By Paul ~
I wasn't sure if posting my story was a good idea, but after remembering what it was like when I finally saw through the illusion of Christianity. How it completely shook my world and my entire thought processes and worldview went under doubt and investigation. This was a scary place where I had no idea what else i had been wrong about or who I could talk to about my experience. I began to have this deep fear of being trapped in another delusional thought process like that again (as far as my spiritual quest is concerned). It was as if I was scarred by my experience in a supposedly life bringing belief. Something that was supposed to bring me freedom had in fact shackled me tighter to the dark places in my life with no real hope of getting out. So i feel it important to share my experience with the hope that it will maybe help someone else get past this.
I wasn't born into a Christian family, but I did grow up going to catholic school so the seed of unreasoning was planted in me then. Around 18 I started having Issues with depression and drug abuse. After going through a couple rehab centers and not having much success (not realizing it was I that wasn't putting in the work to stay clean). It was recommended that I try a different approach; a faith based approach at a place called Teen Challenge.
I was very hesitant, but I decided to go since my options were running out. The place is referred to as bible boot camp and basically you were told that the only hope you have of ever getting free of drug addiction was to give your life to Jesus – there was no other way.
Being broken and desperate for a solution i decided to give it a try. At Teen Challenge we were forced to sit in bible class for hours then to do work for the program to help make them donation money to keep the program funded the program taught me the ins and outs of non-denominational Christianity. And, they instilled the "fear of God" in me.
The term “Fear of God” is very accurate because of the deep-seated fear of hell and straying from the path was now plaguing my mind.
I could think again. I could feel again. I could be human again. I went to church on a regular basis and became very involved. It was there that I felt the so-called “presence of God,” which was basically just a feeling of excitement and relief because I thought that I had found the answer. (Little did I know at the time that feelings are just a product of thoughts, and that it wasn't some magical deity coming into my life). I also read the bible and prayed every morning.
However, I wasn't truly happy. I was completely sick with myself on a regular basis.
I had to believe things that I didn't agree with like that no matter how good of a person you are that if you don't believe in Jesus then you will burn in hell for eternity by our loving forgiving God.
The list goes on forever of stuff I didn't agree with, but the important part is that I was in constant conflict with my reason and beliefs. The best part was that whenever I questioned anything, I was told that it was the devil and to just cast away the thoughts and pray to God. So there is no room for questioning or reason because it was the devil trying to lead me away from God and into sin. This is a bulletproof plan to keep people trapped in the ignorance of Christianity.
I began to become very judgmental of myself and hate myself, feeling as if I was less than and that there was no hope for me because I couldn't stop the thoughts and God never seemed to answer. I kept desperately trying to find happiness in Christianity, but it was nowhere to be found. I only clung to the religion because of the community and the belief that i would burn in hell if I didn't keep going.
I eventually had a nervous breakdown from trying to suppress my emotions and thoughts – trying to keep the devil out of my head. Things were worse than ever, but i kept reading the bible and praying as before but with less enthusiasm. I became more willing to question things eventually, but I had to do so with the bible. I started really reading the bible especially the Old Testament and started seeing the differences and contradictions.
This was how I began to unravel the whole thing.
I couldn't think my way out because I was told it was the devil ; so I had to look at the bible itself first and see that the devil is just a Christian idea, then I stopped believing in him.
Great! So now I can think again.
Then I began looking up why people leave religion and why the Jewish faith doesn't believe in Jesus, etc. The veil was now being lifted and for the first time I could see that this wasn't the ultimate truth like it was said to be and there was this sense of freedom. I could think again. I could feel again. I could be human again.
At first I did have a hard time adjusting to a life without a God. After all, I did spend my whole life believing in one. The world looked different and I couldn't help but question everything about myself and the world. It was hard at first and I felt incredible lonely.
I eventually found some people who had somewhat similar experiences and this in the end helped me get over the aftershocks of leaving the God concept.
I am still on a spiritual quest if you may call it one. I am also still clean from drugs and alcohol. My life still has meaning, and purpose. I enjoy helping people and volunteer on a regular basis. I can now enjoy the things that I love doing without the nagging thought of whether it is right or wrong or if it is the devil. I can spend time learning about my thoughts and myself and find ways to become a better human being instead of just praying for it to happen. I am happy. I am free from the Bondage of Religion.
Encouraging doubting, de-converting, deconstructing and former Christians
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Our Father Who Is In Hell
By Carl S. ~
It was Sigmund Freud who first proposed that we as children get our idea of "God" through experiences with our fathers. In Freud's day this might have applied. My father's father, as my mother said, was a stern head of family who ruled with an iron hand, beating his children with a cat-o-nine-tails, a description of which alone frightened me. If my dad got his idea of God from his father, we couldn’t know, since he never discussed religion with us. (I suspect churches believe Freud about his interpretation. They encourage fathers to be considerate, strong, and loving to their children. So that the children grow up with the same father image of their god?) Did our experiences with dad create our image of "God?"
Our father was a practical man. I'd extend this practicality to his Catholicism. He did the novenas, rosary recitations, church attendance, etc., covering all the salvation bases. (I sincerely wonder if he confessed anything to the priest of any consequence, for he didn't seem to feel regret for his actions towards us. But then, God never apologizes either.)
Our father made a good living as an engineering draftsman and very inventive problem solver. But he was most comfortable among men and his co-workers, not his own family. Among us, he remained mostly silent, going about doing what pleased him. He had public and private lives, with the problem of not being able to understand why he did not receive the adulation at home which he enjoyed at work. I think now that he needed to be needed, and if you came to him needing him, he was gratefully there for you. Otherwise, he was just there, available, period. Unlike "God," who was never there for me.
When I was eight years old, I remember my kid brother and I, after going to bed, laughing at our jokes. Dad came to the door and told us to be quiet and go to sleep. He would leave, and we'd start up again. Dad would stand on the stairs, out of sight, and listen. Then, he'd return and beat us with his belt, with all his might, for as long as he could. He was only 5' 3", but thin and strong. Did we (since my much older siblings must have experienced the same treatment) conclude that God also stood waiting for us to disobey, ready to punish us? I can't make that connection.
Dad could be unpredictable. He would sit watching TV, not saying a word, and get stinking drunk. Sometimes he'd just go to bed, but at other times, he would go off on tirades about what aggravated him, exploding from pent-up feelings. These could refer to work, money expenditures, the ingratitude of his wife or children, etc. This could go on for hours; trying to reason with him was frustrating and futile. But I never heard him say anything disrespectful or uncaring to my mother or family members. He usually complained about injustices. Things got to the point to where mom would leave the house and go out for a walk until he went to bed. Always, without fail, he'd get up in the morning and go to work, and nothing was said about the previous night. He was always a good provider. Is God as unpredictable, exploding without warning, and yet a good provider? Not to me. I took "God" for granted, much as I took my dad for granted.
The night before my mother's funeral, I told Ray about what she last said about being with dad. Ray was furious, calling me a liar, telling me that this couldn't happen because, "He's in Hell."To understand my dad, you cannot omit a factor our family knew only too well: his relationship with his oldest son, Ray. The most violent arguments took place between them when they were drunk. Outside of those times, they could soberly talk, casually and civilly. Ray held on to actual and perceived grievances towards dad, forever. He never forgave him. It was Ray who told him, "You're not my father. My father’s in heaven." Obviously Ray's interpretation of "God" as father was much different from how he saw his actual father.
My mother died in 1985. The year before, my kids and I attended a family get-together to celebrate her birthday. Since she was going back to Arizona afterwards, I took advantage of some time alone with her to reveal the reason why I had given her and dad both confusion and disappointment with me when I was eight years old. I was then delinquent from school, broke property, and stealing money from her purse. The reason, unknown to them, was that I had been the victim of a pedophile. She said she understood. I asked her if she thought Ray was homosexual. She'd known that for decades. And then, she said that she wouldn’t be back, was tired of living, and wanted to be "with my husband" in heaven.
The night before my mother's funeral, I told Ray about what she last said about being with dad. Ray was furious, calling me a liar, telling me that this couldn't happen because, "He's in Hell."
So, here's a man who spent his formative years dominated by an immigrant staunch German Catholic father who believed in not sparing the rod, but beat his children, and as a child was bullied by a school system that also punished children as policy. This was his inherited tradition. He also was a punisher, up to the time we moved into the country, when I was nine years old. He took the large old farm house and completely electrified it, alone. There in the country, he quit the abuse and matured as an especially caring dad. There, he blossomed in planting and growing vegetables, and in the vineyard, while distributing acres of the harvests to relatives, friends, and of course, family. He never depended on God to give him anything. He earned it all.
When I was 29 yrs. old, he and I met up in Los Angeles one afternoon. We went to Busch Gardens, where we sampled all the beers at all the pavilions and watched the bird acts amongst the blossoming fauna. We were pretty mellow by the time we parted. There were no accusations, no apologies, no regrets or explanations for our conflicts in the past. He had an appreciation of me in my new role as a father, and I got to see him as the sensible and affable man his friends and co-workers knew. Did I see God differently? I never did see God... No, I saw Ben differently.
The last time I spoke with my dad was on a Father’s Day, l980. He was living in Arizona with mom and Ray, and I was in Ohio with my own family, with no money to travel. My father, ill with aplastic anemia, said that "Ray is pushing me around, and I have bruises on my body." I told him to call the police. (As it turned out, he did. I know because Ray told me about it years later.)
So that's my father. From him, I inherited his anger about injustice, his finding of solutions and optimism no matter what happens, his insatiable curiosity and enthusiasm about scientific discoveries, his respect for women and fidelity to his wife. Was he "perfect as God is perfect?" No, he was flawed, and flexible like "God" ought to be, and isn't. My father would never make a hell where he would abandon his children to never see them again. Would that my father were a god. My father puts God to shame.
Our father was a practical man. I'd extend this practicality to his Catholicism. He did the novenas, rosary recitations, church attendance, etc., covering all the salvation bases. (I sincerely wonder if he confessed anything to the priest of any consequence, for he didn't seem to feel regret for his actions towards us. But then, God never apologizes either.)
Our father made a good living as an engineering draftsman and very inventive problem solver. But he was most comfortable among men and his co-workers, not his own family. Among us, he remained mostly silent, going about doing what pleased him. He had public and private lives, with the problem of not being able to understand why he did not receive the adulation at home which he enjoyed at work. I think now that he needed to be needed, and if you came to him needing him, he was gratefully there for you. Otherwise, he was just there, available, period. Unlike "God," who was never there for me.
When I was eight years old, I remember my kid brother and I, after going to bed, laughing at our jokes. Dad came to the door and told us to be quiet and go to sleep. He would leave, and we'd start up again. Dad would stand on the stairs, out of sight, and listen. Then, he'd return and beat us with his belt, with all his might, for as long as he could. He was only 5' 3", but thin and strong. Did we (since my much older siblings must have experienced the same treatment) conclude that God also stood waiting for us to disobey, ready to punish us? I can't make that connection.
Dad could be unpredictable. He would sit watching TV, not saying a word, and get stinking drunk. Sometimes he'd just go to bed, but at other times, he would go off on tirades about what aggravated him, exploding from pent-up feelings. These could refer to work, money expenditures, the ingratitude of his wife or children, etc. This could go on for hours; trying to reason with him was frustrating and futile. But I never heard him say anything disrespectful or uncaring to my mother or family members. He usually complained about injustices. Things got to the point to where mom would leave the house and go out for a walk until he went to bed. Always, without fail, he'd get up in the morning and go to work, and nothing was said about the previous night. He was always a good provider. Is God as unpredictable, exploding without warning, and yet a good provider? Not to me. I took "God" for granted, much as I took my dad for granted.
