Former Fundamentalists: left the fold

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Testimonies of Exorcism

From: Winston
To: ed.babinski
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2004 7:02 AM
Subject: Link to my article debunking Christian fundamentalist arguments

Hi there,
I just put up my article debunking the main arguments of Christian fundamentalists. Here is the link. I was wondering if you could post it somewhere on your site. It was written to help newly ex-fundamentalists.

Debunking_Christian_Arguments.htm

Thanks,
Winston

From: Ed Babinski
To: Winston
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 2:37 AM
Subject: I read your testimony, Winston, very interesting!

Hi Winston,

Thanks for writing edwardtbabinski.us

I enjoyed your personal testimony about leaving fundamentalism at your website.

...especially this part: "My mom... took me to see some Spiritualist healers and Taoist-like temples to try to get help for the mental illness I had for 2 years. Three Different spiritualists who didn't know each other told her that they could 'see' two souls inhabiting me for a past karmic crime I committed against them. She was instructed by the leaders of a Taoist-like temple to perform these strange exorcism rites, which involved putting leaflet spells above the bedroom I slept in and having me take baths in some hot herbal water tossed in with yellow spell leaflets.

It was all weird to me and my Christian world view taught that Satan was behind these kind of things. But I thought oh well, being a Christian never helped me through those 2 hellish years anyway, so why not give Satan a chance at helping me?"

Your testimony parallels that of another former fundie friend of mine, Will Bagley, who lives in Washington state. Will was "born again," but later read the great Catholic mystics, then the great Eastern mystics, and today studies Taoism, vegetarianism, meditation, mental and bodily healing, life extension, channeling, massage, etc. Will sends out a regular e-newsletter on those topics. You two should meet for coffee and tell me all about what you discussed! Will's photo and testimony about how he left fundamentalism can be found in a book I edited, Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists (Prometheus Books, 1995). Though my book was published by that skeptical organization, it included testimonies of former fundamentalists who remained Christians, though more moderate and liberal, as well as the testimonies of two folks who left fundamentalism for Wicca and eastern mysticism, respectively. Only the final third of the book contains the testimonies of former fundamentalists who ecame agnostics and atheists. I thanked Prometheus for including such a broad range of former fundie testimonies.

Today there is a great website run by Steve Locks that features the testimonies of many former fundies, possibly the most well indexed and widest collection of such testimonies on the web. His site is simply named, "Leaving Christianity." Easy to remember, check it out by simply googling, "Leaving Christianity." It's number one.

Will and yourself also agree that the skeptics are too skeptical. Will is quite well read and also quite deeply into spiritual practices, and I am sure you two will find much to talk about, wish I was there to listen! Maybe send me a cassette tape of your conversation! And play a game of chess too! Why not some speed chess? (Will once won the championship of a large prestigious chess club in New Jersey, but hasn't played in years. Like Will, I was a top ranked high school chess player.)

Cheers!
Edward T. Babinski

edwardtbabinski.us writes:
Did you hear the story on the news about a preacher who sat on an autistic boy's chest, the mother believed her son could be healed of the demon causing the illness...

Faith kills boy, 8.

An autistic eight-year-old boy has died during a prayer service held to supposedly cure him of the evil spirits blamed for causing his condition. "[We] didn't do nothing wrong," the pastor, David Hemphill, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.

US boy dies during 'exorcism' An autistic eight-year-old boy has died during a prayer service held to supposedly cure him of the evil spirits blamed for causing his condition. Torrance Cantrell was wrapped in sheets and held by his hands and feet while members of the Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith in the city of Milwaukee prayed over him. This procedure had been taking place three times a week. However, on Friday those involved in the ceremony - including his mother - noticed the boy had stopped breathing. Paramedics were called to the scene but were unable to revive him. The brother of the church's pastor, Ray Hemphill, who was also present at the ceremony, was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of physically abusing a child, local police said. "[We] didn't do nothing wrong," the pastor, David Hemphill, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper. "We did what the Book of Matthew said... all we did is ask God to deliver him." 'Tormented' Autism causes children to have severe problems relating to, and communicating with, people around them. In interviews with local newspapers, neighbours of the Cantrell family alleged that Torrance hated being touched and said that having people restrain him would likely have caused him a great deal of stress. However, David Hemphill said that the boy had been wrapped in sheets and had his shoes removed in order to prevent him from being hurt. "We were asking God to take this spirit that was tormenting this little boy to death," Mr Hemphill said. "We were praying that hard, but not to kill." David Hemphill started the independent church in 1997. It has a small congregation of six families. Story from BBC NEWS. Published: 2003/08/25 14:41:23 GMT © BBC MMIII

A Belief in Near Death Experiences

From: Kathy G.
To: Ed Babinski
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 2:08 PM
Subject: Jesus

I wish there was something profound that I could say to make you change your mind about this man Jesus. I wish you could know him Like I do as a comforter, heavenly father, a friend that I can tell anything to, teacher, answerer of prayers.

