Copyright \u00a9 2003 by John J. Diegel<\/i><\/p>\n
I\u2019ve read many deconversion stories; I can\u2019t help wondering what difference it will make to add mine to the pot. It\u2019s a personal thing, the story of one\u2019s walk away from religion. Those who will find it helpful or entertaining are either relatives, friends, or otherwise from a similar background. For all others this text is merely an anonymous allocation of bandwidth, no more attention-getting than the thousands of other deconversion stories on the Net. Nevertheless, I\u2019ve been asked to tell my story. I\u2019ll do my best to make it interesting.<\/p>\n
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Jesus Christ was my best friend since the Third Grade, but he\u2019d always been around. He looked out for me since before I was born, since before my father was born, since before any of us<\/i> were born. The Bible \u2013 a book that he co-authored \u2013 says that he existed before the world was made. In fact he made the world (with his father\u2019s help). He was the most powerful force in the Universe. It made me proud to have him as a friend.<\/p>\n
I talked to him every day via a telepathic one-way voice connection. He explains how to use this link in the Bible. The only trouble is that he could hear me but I couldn\u2019t hear him, at least not audibly. Some people say they can actually hear his voice, but I never did. I was taught by other friends of his \u2013 we all called ourselves Christians, for obvious reasons \u2013 that people were once able to hear his voice, but only certain<\/i> people. This was several thousand years ago. Back then Jesus was called Jehovah by his friends, only they weren\u2019t allowed to say his name out loud. I forget what name they were<\/i> allowed to call him, but nowadays people just call him God, even though he\u2019s also known as Jesus. (It gets a little complicated.) Anyway, certain of his friends \u2013 those most loyal or unique \u2013 were allowed to hear God\u2019s voice. Sometimes they heard it in their heads; sometimes they heard it out loud. This was in a time when God was still writing the Bible. He carefully selected certain of his friends to transcribe it for him and then pass it down through the generations. My Christian friends in this century told me that God doesn\u2019t talk to people out loud anymore because he\u2019s already finished writing the Bible: everything he wanted to say to us is in there. My friends and I liked to imagine that prayer is how we talk to God, and reading the Bible is how God talks to us. It was good enough for me.<\/p>\n
God and I spent a lot of time together. I\u2019d talk to him at any time of the day or night. He was always there for me. I could even feel his presence, even though I couldn\u2019t see or hear him. Having this big brother watching over me all the time was very comforting. I knew that whatever happened I would be all right. Even if I died I would be all right, because the Bible says that all of Jesus\u2019s friends are instantly transported to a place called Heaven when they die. It used to be that people believed Heaven was above the clouds, but then we found out that there\u2019s nothing but thin air above the clouds, so people decided Heaven must be in another dimension. Somehow when a Christian dies their soul leaves their body and journeys to this other dimension, where it will live in peace and happiness for all eternity. This kind of assurance made me feel especially secure, I must say. Being God\u2019s friend had big rewards. I was just glad that I wasn\u2019t one of those people who didn\u2019t<\/i> know him. Those people go to Hell when they die \u2013 an other-dimensional place where souls burn for all eternity if they weren\u2019t God\u2019s friends in life. <\/p>\n
As you can probably tell by now, God and I aren\u2019t friends anymore, but I\u2019m not afraid that I\u2019ll go to Hell when I die, and I know I won\u2019t go to Heaven either. I\u2019ll explain why I now think this way. Around the time I was thirteen my mother and father began to realize that some of the things that God wrote in the Bible were being misinterpreted by his friends. This came as a surprise for me also. I guess the trouble with human beings is that we can have a hard time understanding some of the supernatural concepts in the Bible. Sometimes we read it wrong. The issue when I was 13 was about God\u2019s friends being too friendly with God\u2019s enemies. My parents had met some other Christians who told them that the Bible was being misinterpreted on this issue. Christians should strive to be different from the rest of humanity. They should take their children out of public school and teach them at home because the people who run public schools aren\u2019t friends with God. They should tell their wives to quit their jobs because the Bible says that women should stay at home and raise the children. They should spank their children more often because even rolling your eyes when asked to do something is grounds for punishment. Of course I didn\u2019t like that last concept very much, but within a couple of years I started to agree with it. God might tell us to do some things sometimes that we aren\u2019t comfortable with, but it\u2019s all for our own good. We just have to stop questioning him and start obeying him.<\/p>\n
Over time God convinced my family to be more and more conservative, but after awhile we began to rethink some of our recent interpretations of the Bible. Eventually we ended up almost right where we started, still somewhat conservative but not nearly as much as when I was 13. I guess we decided that we misinterpreted the Bible again. It\u2019s such an easy mistake to make, since the Bible was written by God and we\u2019re only humans. What mattered is that we were sincere in our desire to understand and obey him. He\u2019d forgive us anything as long as we kept the right focus. God is my best friend<\/i>, I thought. He said he\u2019d never leave me, and I have no desire to leave him, so I\u2019ve got nothing to lose by trying to make sense of the Bible, even if it means questioning the validity of the Bible itself.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cQuestion the validity of the Bible?\u201d you ask. \u201cIsn\u2019t that sacrilegious?\u201d Well, I\u2019d been taught that it was sacrilegious, but my friends only got that teaching from their<\/i> interpretation of the Bible. From what I felt in my heart, I knew that interpretation had to be wrong. Everything else that I knew about God told me that he wanted me to ask questions, as long as I was sincere in my asking. I just wanted to understand what it was he was trying to tell me.<\/p>\n