The night before my mother's funeral, I told Ray about what she last said about being with dad. Ray was furious, calling me a liar, telling me that this couldn't happen because, "He's in Hell."To understand my dad, you cannot omit a factor our family knew only too well: his relationship with his oldest son, Ray. The most violent arguments took place between them when they were drunk. Outside of those times, they could soberly talk, casually and civilly. Ray held on to actual and perceived grievances towards dad, forever. He never forgave him. It was Ray who told him, "You're not my father. My father’s in heaven." Obviously Ray's interpretation of "God" as father was much different from how he saw his actual father.
My mother died in 1985. The year before, my kids and I attended a family get-together to celebrate her birthday. Since she was going back to Arizona afterwards, I took advantage of some time alone with her to reveal the reason why I had given her and dad both confusion and disappointment with me when I was eight years old. I was then delinquent from school, broke property, and stealing money from her purse. The reason, unknown to them, was that I had been the victim of a pedophile. She said she understood. I asked her if she thought Ray was homosexual. She'd known that for decades. And then, she said that she wouldn’t be back, was tired of living, and wanted to be "with my husband" in heaven.
The night before my mother's funeral, I told Ray about what she last said about being with dad. Ray was furious, calling me a liar, telling me that this couldn't happen because, "He's in Hell."
So, here's a man who spent his formative years dominated by an immigrant staunch German Catholic father who believed in not sparing the rod, but beat his children, and as a child was bullied by a school system that also punished children as policy. This was his inherited tradition. He also was a punisher, up to the time we moved into the country, when I was nine years old. He took the large old farm house and completely electrified it, alone. There in the country, he quit the abuse and matured as an especially caring dad. There, he blossomed in planting and growing vegetables, and in the vineyard, while distributing acres of the harvests to relatives, friends, and of course, family. He never depended on God to give him anything. He earned it all.
When I was 29 yrs. old, he and I met up in Los Angeles one afternoon. We went to Busch Gardens, where we sampled all the beers at all the pavilions and watched the bird acts amongst the blossoming fauna. We were pretty mellow by the time we parted. There were no accusations, no apologies, no regrets or explanations for our conflicts in the past. He had an appreciation of me in my new role as a father, and I got to see him as the sensible and affable man his friends and co-workers knew. Did I see God differently? I never did see God... No, I saw Ben differently.
The last time I spoke with my dad was on a Father’s Day, l980. He was living in Arizona with mom and Ray, and I was in Ohio with my own family, with no money to travel. My father, ill with aplastic anemia, said that "Ray is pushing me around, and I have bruises on my body." I told him to call the police. (As it turned out, he did. I know because Ray told me about it years later.)
So that's my father. From him, I inherited his anger about injustice, his finding of solutions and optimism no matter what happens, his insatiable curiosity and enthusiasm about scientific discoveries, his respect for women and fidelity to his wife. Was he "perfect as God is perfect?" No, he was flawed, and flexible like "God" ought to be, and isn't. My father would never make a hell where he would abandon his children to never see them again. Would that my father were a god. My father puts God to shame.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Scars
By Tania ~
Life wounds all of us. In a hundred ways, we get hurt.
Life throws things our way, and we ache, we cry, we stumble through the day or the month or the many years and just try to not be overwhelmed by the sadness, the anger, the confusion.
If we're lucky, if we're resilient, if we're patient, if we're surrounded by people who let us share and overshare, if we're able to find purpose, if we're able to find the right combination of meds or meditation or mediation -- if we are one or all of the above -- the wounds don't last forever. They scar.
And that's when we can learn, grow, help others. We cannot do that when our wounds are scabs.
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic or sentimental or gory or what have you, I use this as an analogy for my deconversion journey.
It's been four years now since the start of my deconversion. Four years ago, I was that girl. That girl who went to church every Sunday morning when she wasn't working. That girl who "knew" the meaning of life and what happens after we die. That girl who felt uplifted by all things God and Jesus. That girl who underlined parts of the Bible that she found especially meaningful -- black pen, red pen, blue pen, depending on the emotion evoked by the verses. That girl who played piano imperfectly but was okay with it, because God was pleased with a devoted Christian girl who loved Him dearly and had good intentions in her piano-playing attempts and that's all that mattered.
And then a dozen life events happened...and that faith began to crumble...and it hurt much more than I would have imagined it would hurt. When we have love something, someone, some place, some experience, and that gets taken away, we are left with pain. It can take a long time to work through that pain. It is only recently that I've been able to remain relatively detached from my Christian experience. I no longer become overly emotional when talking about it. I no longer have a sense of deep longing as I walk by a church. I know when to call it quits and just watch a funny Youtube clip instead of dwelling on yet another religion article.
We have to let go. We have to let go. We have to let go.When we're still in that place of confusion and upheaval, most of us probably approach "Christian" things cautiously, hopefully. It's still an area of uncertainty... maybe we'll go back...maybe it's "we" who are the problem...It's still a scab, this part of the process.
And then time passes -- time, the healer.... And we read, we Google, we become friends with -- shocker! -- agnostics and atheists, we start attending the "spiritual centre" instead of church-church.
A few weeks ago, I was looking through some paperwork and saw a little note I'd written about a year ago, stating that I'd attended a "regular" church service that morning and walked out about 45 minutes into the service. So, I was still trying, giving it a chance a year ago. Re-visiting. Sorting through it all. And then getting angry, and getting sad, and spending the rest of the day trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit.
I'm learning that sometimes some things don't get fixed. We cannot go back to how things were. We have to let go. We have to let go. We have to let go. That wound has been revisited a thousand times, but it's not getting better -- it's getting worse, or it's staying the same, and it's just the same cycle over and over.
And then more time passes, and life happens, people come and go, we uproot by choice or by chance, other things occupy our minds...We revamp.
And one Sunday morning, we're at a new restaurant in the city, eating eggs benedict and drinking coconut green tea, reading a book, and we're okay -- happy, even.
The wound is still there. There is still some sadness, some fond memories, some wishful thinking. There will always be something to work through. But healing has been happening and it continues to happen. The scarring is taking place, and we realize we're okay with having that scar.
Life throws things our way, and we ache, we cry, we stumble through the day or the month or the many years and just try to not be overwhelmed by the sadness, the anger, the confusion.
If we're lucky, if we're resilient, if we're patient, if we're surrounded by people who let us share and overshare, if we're able to find purpose, if we're able to find the right combination of meds or meditation or mediation -- if we are one or all of the above -- the wounds don't last forever. They scar.
And that's when we can learn, grow, help others. We cannot do that when our wounds are scabs.
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic or sentimental or gory or what have you, I use this as an analogy for my deconversion journey.
It's been four years now since the start of my deconversion. Four years ago, I was that girl. That girl who went to church every Sunday morning when she wasn't working. That girl who "knew" the meaning of life and what happens after we die. That girl who felt uplifted by all things God and Jesus. That girl who underlined parts of the Bible that she found especially meaningful -- black pen, red pen, blue pen, depending on the emotion evoked by the verses. That girl who played piano imperfectly but was okay with it, because God was pleased with a devoted Christian girl who loved Him dearly and had good intentions in her piano-playing attempts and that's all that mattered.
And then a dozen life events happened...and that faith began to crumble...and it hurt much more than I would have imagined it would hurt. When we have love something, someone, some place, some experience, and that gets taken away, we are left with pain. It can take a long time to work through that pain. It is only recently that I've been able to remain relatively detached from my Christian experience. I no longer become overly emotional when talking about it. I no longer have a sense of deep longing as I walk by a church. I know when to call it quits and just watch a funny Youtube clip instead of dwelling on yet another religion article.
We have to let go. We have to let go. We have to let go.When we're still in that place of confusion and upheaval, most of us probably approach "Christian" things cautiously, hopefully. It's still an area of uncertainty... maybe we'll go back...maybe it's "we" who are the problem...It's still a scab, this part of the process.
And then time passes -- time, the healer.... And we read, we Google, we become friends with -- shocker! -- agnostics and atheists, we start attending the "spiritual centre" instead of church-church.
A few weeks ago, I was looking through some paperwork and saw a little note I'd written about a year ago, stating that I'd attended a "regular" church service that morning and walked out about 45 minutes into the service. So, I was still trying, giving it a chance a year ago. Re-visiting. Sorting through it all. And then getting angry, and getting sad, and spending the rest of the day trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit.
I'm learning that sometimes some things don't get fixed. We cannot go back to how things were. We have to let go. We have to let go. We have to let go. That wound has been revisited a thousand times, but it's not getting better -- it's getting worse, or it's staying the same, and it's just the same cycle over and over.
And then more time passes, and life happens, people come and go, we uproot by choice or by chance, other things occupy our minds...We revamp.
And one Sunday morning, we're at a new restaurant in the city, eating eggs benedict and drinking coconut green tea, reading a book, and we're okay -- happy, even.
The wound is still there. There is still some sadness, some fond memories, some wishful thinking. There will always be something to work through. But healing has been happening and it continues to happen. The scarring is taking place, and we realize we're okay with having that scar.
An Open Letter to Humans Everywhere
By Ben Love ~
Dear Human,
At some point today, stop what you’re doing and find a mirror. Stand there for a moment and look into that mirror. Don’t see only the reflection of the physical body. See that too, yes, but also try to look past that and see the “you” on the inside. Try to get a mental image of that “you.”
That “you” that you see...is good. You are good. You are just fine exactly the way you are. Do you have problems? Sure. Have you behaved badly in the past? Probably. In fact, yes, you have. Will you misbehave a little more in the future? All signs point to yes. But what you do and why you do it are a separate issue from this basic truth: you are born good, not bad. You are born innocent. You are born beautiful. You were not born evil.
Now, does this mean you aren’t born with bad tendencies? Of course not. A human is, after all, merely a civilized animal, but still an animal. You have instincts within you, leftovers from the long, slow trek of your evolution—instincts for survival, for self-preservation, instincts that translate as selfishness in society. These instincts, though, can be unlearned as you move through society. That is the exact definition of being civilized. To better ourselves. To rise above instinct.
Regardless of your instincts, you are born good. Why are you born good? Because you were born! You are a form of matter that is occupying space and time for a limited duration. Is matter good or is matter bad? The truth is this: matter is most likely neutral, being neither good nor bad on its own. It can only be good or bad, then, based on someone else observing it and assigning those qualities to it. Steak is considered by (most) humans to be a good form of matter. Feces is considered by (most) humans to be a bad form of matter. So, if you are born as a form of matter and matter is neutral, then how do I know you are good? Because I say so! I choose to view you that way! I choose to assign you worth and goodness because I feel this is what you deserve.
Not everyone agrees with me. There are those that choose to say you are born bad, the product of sin, the evil result of humanity’s waywardness, an abhorrence to God. They tell you this because they’re following a theology, but what is theology if not a human set of understandings regarding some manifestation of God? Thus, these humans who say you are born bad say so because that it is what they choose, just as I have chosen to say you are good. See, we really do have free will; it’s just a bit different than the theologians want to admit.
So who is right? That is for you to decide. Look in the mirror and make your choice. Are you good? Or are you bad? Now, I’m not talking about your tendencies and your unique proclivities and all the things with which you struggle. Being alive on this planet and walking among other broken humans will always result in a messy existence. But look beyond those things and see the “you” underneath. Is that good? Or is that bad?
I say it is good. But that is just my opinion, and my opinion isn’t worth much. I would, however, based again on my very same opinions, like to encourage you not to listen to the infecting lies that other group tells you. Those are lies disguised as love, but all they really do is cause harm, abuse, damage, and destruction.
You be the judge. You decide what you see in the mirror. I just hope you make a positive, healthy, liberating decision. After all, the rest of your life is depending on it.
http://hereticforum.weebly.com/
Dear Human,
That “you” that you see...is good. You are good. You are just fine exactly the way you are. Do you have problems? Sure. Have you behaved badly in the past? Probably. In fact, yes, you have. Will you misbehave a little more in the future? All signs point to yes. But what you do and why you do it are a separate issue from this basic truth: you are born good, not bad. You are born innocent. You are born beautiful. You were not born evil.
