I am writing an essay about the role of the internet, internet communities, forums etc. in religious deconversion.

I am looking for a published story or narrative to use as one of my sources. Ideally that speaks about the role of some element of the online experience in the deconversion process (a safe space, space for exploration, forming identity etc.

Many thanks!

After a lifetime of research I've come to believe I know why Christianity is an oxymoron of conflicting theology... It claims to be "the religion of love Christ came to announce to the world." ...while "Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword" or "All must come before the judgment seat of Christ..." to have this "loving god" cast most of us into eternal pain in the flames of hell. No god can be "loving" and concurrently wrathful & vengeful.

Abe Lincoln addressed the theological conflict... He said, he "could not conceive that a loving god could create the circumstances where he would have to commit his own children to eternal hell, as the Christians would say."

Turns out most of our founders weren't committed church goers for this cognitive dissonance of the faith, and protected our citizens from the oppression of the European churches with guaranteed religious freedom in the Second Amendment for this reason.

Thomas Jefferson wisely said, “The church perverted the purest religion ever preached by terrifying the masses with brimstone for the purpose of gaining wealth and control.” And further that, "Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."

It seems that it was originally a movement of charity and compassion for the first 300 years, with Christ only celebrated as a prophet, a man... but when Rome commandeered the faith, they converted it in the tradition of Roman pgan religion when Nicaea altered it to the new Roman state religion...Catholicism.

“When Constantine became Emperor of Rome, he nominally became a Christian, but being a sagacious politician, he sought to blend Pagan practices with ‘Christian’ beliefs, to merge Paganism with the Roman Church. Roman Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient Pagan world.” (hope-of-israel.com)...the trinity, virgin birth, son of god theology, Satan/brimstone judgment scenario, Dec. 25th from the pagan sun god's solstice birthday and Easter (Eostre/estrogen, pagan goddess of fertility, eggs/bunnies)... All this dogma was pagan Mithraism supplanted into Constantine's new altered version of "Christianity" ergo... "Roman Christianity."

The bible does threaten judgment, but this pagan emperor had the bible published to codify his revised Roman version of the religion. That explains why the original faith of love and compassion became twisted with Roman pagan wrath and vengeance... and hence a religious concoction of love and vengeance discord.

Parade Magazine found that 24% have left church for Christian “Spiritualism” to avoid being controlled by these issues.

I was once a radical protestant judaizer. My legalism went to the point of Torah obsession and love of the laws in it. It was a time of anti-gentile racism (ironically, I don't know if I have Jewish blood). There were periods of denial of the New Testament, meaning I believed devoutly in the old Covenant. That is what protestantism can do to you. My journey to Orthodoxy began because of the books not found in the Protestant Bible. So I studied Orthodoxy, though after is a bit of blur. And as such, my opinions changed. I am now against religious wars, the death penalty, etcetera. Additionally, I do embrace Jews as human, but not to the point of gentilophobia.

Ex Muslims, ex Scientologists, ex Christians, ex Jewish....blah blah blah. If you want to join, please dm me. A telegram is an app like watsapp but with privacy, you can be added to the group without having to provide your phone number only your username

I(38m) grew up heavily involved in the church; camps, youth group, bible studies, etc.. Five years ago, after a bout learning and questioning and sharing my new ideas and questions unintentionally resulted in wariness, dismissal and in some cases complete erosion of relationships. An extremely high percentage of my family and friends are still Christian but I would like to connect with more open-minded people but the conservative area I live in does not have many. I miss the camaraderie of the Christian social circle. Where do you go for community?

Hey ex_protestants,

I am an undergraduate student researcher working on my thesis project, and I am looking for participants who are at least 18 year old and have left a religion either through conversion or to non-religion. This research will look at what influences the decision to exit religion, and in what ways that choice impacts the lives of those who leave.

Participation qualifications:

• Have left a religion either through conversion or to non-religion
• 18 years or older
• Have 15 minutes in one sitting to complete the survey

This survey should take about 15 minutes to complete, and all participants who complete it will be entered into a random drawing to win a $20 Amazon gift card.

