Skip to main content

Fear of the Lord -- it's the beginning of wisdom

by juan marco ~

My father was an extremist crackpot of a pastor, and I spent twelve years in christian schools (the last two years in a baptist school, the first ten in a church/school that regularly had Mr. Nutjob Lester Roloff come to preach for our chapel services).

Fear - GraffitiImage by Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha via Flickr

The "fear of the Lord" was drummed into me nonstop. Like many other kids raised in this type of environment, I spent many nights lying awake in sheer terror, worried I would wake up and find that the rapture had taken place without me, or worried about the wrath of god coming down on me for some silly "sin" I had committed, etc...

By the time I was eighteen, I was regularly suffering from depression and anxiety that bordered on full blown paranoia. These conditions went untreated until I was well into my thirties. During these years, I put on an act when I was around people. I fancied myself a comedian, but most people would probably tell you I was just terribly obnoxious.

It was the time I spent alone that my christianity demons visited me. There were exuberant highs, crippling lows, and a never ending cycle of repentance/backsliding. My first visit to a psychiatrist was scary, simply because I knew I was betraying god by visiting one of the devil's priests.

The doctor put me on some meds which made me feel great...at first. Then there was an episode that put me out of work. Got back to work, but the problems didn't go away. Pretty soon, I was doing a completely different type of repentance/backsliding, namely going on meds when I got really bad, and going off them when I got better enough to be irked that they didn't completely "fix" me.

Eventually, I deconverted, which took care of the fear of an angry god. Unfortunately the depression and anxiety didn't go away. I went through a spell where I would come home from work, go straight to bed, and then stay there until I had to go back in (many times without even showering). Of course I wound up losing the job.

There were 3 trips to mental hospitals in rapid succession. There was a period of several months I was convinced I was being followed, and that anybody I ran across talking on a cellphone was letting someone else know where I was and what I was doing. There was depression so deep I would just sit and stare at a wall.

I have spent time in therapy groups, and now I pretty much recognize when my thoughts are getting whacko. They say self-talk is the way to deal with negative thoughts, but reassuring the logical part of your brain does little to rein in the apprehension the emotional part has to deal with. It doesn't stop the thoughts from popping back into your head nonstop over the course of several days either.

I guess the wisdom I have gained is this. You don't take a kid, not even one who doesn't have a family history of mental illness, and start drumming "fear of the lord" crap into his head from the time he can talk. Never mind whether the anxiety is caused by fundamental christianity, or whether it just makes it worse; if nothing else, it definitely teaches that problems of this kind are the result of some personal failing. It masks psych problems for years. Personally, though, I suspect many of my problems originated with the "we must always fear" indoctrination during the critical developmental periods of my childhood.

Me and christianity are through, and I took nothing good from it. Don't want no judgmental god, and that goes double if he's masquerading as a benign, loving liberal-minded jesus just so he can get his foot in the door.

Fear god?!?
Thtththtppbpbpb!!
I mock the very idea. Let him kiss my bloody arse.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro