A Blog Comment That Absolutely Haunts Me

I have a habit of going back to blog posts that I have read, and checking to see if there are any new comments there.

 I went back to a blog post recently by Incongruous Circumspection about Christians claiming that if you leave Christianity, you were never a true Christian.  I saw a long comment from a someone who goes by "TreasureSeeker", it's something that is haunting to me as a former fundamentalist:


I want to comment, I really do. But I don't know where to begin.

Why? Because I hurt. I'm mad. I want to punch something through a wall.

I believed in something once. I believed in the good of what I thought people were doing. And it has been shown to be perverted. And those people think they are so flipping holy and good.

I need to renew my passport. I would have asked one of my friends to be on it as a reference. But that person who I once called my best friend, is nowhere to be found. In fact, none of the people I once was around, largely from my former church, is around any more.

Aside from my wife, all but one, gone.

And tomorrow I have to go to my department head to see if he'll be on my passport renewal form. If not him, then one of our HR people.

That hurts.

A shout out to some of my favorite atheist and former Christian bloggers

There are so many great bloggers out there who are atheists, agnostics, and former Christians, and I want to introduce you to some of them. Some are completely atheist, some are fellow fundamentalism survivors like me, but are still searching/confused as to what they currently believe (but know that they don't want any part of Christianity).

One of my favorite qualities in a blogger is when they take the time out of their day to respond to readers and their comments, concerns, and questions. If I had to give out a "most responsive blogger" award, it would hands down go to Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog. Not only does he respond regularly to comments from readers, despite having a busy life that includes being an IT professional, a husband, and a father of a 3 year old son who has autism, but he actually devoted an entire blog post to giving a well thought out response to my comments on a previous post on Freethought blog's recent controversies and their proposed Atheism + movement. Read the post and comments following here .

Taking the time to do that shows just how seriously he takes his blog, and it's readers, and that's a great quality in a blogger.

My favorite informative blog on atheism is Debunking Christianity by John Loftus. John gives a unique perspective on Christianity from an academic prospective. He was a Phd theology student in the Church of Christ denomination before leaving the faith. He is an avowed atheist, and you can read his full intro story here. If you have been looking for a good resource of Christian doctrine/ the Bible and it's flaws, as well as good atheist arguments, look no further.

My award for quirkiest former Christian blogger would have to go to Joe at Incongruous Circumspection .
He is a former fundamentalist and was part of the extremist "Quiverfull" movement which feels that birth control of any form is immoral, and that having many children is a sign of divine blessing. He and his wife have 6 children, and he now considers himself an agnostic

 His posting style is hilariously erratic, and at times full of snark. Sometimes he can go from a long response to the sexism and horrible child raising techniques of  fundamentalist leaders Ed Baker and John Piper, to this post, in which he states his opinion on abortion in just 8 words, and that includes the title of the post! He also enjoys talking about on the random insights on life that only raising children can give you. Sometimes the shortest statements are the most profound, as seen by his abortion post, there's many great comments there, including a great rebuttal comment from a reader to my comment.

A good blog for looking at Christianity from the perspective of someone who has lived it is Past Tense, Present Progessive by blogger "Latebloomer". She presents a very raw, real, personal look at her homeschooled upbringing, and how it effects her still to this day. Read the full series on her life from childhood to early adult years here. She also does a great job of exposing extremists like author Reb Bradley, (distracted OCD moment here, but seriously, a first name of "Reb"? that's just begging for some redneck jokes......) . His books on child raising give a very frightening look at how fundies view their children and their ideas on how to raise them. Her critical review of his 1995 book "Child Training Tips" is very much worth reading. Posts, Introduction , A Parent Who Assumes The Worst , and  An Extremely Controlling Parent  are her posts so far on the subject, check back every couple days for more, it's an eye-opening series.

I could post some more of my favorite blogs but I don't want this post to get too long, I might make a part 2 sometime soon, and I'm also considering expounding more on Latebloomer's criticism of Reb Bradley, my thoughts on what she has exposed about his views, and how much of his views reflect how I was raised as well.

If you don't see any more posts on these topics by Labor Day (September 3rd), you may have to wait for a while, since I will be out of the St. Louis area the week of September 4th, and are unsure how much time I will have to post.

I noticed that people are linking to my blog and reading it from some varied places, including Canada, England, and even Russia. If you are reading this, let me know! Comment, tell me what can be improved, suggest topics, tell me how you found out about my blog. I thank you for reading my thoughts here, but I want you to join me in the discussion.