All participant information will be kept confidential, and you may choose to withdraw from the research at any time by exiting the survey, though withdrawing removes you from the gift card drawing. Survey topics may include past religious experiences, current religious experience, sexual orientation, and family relationships.

If you would like more information about this research project please contact: leavingreligionresearch@gmail.com or click the link below to read more information.

If you are interested in participating in the survey for a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card, please follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XV6WRBW

EDIT 1/2/18: The final paper (undergraduate thesis) based on this survey is available to read by clicking on the following link: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1713/leaving-religion-a-qualitative-analysis-of-religious-exiting

Hey recently I had a terrrible nightmare (thank you, Stranger Things:)) and as I finally woke up I immediatelly prayed a very childish prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, please don´t let me have nightmares again...). Do you still say prayers out of habit? I mean I left evangelical Christianity two years ago so maybe that is still soon. Or did you ever learn to say OMG and violate the second commandment?

I posted this on Facebook earlier today in response to the posts I saw from my religious friends that the Orlando attack is a sign that America needs to repent and turn to god. So far I haven't seen anyone with the gall to say that the massacre was punishment on homosexuals, but considering how much outpouring of support I saw on Facebook for the attacks on the mostly Christian nations in Europe a few months back, the lack of any support for the victims of this attack on our own soil is pretty damning. The point I tried to make with this post isn't that America is perfect or that America has never committed an atrocity or that Islam is a peaceful religion. I wanted to respond to people who see actual progress in human rights as sinful and "moral decay" and state that religion is not the answer to our problems. I hope this helps anyone else who sees the same.

Blaming a tragedy on the need for national repentance is not only a slap in the face of the victims, but what exactly does America need to repent for? Abolishing slavery? Giving women the right to vote? America started off as a novel concept at a time when it was inconceivable for a nation and a religion to not be one and the same. Later Americans improved the idea by expanding equality to people of any race and sex. I complain about America's faults (namely an ignorant populace, divisive media, and corrupt politicians), but despite its flaws America has continually improved upon a good idea, that all men are created equal, and only gotten better. If you want to blame our problems on Muslims, atheists, Jews, liberals, immigrants, etc. then you have no idea what made America great to begin with. If you want everybody to think exactly like you do, then go live in North Korea or Saudi Arabia. America defeated the one world superpower in the Revolution, overcame our greatest national division ever during the Civil War, destroyed the Nazis in WWII, and we'll defeat religious extremism too. But we're going to do it with patience, education, understanding and action, not by sitting around blaming people who are different than us and hoping things get better.

From what I've heard (and seen on the understandably controversial film Jesus Camp), things can escalate from friendly bible-banter into utter bedlam rather quickly. Compared to that, mine was practically summer camp. Did anybody else go as a child? I'd like to hear your stories.

Why don't we just merge this subreddit with ex_christian? I think more than one person has already implied this, but perhaps we should actually do it.

I just stumbled across this subreddit, from /r/atheism of all places. I was raised as a fundamentalist, pentecostal, evangelical. I'm now a member of the Orthodox Christian Church. I'm studying to be a therapist, and as a result, I'm spending a lot of time working out my own shit. Right now, I'm coming to terms with how my sexuality was pretty royally fucked up by my upbringing. I'm trying to work my way through my rage and find a place where I can sit with the crying little boy that nobody could get close enough to comfort. After therapy today, I wrote the following rant, and I cried a lot. For some reason, when I found this place I thought of posting it. Maybe one of the 31 subscribers to this place will resonate with this a little bit. I don't know. Here it is.

Dear purity conferences, fuck yourselves.

You told us that we needed to stay pure, that our bodies were temples, that God could not stand to be in the presence of sin. You told us that it was not what went into our bodies that mattered, but what came out of them. Our blood and semen to be more precise. You told us that virginity (which is to say, purity, which is to say holiness, which is to say salvation) was a thing that we had. Once. And, that if we ever lost it then we would never be able to find it again. Ever. Sex was the forbidden fruit, and we were told very clearly that on that day we would die.

