Comment by Marshall on March 22, 2011 at 12:06am

I have prayed to Jesus numerous times since my deconversion to show me the sign I would need to believe. I has never come, though even today I am open to it. There are occasions (in my darker moments) where I wish I was still a believer, though they are usually gone by the time I wake up.

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 22, 2011 at 1:53am

The praying Jesus into your heart thing works better in a crowd that is anticipating a big change - the Pentecostals are really masters of it.  They'll chant all this crazy stuff and you can just fall back and holler or yelp or cry, and it's very liberating to just let go and act ridiculous - afterward it's so embarrassing to think about it that you delude yourself into thinking a real power took you over.  Very efficient means of indoctrination.

Comment by Galen on March 22, 2011 at 11:28pm

Boy do I envy you.  I was 16 when my first true love "saved" me.  I had labeled myself agnostic at the time, but truth be told I was a straight-up atheist through and through.  Didn't believe a word of that crap, but didn't want to be "close minded" so I took the agnostic label.

Well, more out of love for her than anything else (I guess), I finally managed to convince myself that I had "felt" the presence of Jesus within me and that he had touched my heart.

*sigh*

Thus began the ~14 years of my life as a Christian.  For a few of those years I was VERY devout, though still a pretty liberal non-denominational Christian.  At 18, I had every intention of becoming a minister.  Long after that first love and I had broken up, we remained friends and I always told her that her purpose in my life had been to bring me to God.

Fuckin-A, how I wish I could reach back across time to my 16yo self and just slap the piss out of him.  If I'd had a place like T|A to go to back then, I'm sure I could've avoided all that nonsense.  Fourteen damn years, just wasted....  Well, not wasted.  I spent those years in search of the truth, even though I was sure that truth was Jesus.  I wanted to PROVE it.  Now I'm a well-armed Anti-Theist with a vast arsenal of knowledge at my disposal.  THANKS CHRISTIANITY! :)

Comment by Doug Reardon on May 27, 2011 at 11:20pm

Langston Hughes wrote a short story about his "accepting the lord Jesus Christ into his life."  Salvation, it's a good read!

 

Comment