If you left a rigid fundamentalist Christian faith, what was the catalyst?

[Bertha Venation]

I know I'm not the only person who rejected fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. I know there's at least one ex-JW among us (user name is exJW). Any former Mormons? Catholics? Seventh-Day Adventists? Baptists or Pentacostals? Other Christian sects?

If you've left that fundamentalism (note I didn't say "left that faith") behind, what was the catalyst? Please tell your story.

Please note this thread is not intended in any way to denigrate or deride Christians and shouldn't be used to bash believers. I don't want it locked because of flame wars.

I hope to carry the discussion for quite a while; I'm looking for something specific. The question was borne of this thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1603955 -- specifically, this post and replies no. 41 and 42 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1603955#1612818

[swag]

1. Watching Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker while on LSD

I'm serious.

[Bertha Venation]

2. Are you sure you were on LSD?

;)

[swag]

3. Oh yes

It was a very lucid moment, too.

Everything crystalized: "How can I possibly believe in anything related to this shit?"

[Connie_Corleone]

4. Former Baptist: When I was a teenager,

I couldn't help but notice how the god of the old testament is so different from the god of the new testament.

Then a few years ago, I got a computer and that evil internet got me. I was looking up stuff on Christianity and came across websites that brought up criticisms and questions of it. Alot of the criticisms made sense. I'm still learning.

Where am I now. Liberal Christian.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. Yeah. The Baptists don't tell us that, do they?

That God mellowed after Christ died. He no longer had to be the fire and brimstone God of before. They leave that part out. And I won't even start about the hypocrisy.
Duckie

[morningglory]

5. Graduating from the 6th grade.

My Sunday School teacher (Sou Baptist) said the pope was going to hell. Pope John 23, I think. I hung in for a while longer, then they told us if JFK got elected, the pope would run our country. They had screwed the pooch when they told a kid that. I knew that was stupid way back then.

[swag]

6. I wish I had been as smart as you at that age.

The more ridiculous the Church of Christ bullshit got, the more I believed it. It's a self-reinforcing insanity.

[noonwitch]

7. I made friends with a more diverse group of people, and was at college

Also, I was no longer living in my mother's house. I became a fundamentalist for a lot of reasons, but the subconcious one was to piss my mom off. It worked, but I didn't need to do that once I went away to school. I stuck it out for part of my freshman year, going to IVCF and such, and quit all those groups after that year.

I don't regret my involvement in Young Life during my high school years. The people were all very nice and concerned about youth-we had a lot of fun in that group, too and I went to the coolest summer camp ever through them.

IVCF was too serious for me in a lot of ways. I was in a bible study group with a guy who seriously bugged me for my secular tastes in music and literature. It got on my nerves-he was the only guy in bible study the group, the staff leader was female and all the other stupid women in the group couldn't think for themselves and let him intellectually bully them around. Not me, even as a fundie/evangelical, I was still a feminist. My roommate was in love with him, so she'd always invite him down to our room to visit. He'd criticize my Beatles' tapes and suggest that I listen to Amy Grant instead. He and my roommate told me I couldn't go see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" with some other friends because it was an "unchristian movie". I was later told that if I didn't evangelize to my non-christian friends, I was living in the world too much and not serving God. Interestingly, the guy in question was never interested in my roommate romantically, but was in me. I think that deep down he wanted someone who would argue with him, but let him win in the long run.

My roommate and I let the Bible study meet in our room. It got to the point where I would just leave racy books out on my desk (like "Lady Chatterly's Lover") just to see if anyone had a comment. Eventually, I had a weekend where none of them were around and one of my secular friends made me a rum and coke with 4 shots Bacardi 151. I think I had two of these concoctions before I had to be carried back to my room in front of most of the dorm. The IVCF people gave up on me after hearing about this, and I was greatly relieved. I would still get a letter once in a while trying to make me feel guilty, but it was never successful.