You said that if any of us even thought of a woman in a sexual way then we were guilty of sin. You said that masturbation involved thinking of women in sexual ways, which therefore made it a sin. You said that, in fact, since it involved only one gender, it was inherently homosexual (the perfect deterrent for middle-school boys). You made it quite clear that sexual pleasure of any kind was completely and totally damnable, evil, and dirty, and you don’t want to be dirty, do you?

Then, you did what you had to do as “totally not puritans” and you told us how great your sex was. You told us about your “hot wife” and how “awesome” sex between two married people truly is. You chastised us for ever thinking about recreational procreation, and then you put the image of you fucking in our heads. Fucking our heads. Fucking up our heads.

And, you know what, assholes. We tried. We fucking tried. We kept one another accountable. We went around the circle and confessed, one after another, that yes, we had jerked off in the past week. We asked for prayer from our “fellow struggling brothers.” We sought out your guidance, but all you offered us was another conference, and the promise of more conferences once we were no longer “youths.” Women's conferences, men’s conferences, missions conferences, purity conferences, marriage conferences. Sometimes I think you thought heaven would be one big conference, all stuffed to brimming with emotional worship music (that you could buy outside at half-off sticker price), talks from people who wrote books (that you could buy for full sticker price, but it would be extra worth it because you could get it signed), and so much trip-wire, barb-wire fences around our beings, constricting our windpipes and cutting into our chests saying “one day you’ll appreciate this. Your wife will thank you for it. God will love you for it.” Your music and your talks, your books and CD’s all the signs that no, really, we were good people, we wanted to do it right. We wanted you to love us because that was the only way we could be sure that God loved us too. I think you tried, but you were shit at it.

There was a thing that was growing inside of me (ha ha penis). Fuck you. There was a beautiful, dangerous thing growing inside of me, a thing of incredible power to connect, create, and to destroy. You were so afraid that I would hurt you with it, the way daddy always hurts you with it, the way he always hurts us with it, the way we never ever ever want to be hurt again. You were so afraid that you told me, quite sternly, to keep it tucked inside those pants. "Remember that pleasure is danger and not to be shared. You keep it hidden, because we don’t know what to do with your sensuality."

Well, I went to your conferences. I listened to your sermons, and I wrapped all I had in the barbed wire, trip wire, commitment cards of shame. I tied it in a knot and I prayed that God would stop it growing. I wished to be small and meek and inhuman. I wanted it cut off, I wanted it to go away. I wanted to be dead. But, if I’d known about rigor mortis, even death would not let me escape my own erections. I was so afraid of who I was and what was happening to me. I was certain that I was evil.

I am so sorry, little one, that you were so afraid of yourself. I am so sorry that you felt so bad, so dirty, so alone. I’m with you now. I’ve seen a bit more than you’ve seen, and in part that has made me cynical, but in part it’s also made me free. I wonder if we can talk a bit. I hope you would benefit from my freedom, and I from your belief.

There have to be a lot more than 27 ex-Protestants on Reddit. I know that I don't encounter many ex-Protestants IRL, and it is nice to share with people who have similar life experiences. I know I will be visiting this sub regularly from now on. If anyone has stories, jokes, or complaints, post-em. You'll get at least one upvote from me.

As a kid, I was taught that evolution was a lie, and that there was no evidence. My parents bought me several creationist propaganda books, and anytime I asked to see the other side of the story (I was curious as to how other people could believe in what I believed at the time to be an obvious falsehood), I was scolded for lacking faith. What eventually helped me to understand and acknowledge evolution (and put me on the path to atheism) was my seventh grade science class. Everything I learned there was completely different from the straw man version of evolution that my parents told me about. At first, when I told my parents about what I was learning, they were angry, and forced me to read my bible every day and pray for forgiveness. Eventually, though, they started to listen. After a while they, too, realized that what they had been taught about evolution was inaccurate, and now, they recognize it for what it is: scientific fact. I'm just saying that you shouldn't give up on friends and family. Often, all they need is someone to explain the facts to them.