Now, does this mean you aren’t born with bad tendencies? Of course not. A human is, after all, merely a civilized animal, but still an animal. You have instincts within you, leftovers from the long, slow trek of your evolution—instincts for survival, for self-preservation, instincts that translate as selfishness in society. These instincts, though, can be unlearned as you move through society. That is the exact definition of being civilized. To better ourselves. To rise above instinct.
Regardless of your instincts, you are born good. Why are you born good? Because you were born! You are a form of matter that is occupying space and time for a limited duration. Is matter good or is matter bad? The truth is this: matter is most likely neutral, being neither good nor bad on its own. It can only be good or bad, then, based on someone else observing it and assigning those qualities to it. Steak is considered by (most) humans to be a good form of matter. Feces is considered by (most) humans to be a bad form of matter. So, if you are born as a form of matter and matter is neutral, then how do I know you are good? Because I say so! I choose to view you that way! I choose to assign you worth and goodness because I feel this is what you deserve.
Not everyone agrees with me. There are those that choose to say you are born bad, the product of sin, the evil result of humanity’s waywardness, an abhorrence to God. They tell you this because they’re following a theology, but what is theology if not a human set of understandings regarding some manifestation of God? Thus, these humans who say you are born bad say so because that it is what they choose, just as I have chosen to say you are good. See, we really do have free will; it’s just a bit different than the theologians want to admit.
So who is right? That is for you to decide. Look in the mirror and make your choice. Are you good? Or are you bad? Now, I’m not talking about your tendencies and your unique proclivities and all the things with which you struggle. Being alive on this planet and walking among other broken humans will always result in a messy existence. But look beyond those things and see the “you” underneath. Is that good? Or is that bad?
I say it is good. But that is just my opinion, and my opinion isn’t worth much. I would, however, based again on my very same opinions, like to encourage you not to listen to the infecting lies that other group tells you. Those are lies disguised as love, but all they really do is cause harm, abuse, damage, and destruction.
You be the judge. You decide what you see in the mirror. I just hope you make a positive, healthy, liberating decision. After all, the rest of your life is depending on it.
http://hereticforum.weebly.com/
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Losing My Faith in Kansas, Part 2
By Daffodil ~
This is a continuation of a previous post detailing how I lost my faith.
My previous misgivings about Christianity in high school centered around how other Christians behaved. My first inklings of problems with the Bible came in college when I took classes overviewing the OT and NT. for the first time in my life I heard that both parts of the bible had been written by many, many people. This gave me an odd feeling in my gut as I had just begun getting more involved with the conservative group, The Navigators. I basically put this new knowledge on a back burner and soldiered on.
Within the Navigators, I began to study the bible voraciously. I couldn't get enough of it and had so many questions. Unfortunately, I began to notice two things. First, there were many inconsistencies and disturbing stories. Second, no one seemed to be able to adequately answer my questions. I kept getting either, God is so much wiser than us and we just have to trust what his word says, or elaborate intellectual gymnastics to explain what the bible said. However, the care and nurturing from the group helped me to push these nagging thoughts aside and soldier on.
As I stated in the first part of this testimony, 23 years ago my husband and I started our life together as committed, conservative evangelical Christians. Our first wake-up call was our send-off from The Navigators. Because we were going into the secular work-world rather than missions or pastorate work where we would have received lots of support in transitioning from college life, we were essentially told, "Nice knowin' ya! Have a great life, oh and since you'll be pulling in a steady paycheck, would you consider financially supporting us in our campus ministry?" The sudden cutoff of all the love and nurturing was jarring. We looked at each other and decided we better find a church. Soldiering on.
Now, just so you understand who I am just a little better, I have NEVER enjoyed church. I have always had a terrible time paying attention because I am not an auditory learner and the sermons just went in one ear and out the other. I found the songs, whether the traditional hymns of my youth or the praise and worship of the evangelicals, long, repetitive, and mind-numbing (I wonder if that's actually the hidden purpose of them?). I never felt any emotional response to anything and even wondered if there was something wrong with me as I watched others with their eyes closed and hands in the air appearing in some sort of ecstasy. No matter which church we tried, I was never at ease. We soldiered on.
I tried to connect with other women in church groups (there were no mixed groups unless they were for married couples) and was continually frustrated by the lack of depth of discussion and honest questioning. They talked about how to be better wives and mothers and little else. In one church, enough women had expressed concerns about the role of women in the church that the elders (all male) decided to study the issue in depth (using the bible as their only reference) and came to the conclusion that no, there was still no support for women taking leadership roles or teaching mixed classes. Women could teach other women or children and not be elders. We soldiered on.
My next epiphany, so to speak, came when I was confronted with my own prejudices during interactions with a Catholic coworker. I realized I knew little about Catholicism and it decided to learn about it. When I decide to learn something, I tend to go all out and read everything I can get my hands on. After months of study I discovered that the Catholics had some things right and the Protestants and some things very wrong. This really surprised me, and I even considered converting to Catholicism for awhile. However, the overemphasis on Mary, extreme wealth of the church (why don't they loot their own cathedrals of all that gold and art and give to the poor they supposedly love so much?), and weird fixation on celibacy of the priesthood dissuaded me. We soldiered on.
The next chapter of our life was probably the beginning of the end, for me at least. We began to try to start a family. Long story (7 years long) short, it wasn't meant to be. Though we eventually adopted two of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege of knowing, during those seven years I had a secret belief seemingly validated: God does not answer prayers. I had always had a gnawing feeling in my gut that God didn't really care, but I kept trying to convince myself of the oft-repeated sayings that God loves us, wants a personal relationship with us, his ways are higher, has an even better plan for us, etc. But despite all these encouraging things, all I ever seemed to get from him was silence. Swallowing my doubts yet again, we soldiered on.
As I got older, I began to sense in myself a dawning awareness of a more liberal bent to my personality. I cared about the environment. I cared about the here-and-now more than the afterlife. I had a heart for the underdog. I didn't believe in the "This is god's country" malarkey (what did that say about all the other countries if only America is god's country, and where in the bible did it say that anyway!). It seemed to me that Jesus fit this liberal bent, but The Church clearly did not, with its emphasis on the primacy of the Word, America, and so-called family values. As a result, I moved toward a stripped-down, Jesus-only faith and soldiered on.
As I entered my forties, I began reading books and watching programs on the origins of Christianity and the bible, including scientific/logical explanations for mysteries such as the plagues, why there are multiple versions of the same stories, why the gospels don't match, etc. I rarely, if ever, read the bible, prayed only at dinner and kids' bedtime, and went to church for friendships alone. I was saddened and disappointed when the church we were attending at the time chose to raise $2 million to enlarge the building rather than help those in need. Imagine what $2 million could have done! I had all but ceased soldiering on.
At the age of 45, my husband told me he no longer felt sure there was a God and had felt that way for many years. The thing that really hit me was when he said he had prayed and asked God repeatedly for years to give him some indication that he was really there and had gotten nothing. There is a verse that states that if you ask, you will receive; if you seek, you will find; if you knock, the door will be opened. How could God fail to respond to the one thing we are told he wants more than anything else: a sincere seeker wanting to know him and believe in him!? I try in a very weak, defeated way to soldier on for another 2 1/2 years. I don't even know why.
Then, I ran across a blog post that was the last straw. It seems so silly now, and I can only think that it worked because I was already primed for it, but the blogger likened religion to a belief in Santa Claus. Santa is used by parents to control kids. Be good or Santa won't bring you anything! Religion is used the same way. Believe in God or you won't get to heaven! It just suddenly crystallized in my mind. Religion is a form of control. It's all an elaborate lie, begun long ago, to explain nature and control others. Instantly I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and peace, nothing like the "peace" I was supposed to have felt as a believer. I also felt anger and frustration that it took me this long to get it! The indoctrination is deep and thorough it boggles the mind!
I'm not as angry now as I was, because I believe that every day is a new day and you kind of have a chance to start over a little each day. I am thankful that I am not alone in this, though my husband's thoughts run a little differently than mine and may take some working out. I'm just thankful that we came to this before our kids got too indoctrinated. They're 9 and 10 and I love that we can still "save" them!
This is a continuation of a previous post detailing how I lost my faith.
Within the Navigators, I began to study the bible voraciously. I couldn't get enough of it and had so many questions. Unfortunately, I began to notice two things. First, there were many inconsistencies and disturbing stories. Second, no one seemed to be able to adequately answer my questions. I kept getting either, God is so much wiser than us and we just have to trust what his word says, or elaborate intellectual gymnastics to explain what the bible said. However, the care and nurturing from the group helped me to push these nagging thoughts aside and soldier on.
As I stated in the first part of this testimony, 23 years ago my husband and I started our life together as committed, conservative evangelical Christians. Our first wake-up call was our send-off from The Navigators. Because we were going into the secular work-world rather than missions or pastorate work where we would have received lots of support in transitioning from college life, we were essentially told, "Nice knowin' ya! Have a great life, oh and since you'll be pulling in a steady paycheck, would you consider financially supporting us in our campus ministry?" The sudden cutoff of all the love and nurturing was jarring. We looked at each other and decided we better find a church. Soldiering on.
Now, just so you understand who I am just a little better, I have NEVER enjoyed church. I have always had a terrible time paying attention because I am not an auditory learner and the sermons just went in one ear and out the other. I found the songs, whether the traditional hymns of my youth or the praise and worship of the evangelicals, long, repetitive, and mind-numbing (I wonder if that's actually the hidden purpose of them?). I never felt any emotional response to anything and even wondered if there was something wrong with me as I watched others with their eyes closed and hands in the air appearing in some sort of ecstasy. No matter which church we tried, I was never at ease. We soldiered on.
I tried to connect with other women in church groups (there were no mixed groups unless they were for married couples) and was continually frustrated by the lack of depth of discussion and honest questioning. They talked about how to be better wives and mothers and little else. In one church, enough women had expressed concerns about the role of women in the church that the elders (all male) decided to study the issue in depth (using the bible as their only reference) and came to the conclusion that no, there was still no support for women taking leadership roles or teaching mixed classes. Women could teach other women or children and not be elders. We soldiered on.
My next epiphany, so to speak, came when I was confronted with my own prejudices during interactions with a Catholic coworker. I realized I knew little about Catholicism and it decided to learn about it. When I decide to learn something, I tend to go all out and read everything I can get my hands on. After months of study I discovered that the Catholics had some things right and the Protestants and some things very wrong. This really surprised me, and I even considered converting to Catholicism for awhile. However, the overemphasis on Mary, extreme wealth of the church (why don't they loot their own cathedrals of all that gold and art and give to the poor they supposedly love so much?), and weird fixation on celibacy of the priesthood dissuaded me. We soldiered on.
The next chapter of our life was probably the beginning of the end, for me at least. We began to try to start a family. Long story (7 years long) short, it wasn't meant to be. Though we eventually adopted two of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege of knowing, during those seven years I had a secret belief seemingly validated: God does not answer prayers. I had always had a gnawing feeling in my gut that God didn't really care, but I kept trying to convince myself of the oft-repeated sayings that God loves us, wants a personal relationship with us, his ways are higher, has an even better plan for us, etc. But despite all these encouraging things, all I ever seemed to get from him was silence. Swallowing my doubts yet again, we soldiered on.
As I got older, I began to sense in myself a dawning awareness of a more liberal bent to my personality. I cared about the environment. I cared about the here-and-now more than the afterlife. I had a heart for the underdog. I didn't believe in the "This is god's country" malarkey (what did that say about all the other countries if only America is god's country, and where in the bible did it say that anyway!). It seemed to me that Jesus fit this liberal bent, but The Church clearly did not, with its emphasis on the primacy of the Word, America, and so-called family values. As a result, I moved toward a stripped-down, Jesus-only faith and soldiered on.