My investigation led me to some startling conclusions. When I started to question the Bible I had no idea that I\u2019d end up rejecting it altogether. If I knew that might happen I probably never would have considered doing it. Then again, maybe I couldn\u2019t help it. Some people tell themselves that doubting the Bible is a sin (because their interpretation of the Bible tells them it is), and so they learn to stop questioning. They\u2019re told that faith is when you accept something that you don\u2019t understand. I used to think that way too, but after awhile I found that I could<\/i> understand some of the things that I\u2019d previously accepted through faith alone. Sometimes, if I would try hard enough, I was able to make sense of something in the Bible; when I found out that tons of other Christians were doing this too I was relieved. Not everything<\/i> God told us had to be believed through faith. The only thing that required faith was that God was real and that he\u2019d written the Bible.<\/p>\n
People misunderstand parts of the Bible, but that\u2019s only because we\u2019re imperfect humans. What I didn\u2019t understand was why God would allow his friends to make such a mess of things. I wasn\u2019t blaming<\/i> him: it\u2019s not his fault we\u2019re so confused, but still I wondered why he didn\u2019t just write the Bible in a way that no one could possibly misread. I considered that maybe the problem was simply that some meaning had been lost or changed when the Bible was translated from the original language into the language of today. Then I found out that the ancient Roman Catholics compiled the Bible from hundreds of possible manuscripts into just 66 books. What was in those other manuscripts that they didn\u2019t like?<\/i> I wondered. Why just 66? And what\u2019s all this talk about the Catholic Church editing the Bible to match their own interpretations?<\/i> <\/p>\n
Still, God was right there with me. He was real \u2013 I knew he was real because I could feel<\/i> he was real. I didn\u2019t understand it. I couldn\u2019t put my finger on it, but I knew he was there. He just wasn\u2019t the God that the Bible said he was. The text had to be wrong about him. It just had to be. Everything I felt about God told me he couldn\u2019t be the same deity that he was described to be. In the Bible God is both ruthlessly destructive yet unfailingly merciful. Was the loving God of the New Testament the same God that slaughtered millions to defend his precious Israelites? Did he really demand so many ridiculous things such as are outlined in the books of the Law? In the New Testament he came to Earth as a man named Jesus. He was the nicest guy you\u2019d ever want to meet, preaching love and forgiveness to all. But still there\u2019s this teaching in the Bible that says those who haven\u2019t believed in Christ as their savior will go to hell when they die. The God of the Bible may not be ordering the slaughter of the heathen anymore, but he still kills them in the end. Anyone who isn\u2019t God\u2019s friend burns in hell.<\/p>\n
For awhile I didn\u2019t mind this idea of God too much. God is God<\/i>, I said. If that\u2019s what he wants, I won\u2019t question it. Sure, billions will suffer eternal torment, but it\u2019s their choice: all they had to do was believe in Jesus Christ.<\/i> The more I got to know some of God\u2019s enemies, however, the more I revolted against the Bible\u2019s verdict on mankind. There are wonderful, kind human beings in this world that I just can\u2019t see anyone<\/i> sending to hell. Any god that would do such a thing to some of the nice people that I\u2019ve met must be a heartless monster. The Devil, as described in the Bible, is a more humane, more compassionate entity!<\/p>\n
I knew in my heart that God was real. He just wasn\u2019t the God of the Bible.<\/p>\n
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My friends had always told me that Christianity isn\u2019t really a religion, it\u2019s a relationship<\/i> with God. I kind of understood what they were saying, but I didn\u2019t try to make it a part of my theology. The fact is the Bible has no trouble describing Christianity as a religion, so why should we? James 1:27 says, \u201cPure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.\u201d Of course there are still some people who think that religion is simply the distinction made between the various denominations in Christianity. I\u2019m not sure what we\u2019re supposed to call the other people in the world with non-Christian spiritual beliefs. I guess my friends would\u2019ve called them heathens, as I once did. Even so, our modern dictionaries call the beliefs of these heathens religions.<\/i> It always seemed to me counterproductive to use completely different word definitions than the people my friends and I were out to save. It\u2019s one thing to be separate and unique from the rest of the world, it\u2019s another thing to go out of our way to make communicating with these people a lot more difficult. I figured it made more sense to speak in a language that everyone would understand. Regardless, there was no doubt in mind that God and I had a wonderful relationship, even after I decided that the Bible couldn\u2019t possibly come from God; even after I decided that Jesus Christ may not have been a real person but merely a construct of the Catholic Church to arbitrarily \u201cfulfill\u201d the messianic prophesies of the Old Testament.<\/p>\n
I began to think of God as neither male nor female, neither human nor alien but spiritual. He (I continued calling him \u201che\u201d out of habit) was a force of nature, if you will, permeating everything in the Universe. I no longer had any idea what he wanted with me, or the human race in general, but I had a feeling it was something good. He created everything that we know. The only reason it gets so messed up is because we do it to ourselves. Every single religion, I mused, is a kind of \u201cevidence\u201d that God exists. In every culture throughout history humans have had this notion that there was some kind of benevolent being operating just beyond their physical senses. Every religion has their own definition of who God is and what he wants, but it\u2019s all the same entity. It was just like I\u2019d always been saying, it\u2019s all a matter of interpretation.<\/p>\n