Goodnews everyone! /r/atheism has added us to their list of subreddits for former religious affiliates. Hopefully this will increase traffic, and give us more content.

I was first raised Lutheran when I was a kid, but even then I had my doubts. However, it absolutely makes me sick that this church, among many other Protestant denominations, preaches the concept of there being a literal Hell, and that if you don't do what Jesus says then you can go fuck yourself and burn for all eternity.

What this did for me was causing many terrible nights where I couldn't think for myself, because the fear of being an infinite amount of punishment for not believing that there was a God. I think I would have been able to spend a lot better time thinking on other matters, but the fact was that I was being emotionally and mentally abused by something which has no real good evidence for its existence or to be really taken seriously, which fucking pisses me off. I mean, as a kid you are in your most vulnerable years of mental development, and they indoctrinate you to never challenge the system, or you'll be doomed forever. Seriously, fuck those people whom want to teach their kids that there is an eternal Hell.

I would like to add that my mother wasn't super religious, and that my dad was pretty much an atheist, so thanks to them I was able to escape. Otherwise, they probably would have indoctrinated me further so such an escape wouldn't be possible.

People often sometimes ask me why it is I distrust the Protestant church and dislike it. I want to start by saying I in no way hold any animosity towards protestants as individuals but as a group and system. My whole family is protestant, and the love of my life was protestant. So I obviously don’t hate protestants. But I distrust the protestant church and stand against it as an intellectual and moral opponent.

My friends might ask me why. The Protestant umbrella is home of the Quakers, and the UCC, and lots of Christians that are not anti-gay, anti-science, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, pro-slavery, or pro-bigotry. (I have no problem with others disliking abortion, contraception, euthanasia, or assisted suicide, but I would kick up a storm against those that want to make these things harder for others to get simply because they don’t like them.)

I also am an outspoken patriot. (Murica’ mutha fuckers) But a liberal patriot, which is a bit different and I would be happy to explain but it would just be sidetracking right now. And so I really like the New England “Protestant Work Ethic” that lead to America becoming as smart, rich, and powerful as they did. (They were Christian Americans that valued education long before it was the norm, thought money was a sign that god favored you and so earning ability was a good thing especially if it meant you gave more away, and they are the group that coined the phrase “god helps those who help themselves”)

