Recker's World
100 Reasons I no longer believe - 52
Christians misrepresent non-believers
Christians… and the bible commonly misrepresent non-believers. They demonise atheists, witches, ex-Christians… pretty much anyone that doesn’t follow their belief system.
One may ask why this is a reason I no longer believe? it’s actually quite a big one, because if there was any holy spirit working in their lives, Christians would be able to understand why people don’t believe. Or in my case why I no longer believe.
Some Christians who don't know me, automatically brand me as never having been a true Christian, but I know how genuine and sincere I was as a believer, and those around me thought I was too. If I wasn’t truly saved then that shows me even further that it’s all a fantasy and nobody can possibly be assured they are a true Christian.
I have regularly had Christians accuse me (and others) of the following without knowing my full story:
1.
God wouldn’t give you what you wanted in the way you wanted
2.
God wouldn’t jump through hoops for you.
3.
The church caused you suffering and pain.
4.
You wanted to rebel.
5.
You wanted to sin without having feelings of guilt.
6. You hate God
7. You are angry at God
Reasons 1 and 2 may go a part of the way to convincing a person that their god doesn’t exist, however are hardly valid reasons why people would cease to be Christians, at least not on their own. Any Christian knows that God will not be tested, that he works in mysterious ways and there are such answers as “no” and “wait.”
For myself, I did perceive a God that didn’t act, but the main problem was that the bible made assurances about how God would act and they weren’t happening that way. It was about the bible claims not lining up with reality, not so much about whether God was doing anything or not.
There still has to be more to it than just that though because the bible does not have to be the infallible word of God for you to continue to believe in God and Jesus for that matter. After all, don’t Christians believe that the existence of God is obvious even without the bible?
Reason 3 – The church caused you suffering and pain.
For me I had mainly great experiences in church. But this is a completely irrelevant issue. Sure, people in churches are human and as a result will hurt you. Maybe even your Christians family and friends will hurt you, but that is not related to whether they are Christians or not.
We certainly expect higher standards from Christians, but it’s hardly a valid reason to reject Jesus because of it, after all, it’s not Jesus who’s causing the pain. It’s people! It’s not going to affect whether you believe what the bible says or not unless the bible made a promise that all Christians would be perfect and never hurt anyone. If the bible makes any claims that it doesn’t live up to then it’s a good reason not to believe it.
Reason 4 – You wanted to rebel.
If this is the case and you deliberately rebelled, it simply means you are a backslidden Christian. You are still a believer but you have deliberately chosen to go against the god that you believe in. An ex-Christian no longer believes in God, so can’t possibly be said to have rebelled against him.
For myself it was never a matter of rebelling. Rebelling is wilful and that was not the case with me. I didn’t want to be an ex-Christian. It was simply a matter of no longer believing.
Reason 5 - You wanted to sin without having feelings of guilt.
This is probably the silliest one of all. Once again, not only does it presume that deep down the non-believer really does believe, which is most definitely not the case with most, it’s also a pretty darn retarded statement with no logic behind it at all. For one thing, if you want to sin, it makes more sense to be a Christian, that way you can be forgiven right away. You are supposedly covered by the blood of Jesus so any sin you do can be excused if you sincerely repent of it. So why would you want do away with the insurance policy? You wouldn't!
When you think about it, any Christian that would make such an accusation is not the sort of person you'd want to have anything to do with. Pretty much, what they're saying is, if they didn't have some God figure lording it over them with a big rod, ready to whack them if they sinned, that they'd go around doing all sorts of horrible perverted things. They need to have this Godhead there to keep them on the straight and narrow. Without this God, they would have no qualms about going out there and performing perverse and evil acts.
It's like the child who steals from the cookie jar when their parent isn't in the room, but they wouldn't dare if the parent were in the room with them. So apparently the Christian is that naughty child who needs constant supervision, otherwise they're going to run rampant. They realise what despicable people they really are and they're ashamed of it.
Reasons 6 & 7
I no longer believe in God, so how the hell can I hate him or be angry at him? I no longer believe in God so God does not get the blame for any of the bad things that have happened to me or others. Shit happens sometimes. There are other explanations for that shit rather than a god or a devil.
People who make statements like the above are those who have no real concept of what disbelief is. You become an atheist or agnostic because you find it impossible to believe in a God. You go from a Christian to an ex-Christian because you find it no longer possible to believe the bible teachings. That's the simple fact of the matter.
There is no rebellion involved; there is no "deep down" belief still there. You just no longer believe, just as you no longer believe in the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.
You don't suddenly rebel against Santa Claus. You wouldn’t go up to a man in a Santa Claus outfit in a mall and say, ‘I no longer believe in you, you bastard! You never ever gave me what I wanted and you always gave the rich kids all the best stuff! I refuse to believe in you! I’m rebelling against you, you festering piece of crap!’
Alternatively, you wouldn’t say to him. ‘I don’t care about gifts anymore. I’d rather just have coal, because I like snorting coal dust. I should be allowed to snort coal dust if I want. I don’t care what you think anymore!’
No, you wouldn’t do that. You can’t rebel against something you don’t believe in and you can’t be angry at something imaginary. You can sin whether you’re a Christian or a non-Christian and whether you feel bad about it or not, is a result of upbringing or personality and has nothing to do with having a little devil or a little angel sitting on your shoulder.
It’s quite obvious to any logical person, that if one wanted to sin, being a Christian would be the perfect avenue, because you can blame evil on the devil and no matter what horrible acts you might commit, at least you can still feel righteous afterwards, once you’ve fallen to your knees and pleaded to God for forgiveness. As long as you are sincere in your repentance, you will be fine. Even if you know you will fail again and again, at least you will always have Christ’s grace to fall back on.
Every Christian has sins they struggle with time and time again and most will feel lousy because of the times they fail. However, none of them would ever seriously entertain the thought of ‘Hey, if I weren’t a Christian I wouldn’t have to feel bad about this anymore.’ Of course not, because you’d be afraid of suffering God’s unquenchable wrath if you did! Furthermore, anyone who has left the faith knows full well that they still feel just as bad about most of the sinful things they do as they did before, because that’s who they are as a person. They certainly don’t become any more evil and callous. The devil is not guiding them into debauchery. They are still just the same compassionate, caring people they always were.
As an ex-Christian, I feel no more desire to sin and I still feel just as bad if I wrong someone.
The Christian claims that they are accountable to God and that the atheist is not accountable to anyone. How absurd is that claim? The atheist is accountable to REAL people… their friends, their families, their work colleagues and bosses, the police, the government and most of all are accountable to THEMSELVES. Often it’s themselves that beat themselves up the most for the bad things they do. I know that for me it is the case. I am my own toughest critic and if I do something wrong, I certainly won’t allow myself to forget it very easily.