Ex Christian (#9)

PK

Like many of you i was born and raised in a very loving, pentecostal home with a great family who have always been there for me, and i love them dearly. I suppose tho only difference between the average christian family and my own is that my father is a pastor. From my early toddler years onward i have vivid memories of busy sunday mornings as my mother scrambled to get myself, my brother and my sister into "God" approved attire to "look the part" so to speak while my dad would sit in a trance-like state at the dining room table proof reading and putting the finishing touches on the mornings sermon. Oh the memories! I recall many 1-6AM phone calls waking up my entire family as my father would be sent off to work again to the nearest hospital to send prayers, condolences, and comfort to a family in need. During my childhood i don't really recall feeling any different than any other family in my church other than maybe a sense that daddy was in the spotlight.
As if it happened yesterday, i remember kneeling down by a sofa with my dad by my side asking Jesus to come into my life and forgive me of my sins. I was three years old(yes, three). It's almost as if this memory is burned into my mind forever. Although i didn't fully understand what i was doing or saying i knew it was important. From there on i lived a typical childhood, no different then i had before "getting saved". As far as legalism goes, my family weren't all that bad. The biggest things i can recall that i felt were unforgivable sins were playing outside on Sundays(a rule that my father would eventually abandon). Oh, and Bart Simpson was the devil haha.
I considered myself a christian until about the age of fourteen when self-gratification, p 0 r n, sex in general and drinking(no alcohol in my house as i'm sure many of you would expect)curiousity were at it's peek. I guess you could say i experimented with each of these things to an extent but i would always conveniently rededicate my life during an emotionially driven youth event filled with tongues, being "slain" in the spirit and the while nine yards. There were points where i was on fire for God and times where i was in so much fear of the demonic and satan that i couldn't sleep at night, tortured by these thoughts. I recall one powerful spirit moving night during youth group where we basically claimed authority over satan and his demons in Jesus name and I seeked God and asked him to reveal to me a more spiritual side of this world. That night as i lay in bed i felt a terrible sensation that something evil was in the room and everytime i shut my eyes i would feel like it was possessing me. I asked my dad about this but he gave me the response that "God will never give you anything you can't handle". I wasn't impressed. At the age of 16 i was so paranoid that looking back i feel sorry for myself. The fear of that isolated event lasted a couple years and so began my downward spiral from faith. My last year of high school was characterized by smoking pot, drinking, partying, sex and trying to relieve the fear of the "unknown". Eventually i moved on from gripping fear that religion instilled into me, until about two years ago.
It was Nov 2007, i just turned 19 and life was good. That night i had the same "experience" as i did when i was 16. This time though everytime i would begin to drift into sleep i would feel my bed shaking and feel like i was losing my soul to the devil. Wow this sounds f***ed up. Anyways, this event kind of drove the fear of the supernatural back into me which lasted about a year until i became a christian..again. This was only a year ago. I felt alive, fearless, and much more mature in my faith and understanding then when i was a young teenager. So this brings me to the current times..
Over the course of the past year i would go from being on fire for God to downright doubt in anything that the bible said. About 3 months ago i started to reason. I began actually analizing what the bible said, what Jesus said, what Science said, what scientists said, what Lee Strobel said, what Kent Hovind said, what Darwin said, what Dawkins said, and i read every apologetic i could get my hands on(none that were satisfying). I have always wanted absolute truth in my life which would probaby be the infuence for my interest in philosphy and Science during my lifetime. The more i read, the more i discovered. I realized that my faith was shaken and i felt like i was living a lie. My "demonic" experiences could be summed up to hypnogagic hallucinations(which are quite common especially with sleep paralysis) and cultural influence(especially in my case). Easy. To sum this up, im slowly getting over God. I still have fears which i believe were burned into my brain at an early age. I guess you could say i'm agnostic at the moment as i'm currently not in the mental/emotional position to rule out any God altogether. What i have seen in the course of a few short months is that religion can fast become a brain disorder that causes paranoia and hallucinations even in intelligent people. This web site has helped me a lot in researching others experience with the mind-f*** that is religion. I have no history of mental illness in my family, and i even seen a doc after my second initial experience with the "demonic". He said i was fine, just experiencing anxiety that can make your brain do some funky things. I'm willing to bet that if i had no prior religious past none of this would have happened. I'm now in the recovery proce. My next step is telling my family. Ouch. Please share your own experiences, hypothesis regarding my own, and whatever else comes to mind.