I am even told I should be proud of my protestant faith. My family is UCC (same as Obama, and considered to be pretty progressive) and before that Quakers (weirdoes, but pacifists, who are pretty not sexist or racist, who opposed slavery long before it was a hot-button issue, and who are traditionally accepting of all those of other faiths other than atheists and Satanists.) But I can’t stand by a system that has as much corruption and hate as the protestants. People rarely talk about it but Southern Baptists are protestants, and were pro-slavery. (If you wonder why the fuck this matters come to where I live, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, where the historic civil war battle took place. It is 6 miles north of “The south” and I swear we still fighting over the civil war to this day in my area.) The Westboro Baptist Church is very protestant. Other protestants will say this is not true but the WBC calls catholicism satanism, but certainly not protestantism. Evangelicals, the fastest growing group of Christians in the country (and world I believe) who are anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-bigotry, and violently anti-intellectual, and anti-science are protestants. Now my family of Zion UCCers will just poo-poo this with “no true Scotsman arguments” about how they are not true protestants. But I know they have just as legitimate a claim as anyone else. But that is just them trying to sweep bad examples under the rug. But there are certain examples they can’t. Those examples being shitty Quakers, and shitty UCCers. You rarely hear about them. But for starters there is my grandfather. My Grandfather was a supposed quaker. But he was racist, he was sexist, he beat my father and even me once before my dad went ballistic on him, he didn’t care for jews, and he didn’t let my dad find his own path, he forced my dad to go to the quaker church every Sunday without fail until he turned 18, weather he went or not. In short he was a shitty quaker, and a shitty person, and he was a protestant, one that my parents couldn’t just “no true Scotsman” away. Furthermore the quakers have no conviction. (I will place this symbol “&&” at the start of my rant opinion on the quakers “pacifism” and lack of conviction and again at the end so you don’t have to get bogged down in it if you don’t care too because it has to do with my family’s history, the history of the country, and my outlook as a blackbelt.) && My father wasn’t the first person in my family to be barred from being a quaker in my family. After getting a low draft number in the 70s my father signed up for Nam and was refused the chance to rejoin the quakers because of this, which he didn’t much mind. But before that My father has an ancestor that was also kicked out of the quakers. For fighting something the quakers claimed to be against. Slavery. It is a funny coincidence that my family now lives in Gettysburg, and one of my ancestors fought in that grueling battle. Slavery was something the quakers stood against from day one (It was why Pennsylvania was the southernmost “North” state and against slavery, and why the greatest battle of the war happened right over our Southernmost border) but fighting for it was forbidden. They were “pacifists”. So when one of my family members marched off to war to fight for it he was kicked out. His children rejoined, not that I can think why. I can’t overlook the quakers complete close-minded aversion to violence. I know that it is Christ like to avoid violence, but I am a big believer in all that evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing. Their resistance to help allowed those with awful intensions to do awful things. So the protestant quakers in my mind opposed the protestant Southern Baptists love of slavery in name only. Because I define pacifism differently than what they do. As a blackbelt I define pacifism as not being unable to fight, but being the most able to fight, and choosing not to unless you absolutely must. But just never fighting, and not having strength to fight and saying “oh well that is cause I am a pacifist” is just being a coward, and a weakling. The true mark of a pacifist is someone who stops others from fighting, and stops violence, and doesn’t mind busting a few heads to save many, or who doesn’t mind getting fucked up themselves in the process. It is someone who knows how to kill another man with a single punch to the throat, but doesn’t because he is controlling the sea of violence and power in his own being, not because he can’t because he is weak and cowardly. He should be a light and beacon of power and morality. A true pacifist in my book puts the “fist” in pacifist. && The other bad protestants my family cannot deny are the ones in their own local church. Individuals who despite being a part of a “progressive” sect of christianity, are anti-abortion, who stopped a gay man from being our new pastor because he was gay, he prefer to spend our donations on an air conditioner than charity, and who allow kids to bully each other in Sunday School and spread anti-scientific misinformation to children.

So even if there are great protestants out there, there are tons of shitty ones, which is why I do not oppose the individual but the system. Because it is a system used by some to spread hate, and spread fear, and squash science, and squash tolerance. Or use their charities to raise money they can pocket themselves, or spend on anti-abortion and contraception movements, on anti-gay movements, and on anti-assisted suicide and euthanasia movements (I am looking at you Salvation army for those last 3) and claim it is for the good of mankind, the sick, the poor, and the needy. (If you want to help the poor don’t make it harder for them to get abortions and condoms.) Now I know this is a weak note but also the majority of anti-Halloween groups are protestant. Which is shit, cause if you don’t like parties, and trick-or-treating you and your family can just stay in for the night, and leave us to have our fun.

I believe that if we do nothing, we pass the reigns of control to those who wish to do evil, and give them the okay. So I stand opposed to such a corrupt system that claims such moral superiority.

TL;DR: PROTESTANTS HAVE A GREAT REPUTATION, AND GAVE US SOME GOOD SHIT, BUT WBC, AND EVANGELICALS ARE PROTESTANTS TOO, AND EVEN THE “GOOD” PROTESTANTS LIKE QUAKERS CAN BE REALLY SHITTY. IF WE JUST ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE APART OF THE SYSTEM AS “GOOD PROTESTANTS” WE ALLOW THE BAD ONES TO CARRY ON UNDER THE SAME BANNER AS US.