"Aha!" Moments
By Thinks4Herself ~
Even though I was raised in a relaxed Christian home, it has taken me over 20 years to admit I'm a nonbeliever and much effort to shake indoctrination. Although I now consider myself to be a satisfied and happy secular humanist, I'm still working to snip the last religious tentacles away that were deeply embedded within my mind. I continually have "Aha!" moments. For example, so many things I was taught in my youth I accepted at face value and never with a critical mind. Recently, it struck me powerfully and stunningly how absurd it would be to punish, torture, and execute a child in order to remove the "sin" from another child and forever make the "wrong-doing" child feel guilty.
Image by DING52 via Flickr
Then, on top of that horror, order the sinful and now shamed child to both love and worship me and also be afraid of my power to send him or her to hell for eternity. How is that moral, fair, just, loving, or logical? Is that not tyranny and the opposite of allowing "free will?" Is that loving? Why would an all-powerful god not find a better to way to educate his children? What "sin" could a person commit that would EVER justify the execution of another, completely innocent person?
Then I began to ponder all the BLOOD throughout the bible and became even more disgusted. It's creepier to me now than it already had been. I was left pondering for days why this never occurred to me before and why in the past I swallowed this stuff like it was awesome, normal, and even loving behavior? I want to regurgitate and spit back all those communion wafers and "blood" I drank! Whoa! I feel deceived over and over again and wish that religious people would STOP teaching little children that scapegoating and blood sacrifice are great things, or that they are so "sinful" that only the blood of an innocent person can cleanse them!
The journey from this disturbing darkness continues and with each step I feel only the better for it!
Even though I was raised in a relaxed Christian home, it has taken me over 20 years to admit I'm a nonbeliever and much effort to shake indoctrination. Although I now consider myself to be a satisfied and happy secular humanist, I'm still working to snip the last religious tentacles away that were deeply embedded within my mind. I continually have "Aha!" moments. For example, so many things I was taught in my youth I accepted at face value and never with a critical mind. Recently, it struck me powerfully and stunningly how absurd it would be to punish, torture, and execute a child in order to remove the "sin" from another child and forever make the "wrong-doing" child feel guilty.
Image by DING52 via FlickrThen, on top of that horror, order the sinful and now shamed child to both love and worship me and also be afraid of my power to send him or her to hell for eternity. How is that moral, fair, just, loving, or logical? Is that not tyranny and the opposite of allowing "free will?" Is that loving? Why would an all-powerful god not find a better to way to educate his children? What "sin" could a person commit that would EVER justify the execution of another, completely innocent person?
Then I began to ponder all the BLOOD throughout the bible and became even more disgusted. It's creepier to me now than it already had been. I was left pondering for days why this never occurred to me before and why in the past I swallowed this stuff like it was awesome, normal, and even loving behavior? I want to regurgitate and spit back all those communion wafers and "blood" I drank! Whoa! I feel deceived over and over again and wish that religious people would STOP teaching little children that scapegoating and blood sacrifice are great things, or that they are so "sinful" that only the blood of an innocent person can cleanse them!
The journey from this disturbing darkness continues and with each step I feel only the better for it!