As I entered my forties, I began reading books and watching programs on the origins of Christianity and the bible, including scientific/logical explanations for mysteries such as the plagues, why there are multiple versions of the same stories, why the gospels don't match, etc. I rarely, if ever, read the bible, prayed only at dinner and kids' bedtime, and went to church for friendships alone. I was saddened and disappointed when the church we were attending at the time chose to raise $2 million to enlarge the building rather than help those in need. Imagine what $2 million could have done! I had all but ceased soldiering on.
At the age of 45, my husband told me he no longer felt sure there was a God and had felt that way for many years. The thing that really hit me was when he said he had prayed and asked God repeatedly for years to give him some indication that he was really there and had gotten nothing. There is a verse that states that if you ask, you will receive; if you seek, you will find; if you knock, the door will be opened. How could God fail to respond to the one thing we are told he wants more than anything else: a sincere seeker wanting to know him and believe in him!? I try in a very weak, defeated way to soldier on for another 2 1/2 years. I don't even know why.
Then, I ran across a blog post that was the last straw. It seems so silly now, and I can only think that it worked because I was already primed for it, but the blogger likened religion to a belief in Santa Claus. Santa is used by parents to control kids. Be good or Santa won't bring you anything! Religion is used the same way. Believe in God or you won't get to heaven! It just suddenly crystallized in my mind. Religion is a form of control. It's all an elaborate lie, begun long ago, to explain nature and control others. Instantly I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and peace, nothing like the "peace" I was supposed to have felt as a believer. I also felt anger and frustration that it took me this long to get it! The indoctrination is deep and thorough it boggles the mind!
I'm not as angry now as I was, because I believe that every day is a new day and you kind of have a chance to start over a little each day. I am thankful that I am not alone in this, though my husband's thoughts run a little differently than mine and may take some working out. I'm just thankful that we came to this before our kids got too indoctrinated. They're 9 and 10 and I love that we can still "save" them!
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Simply Illogical
By Ben Love ~
The first and most basic reality we must observe is that Christianity simply doesn’t make any sense. It is, to put it bluntly, absolutely illogical. This is in fact so obvious that it really shouldn’t even need to be stated. The Christian, however, may disagree. But if by some chance he does agrees that his religion is in fact illogical, then he will also assert that God intended it to be so. He will likely smile and say something like this: “Yes, that’s true. It doesn’t make sense to man’s wisdom. But man’s wisdom is foolishness to God, and the wisdom of God is foolishness to man.” However, we can recognize this for what it is: purposefully ambiguous jargon designed to allow the Christian to “be right” even when he is proven wrong. In any case, even if we were to concede that an Omni-Creator-Being (or God) would orient his revealed religion in such a way, we would also have to accept that this God intentionally oriented this religion to exclude most of his creations from embracing it. After all, there is an extremely large segment of the human population that relies heavily on logic, reason, and rationalism. For a God to deliberately establish a “path” that forces humans to abandon logic, reason, and rationalism is to make it extremely difficult for many if not most of his creations to reach him, a counterproductive and therefore decidedly unwise move on his part if he really does want everyone to be saved.
Either way, if the Christian does indeed answer by asserting that “God’s wisdom is foolishness to man,” he is still acknowledging the main point: Christianity is illogical. To assume that “God wants it to be that way” is circular reasoning. In fact, it’s not even circular reasoning. It’s doublespeak. What the Christian is actually saying is this: “God’s ways don’t make any sense because the ways of God don‘t make sense.” In other words, the Christian is willing to accept that the very religion to which he is adhering is illogical because God, whom he wouldn’t believe in without the theology of that same religion, is also illogical. The intelligent human ought to instantly see the problem here.
Moreover, would a true God actually go out of his way to make his revelation illogical? Is it reasonable to allow that an infinitely intelligent God would deliberately make believing in him a psychological feat that few can accomplish? Or, think about it this way. All of theism is based on revelation. That is what sets it apart from everything else. The theist maintains that he believes in God A, B, or C because God A, B, or C has revealed himself to humanity at large and to him specifically. We will explore the many problems with revelation in great detail later in the book; for now, let us ask just one question. Suppose that God B is the correct God. Suppose also that God B wants his creations to know of him, to know about him, and to ultimately know him personally. Would this God therefore intentionally circumvent his own desires by failing to meet humans on ground they can comprehend? Wouldn’t it make the most sense for this God to tailor his revelation in such a way as to ensure that most if not all of his creations will hear the message with the kind of understanding that will prompt them to belief? Seems logical. Apparently, however, the illogical God of Christianity doesn’t see it that way. Furthermore, we must recall that Jesus allegedly said that the road to heaven was narrow. If that is true, and if he really was the “Son of God,” then he neglected to also mention that the road is narrow because his father made it that way.
A rational person must reject the idea that the “God of the Universe” would knowingly and willingly ensure that his wisdom was categorically separate from the wisdom he gave his creations (who are apparently made in his image), so much so that it strains credibility to believe in him. A rational person would have to demand (and would be right in so demanding) that any revelation from whatever deities exist be not only discernable (otherwise, what’s the point of the revelation?) but also thoroughly comprehensible. If humanity cannot make sense out of the revelation, then the revealing party has wasted his time as well as ours. Furthermore, to ask us to believe in this revelation anyway, regardless of whether it makes any sense, is to impose upon our species an expectation that is directly contrary to our nature. Why would a God be that foolish? Why would a true God create us one way and then require us to act in a contrary way in order for us to “be saved?” To take it one step further, why would a truly all-loving God create us one way, then expect us to act in contrary way, and then punish those who choose not to do so? The punishment, by the way, is allegedly for all eternity. And this is called “good?” Some among us might question that.
Why would a truly all-loving God create us one way, then expect us to act in contrary way, and then punish those who choose not to do so?Perhaps you’ve never considered Christianity to be illogical. Perhaps you think it makes perfect sense. If so, ask yourself whether you grew up with Christian doctrine, or have at least spent most of your life believing it. Consider that prolonged exposure to something usually results in our failure to see it objectively. You therefore might be desensitized to the absurdity of the Christian religion. Perhaps you have been immersed in it for so long that its illogicality seems all too normal to you. If this is the case, would you mind trying a mental experiment? Pretend you are the visiting ambassador to a new planet. You are the extraterrestrial, the messenger sent to a foreign planet to establish contact with the species found there and to study their ways. After your arrival, you begin to observe their customs and traditions. In so doing, you become familiar with their religion. To your astonishment, they believe in deity that resembles them in every way. This deity is, for all intents and purposes, just an infinite version of their finite view of themselves. The people believe that this deity is angry with them for being what they are, even though they believe this deity created them this way. They therefore believe that simply being born into their species incurs the wrath of this deity; a wrath which translates into an eternity spent in a place they believe embodies utter suffering and torment. As if to contradict this thought, however, they also believe that this deity is good and kind and the perfect embodiment of absolute love. They worship this being by symbolically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of his son (who somehow is just another version of the same deity). Why do they do this? This son’s innocent death paid the penalty for their natures, which they didn’t ask for and didn’t design, and which exist only because this very same deity created them to be so. Now ask yourself, what would you think of their views?
Imagine also that the species of this foreign planet believes that their conceptions of this deity apply to the entire Universe. Imagine that they think their religion’s answers to existential questions are the final word for all planets everywhere. Imagine that members of this species war each other and brutally kill each over interpretations of this religion. Imagine that some within the same segment of this religion toxically bicker over the semantics of their ancient doctrines. Imagine that a father will turn on a daughter, a son will turn on a mother, and a brother will turn on sister, simply because one of them might deviate from the accepted norm, the reasons for which are to be found in this dissident’s biological tendency toward this divergent behavior. Imagine that hearts are broken in the name of this religion, that friendships are torn apart in the name of this religion, and that each person thinks his way is the best way, to the alienation of others. Imagine also that these people believe their religion’s presence on the planet is a good thing. Tell me, where is the logic in any of this?
We could go on and on with further observations of Christianity’s illogic. In fact, we will do so, as these essays progress. For now, these preceding points will suffice. Christianity simply fails to measure up to any conceivable standard of logic. Moreover, it fails to adequately answer questions as to why this should be the case. Instead, it asks you to invoke faith and demands that you accept the unacceptable without a single shred of justifiable evidence or suitable reasons for doing so.
And if all of this was damming enough, we also have to contend with the adherents of this illogical religion. The Christian is, after all, one of the most irrational creatures to inhabit this plant. He willingly shuns this life by putting all of his hope in the so-called “next life,” the existence of which he is not sure of but merely believes in through faith. In so doing, he prevents himself from living fully now, preferring to wait for the rewards of heaven, of which he is not guaranteed. He willingly turns off his mind if and when rational thinking contradicts the text of his holy book, a set of documents written thousands of years ago and which are riddled with more than enough errors and discrepancies to force the open-minded to reject them, a most justified and necessary conclusion. The Christian partitions himself away from the rest of society, shunning “the world,” interacting with it only insofar as creating new Christians. He glories in murder by affirming through song and dance that God saw fit to kill the innocent to absolve the guilty. He closes his mind to enlightened ideas, choosing instead to judge the actions of those who practice alternative lifestyles not condoned by his aforementioned book. He battles progression, scorns the further evolution of humanity, stands against new concepts by demanding the rest of the world pay homage to his timeworn traditions. He does everything he can to undermine science and knowledge, preaching a brand of perpetuation that can only be likened to the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. Thus, he is to be pitied.
I used to be one of these. I shudder at the thought now. Indeed, the very memory of my previous immersion in this kind of theistic brainwashing almost makes me physically sick. And yet, at the time, I was fully convinced that I was exactly where I needed to be. I was every bit the good Christian zombie, thinking I was alive when in actuality I was beyond dead. Only now, having thrown off the confines of this insanity, have I finally found the life that as a Christian I never really had.
http://hereticforum.weebly.com/
Either way, if the Christian does indeed answer by asserting that “God’s wisdom is foolishness to man,” he is still acknowledging the main point: Christianity is illogical. To assume that “God wants it to be that way” is circular reasoning. In fact, it’s not even circular reasoning. It’s doublespeak. What the Christian is actually saying is this: “God’s ways don’t make any sense because the ways of God don‘t make sense.” In other words, the Christian is willing to accept that the very religion to which he is adhering is illogical because God, whom he wouldn’t believe in without the theology of that same religion, is also illogical. The intelligent human ought to instantly see the problem here.
Moreover, would a true God actually go out of his way to make his revelation illogical? Is it reasonable to allow that an infinitely intelligent God would deliberately make believing in him a psychological feat that few can accomplish? Or, think about it this way. All of theism is based on revelation. That is what sets it apart from everything else. The theist maintains that he believes in God A, B, or C because God A, B, or C has revealed himself to humanity at large and to him specifically. We will explore the many problems with revelation in great detail later in the book; for now, let us ask just one question. Suppose that God B is the correct God. Suppose also that God B wants his creations to know of him, to know about him, and to ultimately know him personally. Would this God therefore intentionally circumvent his own desires by failing to meet humans on ground they can comprehend? Wouldn’t it make the most sense for this God to tailor his revelation in such a way as to ensure that most if not all of his creations will hear the message with the kind of understanding that will prompt them to belief? Seems logical. Apparently, however, the illogical God of Christianity doesn’t see it that way. Furthermore, we must recall that Jesus allegedly said that the road to heaven was narrow. If that is true, and if he really was the “Son of God,” then he neglected to also mention that the road is narrow because his father made it that way.
A rational person must reject the idea that the “God of the Universe” would knowingly and willingly ensure that his wisdom was categorically separate from the wisdom he gave his creations (who are apparently made in his image), so much so that it strains credibility to believe in him. A rational person would have to demand (and would be right in so demanding) that any revelation from whatever deities exist be not only discernable (otherwise, what’s the point of the revelation?) but also thoroughly comprehensible. If humanity cannot make sense out of the revelation, then the revealing party has wasted his time as well as ours. Furthermore, to ask us to believe in this revelation anyway, regardless of whether it makes any sense, is to impose upon our species an expectation that is directly contrary to our nature. Why would a God be that foolish? Why would a true God create us one way and then require us to act in a contrary way in order for us to “be saved?” To take it one step further, why would a truly all-loving God create us one way, then expect us to act in contrary way, and then punish those who choose not to do so? The punishment, by the way, is allegedly for all eternity. And this is called “good?” Some among us might question that.
Why would a truly all-loving God create us one way, then expect us to act in contrary way, and then punish those who choose not to do so?Perhaps you’ve never considered Christianity to be illogical. Perhaps you think it makes perfect sense. If so, ask yourself whether you grew up with Christian doctrine, or have at least spent most of your life believing it. Consider that prolonged exposure to something usually results in our failure to see it objectively. You therefore might be desensitized to the absurdity of the Christian religion. Perhaps you have been immersed in it for so long that its illogicality seems all too normal to you. If this is the case, would you mind trying a mental experiment? Pretend you are the visiting ambassador to a new planet. You are the extraterrestrial, the messenger sent to a foreign planet to establish contact with the species found there and to study their ways. After your arrival, you begin to observe their customs and traditions. In so doing, you become familiar with their religion. To your astonishment, they believe in deity that resembles them in every way. This deity is, for all intents and purposes, just an infinite version of their finite view of themselves. The people believe that this deity is angry with them for being what they are, even though they believe this deity created them this way. They therefore believe that simply being born into their species incurs the wrath of this deity; a wrath which translates into an eternity spent in a place they believe embodies utter suffering and torment. As if to contradict this thought, however, they also believe that this deity is good and kind and the perfect embodiment of absolute love. They worship this being by symbolically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of his son (who somehow is just another version of the same deity). Why do they do this? This son’s innocent death paid the penalty for their natures, which they didn’t ask for and didn’t design, and which exist only because this very same deity created them to be so. Now ask yourself, what would you think of their views?
Imagine also that the species of this foreign planet believes that their conceptions of this deity apply to the entire Universe. Imagine that they think their religion’s answers to existential questions are the final word for all planets everywhere. Imagine that members of this species war each other and brutally kill each over interpretations of this religion. Imagine that some within the same segment of this religion toxically bicker over the semantics of their ancient doctrines. Imagine that a father will turn on a daughter, a son will turn on a mother, and a brother will turn on sister, simply because one of them might deviate from the accepted norm, the reasons for which are to be found in this dissident’s biological tendency toward this divergent behavior. Imagine that hearts are broken in the name of this religion, that friendships are torn apart in the name of this religion, and that each person thinks his way is the best way, to the alienation of others. Imagine also that these people believe their religion’s presence on the planet is a good thing. Tell me, where is the logic in any of this?
We could go on and on with further observations of Christianity’s illogic. In fact, we will do so, as these essays progress. For now, these preceding points will suffice. Christianity simply fails to measure up to any conceivable standard of logic. Moreover, it fails to adequately answer questions as to why this should be the case. Instead, it asks you to invoke faith and demands that you accept the unacceptable without a single shred of justifiable evidence or suitable reasons for doing so.
And if all of this was damming enough, we also have to contend with the adherents of this illogical religion. The Christian is, after all, one of the most irrational creatures to inhabit this plant. He willingly shuns this life by putting all of his hope in the so-called “next life,” the existence of which he is not sure of but merely believes in through faith. In so doing, he prevents himself from living fully now, preferring to wait for the rewards of heaven, of which he is not guaranteed. He willingly turns off his mind if and when rational thinking contradicts the text of his holy book, a set of documents written thousands of years ago and which are riddled with more than enough errors and discrepancies to force the open-minded to reject them, a most justified and necessary conclusion. The Christian partitions himself away from the rest of society, shunning “the world,” interacting with it only insofar as creating new Christians. He glories in murder by affirming through song and dance that God saw fit to kill the innocent to absolve the guilty. He closes his mind to enlightened ideas, choosing instead to judge the actions of those who practice alternative lifestyles not condoned by his aforementioned book. He battles progression, scorns the further evolution of humanity, stands against new concepts by demanding the rest of the world pay homage to his timeworn traditions. He does everything he can to undermine science and knowledge, preaching a brand of perpetuation that can only be likened to the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. Thus, he is to be pitied.
I used to be one of these. I shudder at the thought now. Indeed, the very memory of my previous immersion in this kind of theistic brainwashing almost makes me physically sick. And yet, at the time, I was fully convinced that I was exactly where I needed to be. I was every bit the good Christian zombie, thinking I was alive when in actuality I was beyond dead. Only now, having thrown off the confines of this insanity, have I finally found the life that as a Christian I never really had.
http://hereticforum.weebly.com/
The Short Testimony of a Recovering Fundamentalist
By JB ~
My journey to deconversion began about 6 years ago when I first entered the working world. Prior to that, I was as deeply devout and fundamentalist as one could possibly be, at heart if not by my actions. I was raised in church, am the stepson of a fundamentalist church pastor, and I even attended an extremely conservative Christian college. I even have a minor in theology! And despite a deep mental and emotional commitment to Christianity, I've always been a questioner. Not necessarily a skeptic. That would come later. But even during my formal education, I enjoyed raising difficult questions in my theology and philosophy classes.
I think the thing that lead me to start seriously questioning my own faith was an emotional divorce from it. Basically, once I got a job and a place of my own and I wasn't surrounded and inundated by religion, I lost the emotional connection to religion that I had always had as a teenager and very young adult. For me, it is sort of like looking back on one's significant other years after a breakup: oftentimes, our reaction is something like, "I can't believe I ever felt that was about her." That's very similar to how I feel about my ex-faith now that I've removed myself from it. Once the emotional aspect was removed, it became so much clearer to me that the hard questions (or unanswerable questions) I was so fond of asking were perhaps really my way of expressing a deep-seated skepticism or doubt, or at the very least, dissatisfaction with the status quo answers I received day in and day out.
The funny thing is that I have always felt this way about some religions. Islam, Mormonism, and various others have always been laughable to me. It was always so easy to dismiss them as having no intellectual credibility, all while making claims that my own particular brand of faith was not only soundly defensible, but ultimately the most logical choice of belief systems. However, the view from 40,000 feet has changed all that. Now I treat my old creeds with the same disdain with which I treated all the others, and my main struggle now, one that I take very seriously, is resisting the urge to treat believers with the same disdain that I treat their religions.
What is interesting to me is that I take morality much more seriously now than I ever did when I was a believer. I know that I am not alone in this as many others who have shucked off the faith have undoubtedly been forced to choose for themselves, for the first time, what morality looks like, how it is defined, and what to do about it. Taking responsibility for one's own morality means that one must be serious about it in its conception and execution. "Because the Bible tells me so" is no longer valid. I have to defend my choices, and, by extension, my own identity as a moral being.
I look forward to the next journey: one that involves doing good out of the love of humanity and reason.There are a few people in my immediate sphere that know I'm an atheist. Mainly, they are limited to people I don't know extremely well, or people who I've know for a short time. None of my family and none of my closest friends know about my choice to leave the flock. I feel somewhat like a coward because of this. My motivation for joining this forum is to find a sense of camaraderie and acceptance, and perhaps encouragement. While I will neither lie about my beliefs if asked, nor participate in the religion of my friends and parents, I also do not wish to be the cause of pain and devastation to my parents who stake so much on religion.
I say that I am still recovering because it's true. It's extremely difficult to throw off 25 years of indoctrination. Even though I've been doubting, questioning, rejecting and eventually disavowing my old religious beliefs for the last 5 or 6 years, It's only been in the last year or so that I've finally reached the point of honesty with myself to admit that I do NOT believe and that, furthermore, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of having reached the end of that journey, even though I regret the shame, misery, self-loathing, guilt, mania, self-righteousness, bigotry, misogyny, lack of intellectual rigor, missed chances for growth and life experience, wasted money and time and everything else that arose because of my beliefs.
I look forward to the next journey: one that involves doing good out of the love of humanity and reason. I've found that I'm much more excited about my lack of faith that I ever was about having faith. This is evidenced by the fact that I read more, think more, give more, and generally feel more at peace now that I ever did as a believer. Not that I am some sort of hero or anything. I just personally find deep satisfaction in having arrived at the place where I am, and I look forward to growing as a person, a citizen of a godless world, and a proponent of a hopefully inevitable revolution that results in the utter, final rejection of living life based on the guidance of an immoral superstition.
I think the thing that lead me to start seriously questioning my own faith was an emotional divorce from it. Basically, once I got a job and a place of my own and I wasn't surrounded and inundated by religion, I lost the emotional connection to religion that I had always had as a teenager and very young adult. For me, it is sort of like looking back on one's significant other years after a breakup: oftentimes, our reaction is something like, "I can't believe I ever felt that was about her." That's very similar to how I feel about my ex-faith now that I've removed myself from it. Once the emotional aspect was removed, it became so much clearer to me that the hard questions (or unanswerable questions) I was so fond of asking were perhaps really my way of expressing a deep-seated skepticism or doubt, or at the very least, dissatisfaction with the status quo answers I received day in and day out.
The funny thing is that I have always felt this way about some religions. Islam, Mormonism, and various others have always been laughable to me. It was always so easy to dismiss them as having no intellectual credibility, all while making claims that my own particular brand of faith was not only soundly defensible, but ultimately the most logical choice of belief systems. However, the view from 40,000 feet has changed all that. Now I treat my old creeds with the same disdain with which I treated all the others, and my main struggle now, one that I take very seriously, is resisting the urge to treat believers with the same disdain that I treat their religions.
What is interesting to me is that I take morality much more seriously now than I ever did when I was a believer. I know that I am not alone in this as many others who have shucked off the faith have undoubtedly been forced to choose for themselves, for the first time, what morality looks like, how it is defined, and what to do about it. Taking responsibility for one's own morality means that one must be serious about it in its conception and execution. "Because the Bible tells me so" is no longer valid. I have to defend my choices, and, by extension, my own identity as a moral being.
I look forward to the next journey: one that involves doing good out of the love of humanity and reason.There are a few people in my immediate sphere that know I'm an atheist. Mainly, they are limited to people I don't know extremely well, or people who I've know for a short time. None of my family and none of my closest friends know about my choice to leave the flock. I feel somewhat like a coward because of this. My motivation for joining this forum is to find a sense of camaraderie and acceptance, and perhaps encouragement. While I will neither lie about my beliefs if asked, nor participate in the religion of my friends and parents, I also do not wish to be the cause of pain and devastation to my parents who stake so much on religion.
I say that I am still recovering because it's true. It's extremely difficult to throw off 25 years of indoctrination. Even though I've been doubting, questioning, rejecting and eventually disavowing my old religious beliefs for the last 5 or 6 years, It's only been in the last year or so that I've finally reached the point of honesty with myself to admit that I do NOT believe and that, furthermore, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of having reached the end of that journey, even though I regret the shame, misery, self-loathing, guilt, mania, self-righteousness, bigotry, misogyny, lack of intellectual rigor, missed chances for growth and life experience, wasted money and time and everything else that arose because of my beliefs.
