened to rock music night and day, some of which spoke favorably of a higher power. This undoubtedly influenced me. One night in May 1970 when I was 18, I came home after smoking pot and really felt terrible. This was unusual as I had always had good experiences with drugs prior to that. I started to feel worse and suddenly the thought popped into my mind, "why don't you read the bible, maybe that will help." I was unable to find the family bible but I did find a paraphrase of the book of Romans. Prior to this night I had never read the bible in my life. I deliberately never listened to anything in church and so I was totally unfamiliar with the bible's contents. I read the first five or six chapters of Romans, all about "man's depravity," and really became convinced that my life needed to be changed. The next day I contacted a few of the believers at high school and they proceeded to tell me all about their version of the christian faith. They all went to a "charismatic pentecostal" church, composed of fundamentalists who also believe in speaking in tongues, healing, miracles, etc. So I became "saved," "born again," "justified," "filled with the Holy Ghost," etc. I began to read the bible, pray every day, attend a million church meetings, try to convert the lost etc. As soon as I got "saved" and indoctrinated, I felt that all churches but charismatic churches were false. I believed that the baptists, methodists, catholics, presbyterians, mormons and a million other sects did not follow the bible so I abhorred these institutions. Around 1975 I started to realize that most charismatic churches did not follow the bible either, so I read every book and listened to every tape that I could find about the "new testament church." I reasoned that the true church must be like the church in the book of Acts. I visited many churches that claimed they were like the new testament church. In 1977 I attended a bible school that claimed to have the "new testament order" so I could become a preacher. After bible school a few friends of mine and I started home bible studies but they never got off the ground. Around May 1985 I started reading literature that challenged the idea that the bible taught "eternal hell." These writings claimed the original writings of scripture had been corrupted by the King James Version and most of the modern versions of the Bible. It was claimed that the Hebrew word "olam" and the Greek word "aionios" did not mean eternal. There are several versions that do not use the word "eternal": Young's Literal Translation, the Concordant Version, Rotherham's Emphasized Bible and the Emphatic Diaglott. So I became open to the idea that perhaps the bible taught the "annihilation of the wicked" (annihilationism--Ed.) or the doctrine of the restoration of all things, that all mankind and even fallen angels and satan would eventually be restored to God (universalism--Ed.). Around January 1986 I formally rejected the idea that the bible taught the doctrine of the "trinity," though I had felt very uncomfortable with that belief for years. In my thinking the trinity doctrine is polytheism, worshipping three gods, and obviously false. Around November 1986 the thought occurred to me that I had never really given the enemies of christianity a fair hearing, I had never even read their books. In a courtroom a judge listens to both sides before making a decision, but most christians, including myself up to that time, only read literature that confirms their beliefs and traditions. They are not open to change, so it is impossible to pursue truth impartially. From November 1986 to the present I have read numerous books by deists, agnostics and atheists, but there are five books that really stand out in my mind as destroying my faith in the bible as the "inerrant word of god." These were the first anti-bible books I read and they demonstrated to my satisfaction that the bible, though it may have some good morals and interesting stories, is basically a pack of lies, particularly its main theme, the pagan doctrine of the "atonement." The first book I read which challenged the scriptures was a small book on the history of Egypt. It pointed out that the uniqueness of christianity is a lie, that scores of pagan deities had a "virgin birth," "died as a ransom for mankind," and "rose from the dead." Many pagan deities were "god-men" and the doctrine of the trinity was very common long before the time of Christ. The second book I read was the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. I don't see how anyone could read this book and honestly claim that christianity is true. Then I read a book on the "Dead Sea Scrolls" by Charles Potter that really attacked the doctrine of the deity of Christ, and pointed out how the NT is filled with mythology. Then I read "The Mistakes of Moses" by Robert Ingersoll, which pointed out that the so-called "chosen people of God" were really a bunch of savage pagan barbarians....
If anyone reading this still believes in the bible as nonfiction, rather than fictitious mythology, I would like to discuss the claims of the scriptures with him. I rejected the bible after very careful study, not from a desire to sin or displease the true God, if theism is true. I would particularly enjoy having an oral or written debate with anyone who believes in orthodoxy.
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