Mental illness in the making

By Anonymous ex-Christian ~

Christians believe that God is deeply offended and cares when we as humans “sin.” Sin is anything that is against the will of God. It can range from not obeying your husband to murder. The poor sons of bitches in the Old Testament had even more sins to worry about, like the length of their hair and period blood.

The most philosophically bizarre idea is that sin can also include “sinful thoughts.” Something that exists, even temporarily, merely in the mind can be a damnable offense to God.

Christians can be, and usually are, obsessed with sin. I just had a Facebook friend post, “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

It’s my opinion that Christians become sin-obsessed because it confuses normal, neutral, or healthy human experience with something bad, and this criss-cross of normal-to-bad creates self-loathing.

Allow me to explain how utterly retarded the whole idea of thought sins are. First of all, Christian believe that God can and does read your mind. He knows your every freakin’ thought. Lust in your heart? Adultery sin. Rage at the guy who cut you off? Murder sin. You just made baby Jesus cry - twice.

So now what’s a good Christian to do after committing murder and adultery? Why, pray for forgiveness of sins, of course! So the Christian closes her eyes and prays, “Jesus, forgive me of my sins. Take away my tendencies to lust and have anger. Amen.”

Now, what’s so retarded about that? A couple of things. Aside from the ludicrous idea that an all-knowing God gives a damn about your stupid thoughts, you now just “confessed your sin” out loud. And guess what? Christians believe that Satan, the most evil demon in existence, can NOT read your thoughts. But he can hear and see things that actually happen. So you just let the big “tempter” know your weakness.

Talk about mental illness in the making.

If a Christian uses rational thinking and deductive logic, it is easy to see how one could become uber-paranoid about keeping these thought crimes secret! In my experience with Christians for most of my life, this “strategy” was never talked about. People would “confess their sins” to others all the time, thereby putting Beelzebub on notice of their weakness.

So the writer of James was promoting being a retard when he wrote,

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16.

It’s also important and interesting to note that two basic human drives - sexuality and aggression - are probably the two most common “sins” that Christians “struggle with.” (“Struggle with” is a common buzzword for Christians who repeatedly “fail” to resist a particular “temptation”) Two basic drives that Freud would have considered a basic part of all of us is also considered to be evil by most Christians. Repression and psychological dysfunction are the results of such nonsensical and damaging beliefs.

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