I look forward to the next journey: one that involves doing good out of the love of humanity and reason. I've found that I'm much more excited about my lack of faith that I ever was about having faith. This is evidenced by the fact that I read more, think more, give more, and generally feel more at peace now that I ever did as a believer. Not that I am some sort of hero or anything. I just personally find deep satisfaction in having arrived at the place where I am, and I look forward to growing as a person, a citizen of a godless world, and a proponent of a hopefully inevitable revolution that results in the utter, final rejection of living life based on the guidance of an immoral superstition.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Christian Education is an Oxymoron
by Carl S. ~
One ExChristian post, of May 29, 2014, made a special impression on me. It was entitled, “A ‘Providential’ Encounter at a Pub," by Rev. Ex-Evangelist. It involves two women who are ex-Assembly of God members. At the end, the author says of one of the woman, “She is still angry about being so misinformed about so many things, such as science, history, the bible, etc., by her church pastors and teachers." Misinformed, we might ask, on purpose or through ignorance? Misinformed by those who are victims/pawns themselves? For whatever reason, the damage has been done.
Let me use the local Assembly church I know as an example. It's a representative of all religious institutions. Does any member really know all that's being told to the kids there? I've been informed by a member that there are some beliefs listed in their "Statement of Faith," published every Sunday that some members don't believe themselves. I can't help but conclude that those listed "statements" are taught to their kids as absolute truths.
Regular attendees to the church pay money to support missionaries, not knowing what they are telling those kids either. Nevertheless, each statement in the Statement of Faith (and there are many of them), begins with the words, "We believe..." and never with, "This is true." A big difference, which the believers seem to have no problem ignoring.
Every Sunday, I drop my wife off for her Assembly of God church service. I have seen its posted sign which includes "Christian education" times. The attendees don't understand the difference between education and indoctrination. More likely, they don't want to.
The majority of people visiting and testifying on this site (typically those who have suffered and struggled and are now Ex) are here because of indoctrination. Maybe most of us decided not to become that kind of person who makes a habit of lying to himself about believing things to the extent that he ends up believing his own lies.
Doesn't real education exist to teach the essentials of understanding nature, history, and societies, and how these facts apply in the real world for us? Isn't science itself the practice of finding out reality as it is revealed through scientific, disciplined, methodology? In contrast, indoctrination is the method used to permeate minds with a partisan point of view. There is no respect for evidence in this "education."
Doesn't religious "education" affect all of us? For one thing, children are raised in it to believe things without evidence as having the same or more importance as facts in evidence. They are taught that what is emotionally believed is equal to what is true. (If you watch TV’s Judge Judy, you know what she means when she tells the defendant, "I don't care what you believe!") This attitude of believing in feelings as being superior to reason and evidence "justifies" most crime. As murder investigator Joe Kenda says, “Emotion pulls the trigger." Unshakable faith in feelings is a foundation for much humor about, and apologies from, politicians, clergy, and other "experts."
Christian indoctrination teaches religious confirmation bias as a way of thinking of, and relating to, others. The doctrine of original sin, for example, teaches that all humans are by nature bad, and need to be held in check by religion. This leads the indoctrinated to find examples of this doctrine's "truth" everywhere.
Dogmas teach that it isn't such a bad thing to be unjust to others, as long as one repents afterwards, even decades later. These beliefs become second nature, since they are arrived at, not from the method of using the mind for careful thought and consideration, but because they are the thoughtless easy way out of responsibilities. This bias is elevated by the indoctrinators to the status of "faith." And, sadly, that faith often has serious consequences for the innocent, including the children who are its indoctrinated victims.
As one of the ex-Assembly women at the pub said, "I think what we went through as kids in our church... was a total mind f**k. It took us a long time to sort things out." Sad. "The truth shall make you free," as someone once said, "but first it will piss you off." I used to feel sad and even to mourn for those abused by Christian indoctrination and pedophile clergy. Then I became very angry. Angry enough to act. You don't want to challenge my faith in that emotion.
Free yourself by reversing the process of indoctrination. Education is the only way out of indoctrination. Facts, proof, evidence, whatever words apply for you. Become able to see other points of view, different beliefs and unbelief, the histories of dogmas, etc., etc. Question authority. Embrace the Enlightenment methods indoctrinators hate because they are contrary to their ends. Open one's mind and be honest: there is no such thing as one source which will give you all the answers. No bibles, no doctrines, no authority figures, or charismatic leaders, either. Find those answers by yourself and with other seekers.
Read and keep reading. The truth is not easy to find (else why would we need tons of researchers?), but keep going. Make a habit of reading about all the subjects forbidden to you, including pornography, blasphemy, and the beliefs of others. Rebel. Grow up. Enjoy. Compare notes with the ex's on this site about what they were taught to believe, such as: if you're in pain it's because of sin (Christian). Or, if you are in pain, you are participating in the suffering of Christ (Catholic). But the pain itself is telling you: "Do something to end this goddamned suffering!" (Reality). Knowledge is power.
Let me use the local Assembly church I know as an example. It's a representative of all religious institutions. Does any member really know all that's being told to the kids there? I've been informed by a member that there are some beliefs listed in their "Statement of Faith," published every Sunday that some members don't believe themselves. I can't help but conclude that those listed "statements" are taught to their kids as absolute truths.
Regular attendees to the church pay money to support missionaries, not knowing what they are telling those kids either. Nevertheless, each statement in the Statement of Faith (and there are many of them), begins with the words, "We believe..." and never with, "This is true." A big difference, which the believers seem to have no problem ignoring.
Every Sunday, I drop my wife off for her Assembly of God church service. I have seen its posted sign which includes "Christian education" times. The attendees don't understand the difference between education and indoctrination. More likely, they don't want to.
The majority of people visiting and testifying on this site (typically those who have suffered and struggled and are now Ex) are here because of indoctrination. Maybe most of us decided not to become that kind of person who makes a habit of lying to himself about believing things to the extent that he ends up believing his own lies.
Doesn't real education exist to teach the essentials of understanding nature, history, and societies, and how these facts apply in the real world for us? Isn't science itself the practice of finding out reality as it is revealed through scientific, disciplined, methodology? In contrast, indoctrination is the method used to permeate minds with a partisan point of view. There is no respect for evidence in this "education."
Doesn't religious "education" affect all of us? For one thing, children are raised in it to believe things without evidence as having the same or more importance as facts in evidence. They are taught that what is emotionally believed is equal to what is true. (If you watch TV’s Judge Judy, you know what she means when she tells the defendant, "I don't care what you believe!") This attitude of believing in feelings as being superior to reason and evidence "justifies" most crime. As murder investigator Joe Kenda says, “Emotion pulls the trigger." Unshakable faith in feelings is a foundation for much humor about, and apologies from, politicians, clergy, and other "experts."
Christian indoctrination teaches religious confirmation bias as a way of thinking of, and relating to, others. The doctrine of original sin, for example, teaches that all humans are by nature bad, and need to be held in check by religion. This leads the indoctrinated to find examples of this doctrine's "truth" everywhere.
Dogmas teach that it isn't such a bad thing to be unjust to others, as long as one repents afterwards, even decades later. These beliefs become second nature, since they are arrived at, not from the method of using the mind for careful thought and consideration, but because they are the thoughtless easy way out of responsibilities. This bias is elevated by the indoctrinators to the status of "faith." And, sadly, that faith often has serious consequences for the innocent, including the children who are its indoctrinated victims.
As one of the ex-Assembly women at the pub said, "I think what we went through as kids in our church... was a total mind f**k. It took us a long time to sort things out." Sad. "The truth shall make you free," as someone once said, "but first it will piss you off." I used to feel sad and even to mourn for those abused by Christian indoctrination and pedophile clergy. Then I became very angry. Angry enough to act. You don't want to challenge my faith in that emotion.
Free yourself by reversing the process of indoctrination. Education is the only way out of indoctrination. Facts, proof, evidence, whatever words apply for you. Become able to see other points of view, different beliefs and unbelief, the histories of dogmas, etc., etc. Question authority. Embrace the Enlightenment methods indoctrinators hate because they are contrary to their ends. Open one's mind and be honest: there is no such thing as one source which will give you all the answers. No bibles, no doctrines, no authority figures, or charismatic leaders, either. Find those answers by yourself and with other seekers.
Read and keep reading. The truth is not easy to find (else why would we need tons of researchers?), but keep going. Make a habit of reading about all the subjects forbidden to you, including pornography, blasphemy, and the beliefs of others. Rebel. Grow up. Enjoy. Compare notes with the ex's on this site about what they were taught to believe, such as: if you're in pain it's because of sin (Christian). Or, if you are in pain, you are participating in the suffering of Christ (Catholic). But the pain itself is telling you: "Do something to end this goddamned suffering!" (Reality). Knowledge is power.
The (face) Book of Life
By Daniel out of the Lion's Den ~
Dear Christian Facebook Friends,
If you don't know by now, I have deconverted from Christianity. And if you couldn't tell, after 30 years as an adult Christian, I have an ax to grind. In the last 2-3 years, I have made many new like-minded nontheist friends, and we like to talk about religion. I have not unfriended any of you since many of you are truly my "real" friends and even family. But now it has gotten to the point that when I have passionate facebook conversations with other Christians who enjoy that sort of thing, some of you go haywire. And by haywire, I mean you cut and paste my comments (out of context of the conversation) and email them to my non-facebook wife, as if I need to be "told on". Know this, that you are "sowing discord". So please obey your own God and stop it.
If you don't want to see these conversations, unfriend me right now. Some of you would like to see my marriage end, you have blatantly said as much. I don't know why that would give you so much pleasure. Your Bible tells you that if an unbelieving spouse wants to stay married, then stay married. So if you are going to profess Christianity, quit disobeying your God.
This is not an invitation to evangelize me. I will respond with no holds barred.
That is all, have a great day!
Dear Christian Facebook Friends,
If you don't want to see these conversations, unfriend me right now. Some of you would like to see my marriage end, you have blatantly said as much. I don't know why that would give you so much pleasure. Your Bible tells you that if an unbelieving spouse wants to stay married, then stay married. So if you are going to profess Christianity, quit disobeying your God.
This is not an invitation to evangelize me. I will respond with no holds barred.
That is all, have a great day!
A Secular Guide to Cliché Christian Statements
By xxkindofboredxx ~
Since my deconversion in early 2013, I've realized that to get most Christians to think about their beliefs, you have to dismantle it from the inside. After all, that's what happened to me! You can try to use evolution and facts the Bible got wrong about how the world actually works, but most devoted conservative Christians will ignore that evidence. This is because they see evolution and the "free-thinkers movement" as a conspiracy, and the faulty science in the Bible as a "product of [ancient Jewish] culture." So I decided to make this little list of common Christian defenses for God and the Bible. Obviously this list is by no means comprehensive, but these are the ones I feel are the most commonly used by the religious community. So here is my
Statement:
Answer:
Do you support slavery? Because the Bible sure does.
Even if there is an “objective morality,” how do you know it is from your God? Or from a God at all? Could it be something that is inherent in the universe, then?
Why is a universal objective morality even necessary? Most people agree that it is good to treat others with respect, and bad to harm others. Why all the arbitrary rules of the Bible that don’t serve but to make life more difficult for those who follow them?
Statement:
Answer:
If God created reality, and all the natural laws and rules that make up reality, then who made up the rule that death is the punishment for sin?
If God is all-powerful and answers to no-one, then he doesn’t have to do anything. The only reason he would ever do anything is because he wanted to.
Statement:
Answer:
If God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, then why does he create people he knows will go to hell?
If God is omnipotent, then he would have known ahead of time what hell would be used for (by his own command, no less). Consequently, it would logically follow that he intended to send sinners to hell the whole time.
Statement:
Answer:
If God literally created everything, then how can anything exist without him having made it? How could the concept of sin even exist without God?
Statement:
Answer:
According to the Bible, God is infinite. So if he has existed for eternity past, and will exist for eternity in the future, then in comparison, how long was 9 hours on a cross? Mathematically speaking, compared to infinity, the time Jesus spent suffering was infinitely short.
Even if you believe that Jesus spent 3 days in hell, that’s still an infinitely small amount of time. Anything less than an infinite amount of time is infinitely small compared to eternity. (Would you like some infinity with that infinity?)