[ze_dscherman]

8. Ex JW

I grew up in that faith. It started slowly, when I grew up. Learning science and rationale thinking, reading Freud, talking with friends (some still JW's), finding more and more inconsistencies in that belief - finally, it fell like a house of cards. Then the hardest part came - declaring to my family and other JW's (who were like an extended family to me) I was out, with no returns. And then, finding new meanings, values and behaviour ...

I did it when I was sixteen.

[Bertha Venation]

9. Great responses so far -- thank you! Hopefully others will respond.

Keep it kicked.
Thanks to those who responded so far. :yourock:

[lil-petunia]

10. Honestly?

I was asked on a date by a really sexy person, so I accepted. (college days, you must understand) and it turned out that the purpose was a revival meeting just off campus.

They all stood and prayed for me, when what I really wanted was a beer.
I got many group hugs, except from the date. Silly me.

It was revolting. Their eyes were all glassy. No independence, no thought, just obedience.
not for me ever.

[Bertha Venation]

11. kick

:kick:

[tjwash]

13. I read the bible...

...and figured out that every thing that our So. Bap. ministers were preaching was a very skewed personal interpretation with an agenda behind it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Have semi-left

in that I don't subscribe to most of their tenets *never really did, though* but still have to go to a conservative evangelical church because hubby doesn't believe liberal denominations are Christian. And since he is taking the kids with him to his family church no matter what, I am going too to keep things in check.

Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/liberalchristians.htm

[hunter]

15. Quite a few paleontologists have fundamentalist parents.

I had a friend who was a fundamentalist when he started college. He wanted to be a medical doctor, and his parents were thrilled with that. They were not happy when he quit going to church and started taking evolutionary biology courses.

My mom was a Jehovah's Witness when I was young, and my dad went along with that, so I didn't have birthday parties, or say the pledge of allegiance in school (I still don't), etc., but then my mom had a very public blow-out with the Jehovah's Witnesses... Oh God, talk about being embarassed by your mom... they asked us to leave a meeting in front of everyone. That was when I was in the 4th grade, I think.

Then my mom briefly explored Catholicism, since she was attracted by the pacifist left wing of the church, but she decided the local Catholic church was too right wing, so we ended up as Quakers.

Nowadays my wife is a left wing social justice Catholic, and so am I.

I'm not certain we could remain Catholic in a rightward leaning Catholic Community. When we visit my parents and attend Mass in their town it is always disconcerting... Our own church has had big peace banners condemning the war in Iraq, but at the Catholic Church in my parents' town they only mention all our poor U.S. soldiers, and they'll pray for peace in the most general and ineffective way.

Oh well. The contortions my wife and I go through when we give money to the church are almost amusing.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

16. Education

I was always a bit different from the other fundie youth: My parents didn't go to church, I didn't gossip, and I had plans beyond breeding for the Lord. Also, I dared question certain ideas, e.g., that God was against people of different races marrying, that mental illness didn't really exist and was just a failure of faith.

But during my late high school/early college years certain events caused me to completely question the main tenets I had been taught. First, I found out through a late night band trip conversation that one of my classmates was absent because she had to spend her trip money to go to Pittsburgh for an abortion. I had never really been anti-choice, but knowing what this bright, funny friend had gone through really opened my eyes as to the error in anti-choice thinking.

The other central incident was my best friend and roomate coming out as bisexual to me. How could anyone think that this young woman who spent her free time in a service organization and who would lend me her car when mine was broken or rearrange her schedule so that we could get to class and work, could be this paragon of absolute evil?

Later I attended a church in the DC area where I was informed that people on public assistance were going to hell, and that pretty much did me in. Then I began reading about the history of the Christian faith and its treatment of women over the years, and decided the Presbyterians were as close to mainstream religion as I would ever get.

[onebigbadwulf]

17. Former Catholic... it never felt right

I never wanted to go to Church ever. When I turned 15 and didn't get confirmed, my mom couldn't make me go anymore and I was free. SO FREE.

[Surf Cowboy]

18. Scared of Rattlesnakes

and toothless hillbillies.