You are missing so much without him in your life. My father is 91 years old and loves the Lord. I know that he will be gone before long and it gives me such great peace to know that he is Heaven bound. He always tells me, "the best is yet to come, and that's Heaven."

I truly believe he lived and died for me, and I am so humbled and grateful for that, all I want to do is tell others about his love for them.

I will be praying for you that someday your eyes will be opened and you too will know, as the Bible says, "the peace that passes all understanding."

Kathleen G.

From: Ed Babinski
To: Kathy G.
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Jesus

Dear Kathleen,

I sincerely appreciate the love with which your email to me was filled.

Robert Ingersoll, America's "great agnostic," used to remark that there were sometimes hundreds of people outside his home praying for his salvation. He didn't mind he said, because it was like a boy holding a girl's hand, it didn't do either of them any harm, so long as the boy didn't squeeze the girl's hand too tightly.

I don't even feel any desire to disagree with you, or try to convince someone such as yourself of anything other than the joy you have found in your present beliefs, just as I wouldn't seek to convince anyone of any religion to leave it if they were wearing it fully, and practicing love as a result.

A mystical friend of mine who used to be a fundamentalist Christian once wrote in LEAVING THE FOLD that religion was like a cloak or clothes that you had to put on fully to see how they fit, and in the end after entering fully into love and also growing to recognize that love in others of other religions, and even in people of no religion, that cloak would grow lighter and lighter until you didn't even realize you were wearing it, but merely that you were a member of all faiths and non-faiths that practiced love.

Gandhi used to say that Christian missionaries shouldn't be trying to get people to leave their major religious faiths to become "Christians," but people should be trying to encourage each other to travel deeper into the heart of love that is found in all religious traditions and holy books. (See the book titled, ONENESS, a small volume, that mentions such verses in all the world's major religious traditions.)

So many faiths that wind and wind,
yet what the world needs most
is just the art of being kind.

Lastly, I am not an atheist, but think there may be something to Near Death Experiences.

Best, Ed

From: Kathy G.
To: Ed Babinski
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 3:56 PM
Subject: Near Death Experience

Thank you for your answer to my e-mail. You mentioned near death experiences. A few years ago I worked in an office with ten men. One of these men was a 37 year old by the name of Gene Mose. Gene underwent surgery on his foot in November of that year and as a result he got a very bad staff infection that put him in the hospital for 6 weeks. By January they realized that he had developed a heart problem and they immediately did heart surgery to replace a bad valve. During the surgery his heart stopped three times.

When he came back to work he came to my office one day and said, "Kathy, I want to share something with you. I don't feel I can tell any of the guys my story because they will think I'm nuts, but I know you will believe me." He then told he how when his heart stopped, his spirit rose above his body and he watched the surgeons frantically trying to save him. He said, "Kath, I saw Linda (his wife) sitting in the waiting room, I saw people going up and down the halls, and heard everything that was being said and done to save me. But the best part was the complete feeling of peace and joy and love that surrounded me during that time. I could feel the presence of God all around me and I really didn't care to come back. Noone will ever convince me there isn't life after death." He said, Do you think I'm nuts, Kath?"

I told him of course not. He said, "everything was as real as my sitting here talking to you today, and when they got my heart started my spirit went down until it was back in my body again."
That was in January of that year, and in August he layed down on the couch one night and died. Only 37, but he was ready to meet the Father.

If I had one wish in this life it would be that every person in the world would know beyond a shadow of a doubt what lies beyond this life. I'm sure we'd all live differently.

Sincerely, Kathleen G.

From: Ed Babinski
To: Kathy G.
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Near Death Experience

Thanks, I love hearing about such things. Who is your friend? He should contact Raymond Moody, the author of the bestseller, Life after Life, or Dannion Binkley, author of Saved by the Light (I think that was the title). They are not evangelical Christians, but they collect Near Death stories. Moody has an institute for such things up in North Carolina. Their studies revealled to them that one's religion didn't matter. You could be an evangelical Christian or something completely different, and still feel the love and the recognition that there was life after death. And yes, along with your friend I wish everybody got to experience that kind of happiness in the midst of suffering, pain and death, it would bring a lot of us closer together here on planet earth.

Or on the other hand, perhaps it would also make some of us ignore those who are suffering, since they knew they'd be going to a better place? Hmmm. A wise rabbi was once asked if there was any time in which it was best to think like an atheist, and he said "Yes, there is one time when it is appropriate to think like an atheist, in the giving of charity, since you must not imagine that God is going to right all wrongs and take care of the poor and suffering."

That being said, I still think that if everyone had such an experience as your friend, the planet would be a happier better place, with less fear and tension. Certainly if Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants both had it, along with Muslims and Christians and atheists and agnostics, then people could speak of their shared experience. On the other hand, some fundamentalist Christians and Muslims might still find ways to denounce each other's experience as "fake" or "phoney" or "of the devil." I know there are some fundamentalist Christians like Habermas who co-wrote a book on The Afterlife in which he argued that all of those positive loving and life-changing NDEs that non-evangelical Christians have are all a "delusion" and don't mean those people are going to avoid hell.

Best, Ed