Also, if God cannot abide with sin, then how did Jesus go to hell for three days?
If Christianity is true, than the ultimate sacrifice is actually made by anyone who goes to hell. As the afterlife drags on, the duration of their earthly lives becomes smaller and smaller compared to their time spent in hell. In the scope of infinity, their time on earth was infinitely short. So how bad did Jesus have it, again?
Statement:
Answer:
Logically speaking, that would be correct, since “sin” is defined as anything that goes against God’s will.
Even if God could sin, then is God really sinning if “sin” is defined as going against God? Is God deciding to go against God actually going against God? This is a logical contradiction.
However, if God cannot sin, than he is not omnipotent, because he is unable to perform an action, negating the statement that he can do anything.
Statement:
Answer:
But I thought God wrote the Bible? So he could have defined the Jewish culture however he wanted, and was also not bound to their cultural views or traditions.
http://xxkindofboredxx.tumblr.com/
- secular guide to -
Cliché Christian Statements
Statement:
Without God, there is no objective morality.
Answer:
Do you support slavery? Because the Bible sure does.
Even if there is an “objective morality,” how do you know it is from your God? Or from a God at all? Could it be something that is inherent in the universe, then?
Why is a universal objective morality even necessary? Most people agree that it is good to treat others with respect, and bad to harm others. Why all the arbitrary rules of the Bible that don’t serve but to make life more difficult for those who follow them?
Statement:
The punishment for sin is death. So even though God doesn’t want to, he has to send people who die without Christ to hell.
Answer:
If God created reality, and all the natural laws and rules that make up reality, then who made up the rule that death is the punishment for sin?
If God is all-powerful and answers to no-one, then he doesn’t have to do anything. The only reason he would ever do anything is because he wanted to.
Statement:
God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, and hell was created for the devil and the demons.
Answer:
If God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, then why does he create people he knows will go to hell?
If God is omnipotent, then he would have known ahead of time what hell would be used for (by his own command, no less). Consequently, it would logically follow that he intended to send sinners to hell the whole time.
Statement:
God didn’t create sin; the Lucifer rebelled, and that’s where sin comes from.
Answer:
If God literally created everything, then how can anything exist without him having made it? How could the concept of sin even exist without God?
Statement:
Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice (so you owe him).
Answer:
According to the Bible, God is infinite. So if he has existed for eternity past, and will exist for eternity in the future, then in comparison, how long was 9 hours on a cross? Mathematically speaking, compared to infinity, the time Jesus spent suffering was infinitely short.
Even if you believe that Jesus spent 3 days in hell, that’s still an infinitely small amount of time. Anything less than an infinite amount of time is infinitely small compared to eternity. (Would you like some infinity with that infinity?)
Also, if God cannot abide with sin, then how did Jesus go to hell for three days?
If Christianity is true, than the ultimate sacrifice is actually made by anyone who goes to hell. As the afterlife drags on, the duration of their earthly lives becomes smaller and smaller compared to their time spent in hell. In the scope of infinity, their time on earth was infinitely short. So how bad did Jesus have it, again?
Statement:
God cannot sin.
Answer:
Logically speaking, that would be correct, since “sin” is defined as anything that goes against God’s will.
Even if God could sin, then is God really sinning if “sin” is defined as going against God? Is God deciding to go against God actually going against God? This is a logical contradiction.
However, if God cannot sin, than he is not omnipotent, because he is unable to perform an action, negating the statement that he can do anything.
Statement:
The rules and violence of the Old Testament were a product of the culture and the time.
Answer:
But I thought God wrote the Bible? So he could have defined the Jewish culture however he wanted, and was also not bound to their cultural views or traditions.
http://xxkindofboredxx.tumblr.com/
Friday, April 17, 2015
Getting out of Christianity
By J. S. Dollin ~
Here’s my life. I’ve been ruled by Christians. I’ve been directed by Christians and now, I don’t want to be one anymore. And that’s okay with me. Do I need to admit to my family?
What will make it so that I can be free completely?
I didn’t party in high school. I didn’t even know that world existed. I was so naive that I didn’t even realize what exactly happened when this guy jerked off into the ranch dressing as a joke and got suspended. Sex, wasn’t ever on the table. I never pursued the knowledge of what sex was and when I finally asked Mom about it, she got this picture book for me when I was 12 or 13 from the Christian library. I didn’t really get it until I watched movies. Honestly, I don’t know how I didn’t know anything about it, it just never came up.
I didn’t get my period until I was 16. I was a late bloomer and a late developer, which made me always feel like I was behind. I felt like I never understood what was happening and I didn’t have any friends to help me get through it and explain some stuff to me. All of my friends were church-goers, conservative and private about their lives.
The Christian lifestyle. The Christian world I grew up in, did not help me grow. It did not help me become the person I am. It only hindered me from thinking outside of the box. It only hindered me from taking control of my life and being okay with myself. I had no one telling me that I was okay with the way that I am. I had no one making sure that I knew that I was myself and I was damn incredible how I am. I had no one following up to double check that I wasn’t getting too hard on myself. I had no one who would validate the reasons why I did things.
It was only Jesus who could validate things in my family. None of our decisions were good enough. Looking at Christianity, I see how wrong we interpreted that. Jesus didn’t want to make it so our decisions weren’t true or important. He wanted us to trust in him and trust him with our decisions, which we took as complete disregard to our own needs and wants.
That still doesn’t make sense to me in Christianity.
The Christian world I grew up in, did not help me grow.I think about college, where I continued this Christian mission, giving hot chocolate to drunks between parties in the cold, going to bible studies, starting my own bible study, heading to Chicago for my senior year and everything changing. As I felt stuck in doing teacher stuff and stuck in my apartment in little village, I also had much more that changed when I stopped going to church. I didn’t think it made sense anymore. I was influenced by my peers, but also it was the summer before in Guatemala that made it completely ring true my disbelief in the Bible.
I went to a book store in a random nook with internationals leading the way to find great novels and amazing stories. I don’t remember how it came up, but I left the store with a book that I never was able to finish that brought up the inconsistency of the Bible. The same topic that Bill brought up to me in 8th grade. Why would you believe this?
As I read a sufficient amount of it, I began to believe that this Bible I had spent so many times delving into, trusting with my life, was not well written. It was wrong. The truth was that so many of the parts that don’t make sense were translated poorly. The words I took so sacredly throughout my life made me cringe with the fact that there were 17 different ways to say the same words, which then changed the words and its meaning completely. How could anyone believe this?
The obsession with Christianity in our culture is extreme. I cannot believe how much the Christian society expects to see Jesus at every turn.
Maybe I need to separate myself completely from my Christianity. No verse reference passwords anymore. No pretending otherwise. This is how I can be true to myself.
What will make it so that I can be free completely?
I didn’t party in high school. I didn’t even know that world existed. I was so naive that I didn’t even realize what exactly happened when this guy jerked off into the ranch dressing as a joke and got suspended. Sex, wasn’t ever on the table. I never pursued the knowledge of what sex was and when I finally asked Mom about it, she got this picture book for me when I was 12 or 13 from the Christian library. I didn’t really get it until I watched movies. Honestly, I don’t know how I didn’t know anything about it, it just never came up.
I didn’t get my period until I was 16. I was a late bloomer and a late developer, which made me always feel like I was behind. I felt like I never understood what was happening and I didn’t have any friends to help me get through it and explain some stuff to me. All of my friends were church-goers, conservative and private about their lives.
The Christian lifestyle. The Christian world I grew up in, did not help me grow. It did not help me become the person I am. It only hindered me from thinking outside of the box. It only hindered me from taking control of my life and being okay with myself. I had no one telling me that I was okay with the way that I am. I had no one making sure that I knew that I was myself and I was damn incredible how I am. I had no one following up to double check that I wasn’t getting too hard on myself. I had no one who would validate the reasons why I did things.
It was only Jesus who could validate things in my family. None of our decisions were good enough. Looking at Christianity, I see how wrong we interpreted that. Jesus didn’t want to make it so our decisions weren’t true or important. He wanted us to trust in him and trust him with our decisions, which we took as complete disregard to our own needs and wants.
That still doesn’t make sense to me in Christianity.
The Christian world I grew up in, did not help me grow.I think about college, where I continued this Christian mission, giving hot chocolate to drunks between parties in the cold, going to bible studies, starting my own bible study, heading to Chicago for my senior year and everything changing. As I felt stuck in doing teacher stuff and stuck in my apartment in little village, I also had much more that changed when I stopped going to church. I didn’t think it made sense anymore. I was influenced by my peers, but also it was the summer before in Guatemala that made it completely ring true my disbelief in the Bible.
I went to a book store in a random nook with internationals leading the way to find great novels and amazing stories. I don’t remember how it came up, but I left the store with a book that I never was able to finish that brought up the inconsistency of the Bible. The same topic that Bill brought up to me in 8th grade. Why would you believe this?
As I read a sufficient amount of it, I began to believe that this Bible I had spent so many times delving into, trusting with my life, was not well written. It was wrong. The truth was that so many of the parts that don’t make sense were translated poorly. The words I took so sacredly throughout my life made me cringe with the fact that there were 17 different ways to say the same words, which then changed the words and its meaning completely. How could anyone believe this?
The obsession with Christianity in our culture is extreme. I cannot believe how much the Christian society expects to see Jesus at every turn.
Maybe I need to separate myself completely from my Christianity. No verse reference passwords anymore. No pretending otherwise. This is how I can be true to myself.
Long Story, But It's Over - And I Need Support
By G Man ~
My journey started over 30 years ago when my parents were "saved" through watching Pat Robertson on the 700 Club - I was 4 years old and my sister was just a baby. My mom in particular jumped right on the fundie bandwagon and started really getting into all the televangelists you've ever heard of (and some you haven't), listening to them every day and then playing their tapes at night.
This continued all through my childhood and through my teen years, during which my sister and I were both homeschooled and continued to be indoctrinated with right wing Evangelical material. This culminated in my taking a position as a 19 -year-old musical director at one of the largest churches in the Fort Worth area (I was a classically trained musician who started playing piano at 3). This was done concurrently with my attendance at a (non-accredited) Bible school. No "secular" college for me (in spite of my high GPA and SAT scores) - heaven forbid that I might be contaminated by worldly influences . . .
I ended up marrying an Australian girl I met through the church and moved to Sydney. I had moved away from the Evangelical dogma during my time in Texas - I also suffered some terrible mental abuse at the hands of some of the senior church leaders - and spent the next ten or so years with my wife fumbling through the labyrinth of Christian options - Assemblies of God, Baptists, Methodists, etc etc. I tried them all and couldn’t reconcile my feelings with any of them - so I went for the last resort and tried Catholicism. It satisfied some of the logical discrepancies I was struggling with in the other denominations and it seemed to be a decent path for me.
Enter infertility. We had been trying to conceive for a number of years with no result. Turns out I was shooting blanks, despite all our heartfelt prayers and offerings made to the Deity. The Catholics had issues with IVF which I won’t go into here - but it was confusing enough to delay things even longer.
Finally, after making a decision to break with Catholic dogma and go for IVF, we successfully conceived. We watched as all of the signs pointed to a successful pregnancy, right up until Michelle’s hormone levels dropped like a stone and our ultrasound revealed a black blob where there was supposed to have been a foetus. We were both crushed, and my faith took a hit from which it never recovered.
I wrestled with the pain of the miscarriage, as well as the apparent deafness of Heaven and the unfairness of the death of our baby. It was during a drive home from work with tears running down my face that I first heard myself say, “What if there is no God?”
That question took me deep into places I’d never been before. I discovered an entire community of intelligent, articulate individuals who confidently asserted that God did not exist, that Christianity was a fabrication, and that religion was dangerous. Dawkins. Hitchens. Harris. Hume. And many more.
