Hello everyone!

Well, I've been a member of RRS for almost six weeks now and this is the first post for me. I have been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest with work. I've hardly been able to even lurke. Any ways, here's my deconversion story which happened thirtythree years ago when I was ten. I hope you enjoy it.

    I was raised Baptist. Went to church every Sunday (practically for the whole day). Had to do Sunday School till I was a teen and bible study a couple evenings a week. By the time I was eight I had read the entire bible once. Didn't get much of it. Yet, what I did understand started to perplex me. I started asking questions of my Sunday School teacher and my Mom, but never received satisfactory answers. The big one that got me pretty much in shit with my teacher was the Tower of Babel story. " You mean to tell us, that God became angry with us building a tower to heaven, changed all our languages as to not be able to communicate with each other and construction would cease?" This got me to thinking, I asked next; "So that would mean that all the races of humanity would be present for the construction of the tower - right?" My teacher then looked at me dumbfounded. "Well, Eskimo's, American Indians, Chinese, Japanese, South American Natives and so on..." Now he was looking at me with some disdain and I pushed the question a little further. "So, if the languages were created then, the races had to be created then, how did they then get to their region of the world afterwards?" This then led to Adam and Eve and I asked; "If Adam and Eve are the parents of us all we should all be the same race, right?" Then I realized something else; "But wait! - God destroyed the world and all life with the flood. So, Noah and his family are the parents of us all. Again - we should all be the same race," (at this time I new nothing of evolution through natural selection). That's when he kicked me out of the room and said I was not welcome back until he spoke with my Mom. My Mom wanted my side of the story and I told her exactly what my questions were all about. She was upset with me because I spoke to one of my elders in a disrespectful manner. I asked her why I should respect someone who can't even answer my questions without the usual cop-out "God works in mysterious ways!" type answer. I didn't go back to Sunday School but still had to attend the regular services. By the time I was fifteen I had read the bible completely for the second time. I approached my Mom and said to her; "I love you very much Mom, but I no longer believe what you do and will not be going back to church!" Understandably she was upset. She did however accept my decision.

I then discovered Carl Sagan and his television show Cosmos in 1980. There was no turning back. I am now 43 years old, have read the bible - again completely - for the third time in my late twenties. So, I guess it was the readings of the bible which made me an atheist. The bible is no less a fantasy as the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and Star Wars... When read properly with a modicum of intelligence, you will see the bible for what it is, fantasy and a damned dangerous book when taken literally.

Sagan, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Onfray... I've read them all and am glad to be in their corner fighting for reason and the future for our children.

Thanks

Cliff