Once Saved, Always Saved?

I was a Christian for seven years of my life. I would lie if I said that I hated those years or that those years were entirely wasted, even with hindsight. The fact is, I enjoyed them in my ignorance, and I learned a small part about compassion (though, it was entirely misdirected).

There are two camps of Christian thought regarding my salvation. One group says that since I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I am forever bound to him and thus I am still saved. This group usually loves to point out that there is no possible way I could truly know Jesus and be with him and then deny his existence.

To them, it would be akin to meeting your aunt for the first time, spending time with her, and then later on saying you never met her and you didn't think she was real. It would be a ludicrous thing to do.

The other group of Christians say that a Christian is able to do something called "backslide" in which they are either sinning again and in the clutches of Satan or no longer believing in the doctrines. To them, one can be sufficiently backslidden enough to no longer have the saving grace of Jesus.

To them, it would be akin to meeting your aunt for the first time, spending time with her, and then later on saying you never met her and didn't think she was real. The difference is, in this case, she rejects you and says that for as long as you reject her you can't go into her house.

Both camps love to point out that perhaps I wasn't a real enough Christian. I find this notion funny. It is a childish security blanket for them to think that I was never a real Christian who believed as they did. Not to mention it also belittles my experience and puts them on a pedestal of arrogance to assume they know what my personal beliefs were.

A Christian can be summed up as someone that accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Whatever actions they justify with religious dogma afterwards are actions of a Christian for Christian reasons, even if warped. This is the inherent danger in religion. The ability to be warped and changed to fit agendas has caused much harm in history and is the running gag of the Religious Wing of the United States at this very moment.

The question poised, however, is if a person is saved are they always saved? I retaliate, is a person saved to begin with? Is there any rational reason to think the soul was in danger of hellfire before supposedly being saved? Is there even a soul to save?

Once again Christians run from rationality and set assumptions to build upon. They are building structures out of grains of sand.

My personal stance? I was never saved. There was nothing to be saved from. I was sucked into a belief system and they leeched upon my need to feel validated and safe. I was used to spread this system for their own purposes.

Really, it is the Christians who need to be saved from their dogmatic delusions.