I won’t go into everything I learned, but suffice it to say that it was enough for me to break free of the mental and emotional shackles of my childhood religion. The main thought running through my mind during this time was “if I were a father and I had the ability to save my son’s dying baby - and he was pleading with me to heal it and make it all OK - and I completely ignored him and let nature take its course - I would be branded a psychopath. But God did that to us, and we’re supposed to chalk it up to our own lack of faith?”
I discovered an entire community of intelligent, articulate individuals who confidently asserted that God did not exist, that Christianity was a fabrication, and that religion was dangerous.I’ve been a closet atheist now for nearly two years. We were lucky enough to conceive a second time and bring a beautiful baby boy into the world - without any help from a deity of any description. My wife knows of my apostasy and is actually just fine with it (for the most part) - she agrees with a lot of my newfound viewpoints and feels life is simpler without having to worry about Them anymore.
However, none of my immediate family know about my atheism. Luckily for me, they live in the USA still and the subject of church and God doesn’t come up all that often over Skype. But I still find it very difficult inside when I know that I’m carrying such a secret with me. Not only that, a lot of people from the old days that I keep in touch with on social media are still churchgoing folk.
I don’t have many friends who think like I do. In fact, not one. Getting through these Christian holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc) are quite difficult for me, because I miss the social aspect of celebrating them as well as the internal familiarity with having celebrated them from childhood (good memories attached).
I’m hoping to find a few like-minded folk here that I can keep in touch with and lean on for support when I need it. I’m happy to do what I can for anyone out there who might need the same thing.
Thanks for listening, and look forward to meeting some of you when this is posted.
This continued all through my childhood and through my teen years, during which my sister and I were both homeschooled and continued to be indoctrinated with right wing Evangelical material. This culminated in my taking a position as a 19 -year-old musical director at one of the largest churches in the Fort Worth area (I was a classically trained musician who started playing piano at 3). This was done concurrently with my attendance at a (non-accredited) Bible school. No "secular" college for me (in spite of my high GPA and SAT scores) - heaven forbid that I might be contaminated by worldly influences . . .
I ended up marrying an Australian girl I met through the church and moved to Sydney. I had moved away from the Evangelical dogma during my time in Texas - I also suffered some terrible mental abuse at the hands of some of the senior church leaders - and spent the next ten or so years with my wife fumbling through the labyrinth of Christian options - Assemblies of God, Baptists, Methodists, etc etc. I tried them all and couldn’t reconcile my feelings with any of them - so I went for the last resort and tried Catholicism. It satisfied some of the logical discrepancies I was struggling with in the other denominations and it seemed to be a decent path for me.
Enter infertility. We had been trying to conceive for a number of years with no result. Turns out I was shooting blanks, despite all our heartfelt prayers and offerings made to the Deity. The Catholics had issues with IVF which I won’t go into here - but it was confusing enough to delay things even longer.
Finally, after making a decision to break with Catholic dogma and go for IVF, we successfully conceived. We watched as all of the signs pointed to a successful pregnancy, right up until Michelle’s hormone levels dropped like a stone and our ultrasound revealed a black blob where there was supposed to have been a foetus. We were both crushed, and my faith took a hit from which it never recovered.
I wrestled with the pain of the miscarriage, as well as the apparent deafness of Heaven and the unfairness of the death of our baby. It was during a drive home from work with tears running down my face that I first heard myself say, “What if there is no God?”
That question took me deep into places I’d never been before. I discovered an entire community of intelligent, articulate individuals who confidently asserted that God did not exist, that Christianity was a fabrication, and that religion was dangerous. Dawkins. Hitchens. Harris. Hume. And many more.
I won’t go into everything I learned, but suffice it to say that it was enough for me to break free of the mental and emotional shackles of my childhood religion. The main thought running through my mind during this time was “if I were a father and I had the ability to save my son’s dying baby - and he was pleading with me to heal it and make it all OK - and I completely ignored him and let nature take its course - I would be branded a psychopath. But God did that to us, and we’re supposed to chalk it up to our own lack of faith?”
I discovered an entire community of intelligent, articulate individuals who confidently asserted that God did not exist, that Christianity was a fabrication, and that religion was dangerous.I’ve been a closet atheist now for nearly two years. We were lucky enough to conceive a second time and bring a beautiful baby boy into the world - without any help from a deity of any description. My wife knows of my apostasy and is actually just fine with it (for the most part) - she agrees with a lot of my newfound viewpoints and feels life is simpler without having to worry about Them anymore.
However, none of my immediate family know about my atheism. Luckily for me, they live in the USA still and the subject of church and God doesn’t come up all that often over Skype. But I still find it very difficult inside when I know that I’m carrying such a secret with me. Not only that, a lot of people from the old days that I keep in touch with on social media are still churchgoing folk.
I don’t have many friends who think like I do. In fact, not one. Getting through these Christian holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc) are quite difficult for me, because I miss the social aspect of celebrating them as well as the internal familiarity with having celebrated them from childhood (good memories attached).
I’m hoping to find a few like-minded folk here that I can keep in touch with and lean on for support when I need it. I’m happy to do what I can for anyone out there who might need the same thing.
Thanks for listening, and look forward to meeting some of you when this is posted.
The Christian Coward!
By Bob Keye ~
Well here he comes. The man that lives off of his wife and the odd measly dollar slipped into his pocket by his mother and some frightened well wisher from his disappearing church. This parasite lives in a bubble and is frightened by reality.
Well, he is none of my business. I can only feel pity for this sad and lost remains of a man. But, here is the thing he won’t let it go.
He is in the playground, pushing and shoving old ladies and young children and anyone else that looks vulnerable and incapable. He prods and pokes because he knows that the helpless and hopeless won’t or can’t fight back. He uses fear and degradation and puffs himself up as being something special because he truly believes that they can’t see behind his pathetic unmanly existence.
This is now my business, because he has approached me. He assumes that because I am a polite and non aggressive looking individual that I will comply to his presence and his will. This I certainly will not!
He immediately tries to tear into me. His eyes are full of spite. His teeth are stained and gritted. The veins in his neck protruding. Mommy always let this little boy get his own way methinks. Bashing the bible in his hand in groups of four like a fighter ready to fight. He isbanging the world to rights. He believes that he is a macho missionary and a minister to a church of his own name and making.
I smile and point out that I am not interested. He goes for my jugular vein. Fire and brimstone is the order of the day. I laugh at his demeanour, but with a pleasant tone of voice I patiently go about unraveling his flawed and childish philosophy. But, at the same time I can’t help but ridicule his ignorance and self loathing. I ask why he doesn’t have a job. I ask why he lives off of his wife. I ask where his mommy is in case he needs a dollar to buy food. The playground spectators watch and listen opened mouthed. They forgot how easy it is to make a mockery of an idiot. They forgot how easy it is to stand up for oneself.
I point and prod now. I twist and turn his stock phrases and shabby rhetoric. His wife looks down at the buggy in confusion and escalating shame. The child cries. The bully gets more and more ruffled, humiliated and wound up. Given a gun he would love to shoot me. [With love of course].
He now has a serious problem though. He can’t compete. He can’t answer even the simplest of questions, because I keep firing back with counter questions. He is contradicting himself at every juncture. He is sounding very silly and lost. He needs to get out of it.He needs to cut and run. He is deflated and flagging. He is out of breath. He wants to hide in the hole he has just dug for himself.
He tries to finish with a weak and cowardly ploy.” I will pray for you”. He even says it in a nice tone of voice because he knows that he is a beaten man,and he now fears because his credibility has turned to rubble.
I reply."You can’t pray for me because that means that you are talking to yourself and pretending to talk to someone else who isn’t there. When you pretend to pray you are really covering up and hiding in humiliation and coming to terms with your hatred towards yourself and your animosity towards me because I have beaten you.Talking to yourself andpretending that your imagined friend has spoken back to you makes you by definition Schizophrenic. So tell me are you schizophrenic and clinically insane”? He replies in an uncertain manner “I am not insane” I reply. “If you honestly believe that you are speaking to an invisible person and that this person is hearing you and communicating back to you and telling you things, then you are definitely Schizophrenic. And remember that this person that you have invented is one of colossal egotistical grandeur who in your mind would have created the universes and the multi-verses. You are pretending like an insecure child pretends when he or she is reading their christmas list to father christmas in anticipation. You are displaying classic signs of infantile delusions and a need to escape reality and live in a world of makebelieve. You are supposed to be a grown man. You have a wife and a child. You are supposed to display the countenance and responsibility of a father,
You can’t pray for me because that means that you are talking to yourself and pretending to talk to someone else who isn’t there He replies “Only god knows me, I know god speaks to me, I feel him”. I reply, “No that’s not what is happening. you are frightened of life and the stark reality of existence. You are scared of your own shadow. You are scared to live in the world as a man. You are frightened of tomorrow, next week, next year. You are even scared of this instance today. You want to leave and hide from me because I am making you look very stupid and you in turn are becoming more and more agitated and uncomfortable. Even your wife is looking away. These people witnessing this today will mock and laugh at you and they will never respect you ever again. The power of the bully is in the the act of a coward and what you have been mistaking for power is weakness”.
He mumbles “I only here as a servant sent by god to save people from the temptation of satan and his ways” I intervene. “You sir are speaking gibberish and making ludicrous claims without any evidence”. He interjects sharply,” I have evidence, it is all here in this book!” I reply immediately ”That is not evidence of any kind. I could bring out the Holy Koran, and would that be evidence for you?” He looks dumbfounded, “Well no, because that is not the book I believe in” I reply “Exactly! What you mistake for evidence is ignorance, and this ignorance and lack of any evidence that you call faith is personal fear leading to personal self loathing leading to a need to escape from life. These people know that you are trying to barter with nonsense and they will never give you the time of day ever again. And it is no good saying that down the line that you will be rewarded by a god. The simple fact is that you have to live and exist in this neighbourhood with these people. You can always move away from here if you have the money. But I don’t think that you have the money. And you have a good thirty to fifty years of your life left yet. Do you think that your wife wants to live a shunned and ridiculed existence for the rest of her life? Without respect life becomes unbearable”.
Lost for words he turns to the buggy for a glance at his child. He secretly acknowledges where this situation is going. He turns away and barks in defiant ignorance.“Hey, Murial shut the kid up, I think we are done here today.” But as he walks away he is limping like a lost dog. The wife follows passively holding back the fury of degradation because she knows that she will be back at the store tomorrow earning a dollar to keep this hopeless man going for another week. What a mess. The coward only liked to push and shove. The christian coward. The christian bully. The christian parasite never acknowledged the golden rule, “What goes around comes around”. The christian coward might slap an old defenceless lady today and call himself a christian hero but you can be guaranteed that the old ladies son will come around and slap the christian coward back twice as hard the next day!
What I learned:
Don’t get angry or violent. Be patient and stand your ground, be it for one second or five hours. These men are cowards and bullies and don’t like to be hit back. They get humiliated easily. When they are hit back by the blistering intellect and counter questioning of truth they will crumble and leave you alone.
https://absenceofsilences.wordpress.com/
Well, he is none of my business. I can only feel pity for this sad and lost remains of a man. But, here is the thing he won’t let it go.
He is in the playground, pushing and shoving old ladies and young children and anyone else that looks vulnerable and incapable. He prods and pokes because he knows that the helpless and hopeless won’t or can’t fight back. He uses fear and degradation and puffs himself up as being something special because he truly believes that they can’t see behind his pathetic unmanly existence.
This is now my business, because he has approached me. He assumes that because I am a polite and non aggressive looking individual that I will comply to his presence and his will. This I certainly will not!
He immediately tries to tear into me. His eyes are full of spite. His teeth are stained and gritted. The veins in his neck protruding. Mommy always let this little boy get his own way methinks. Bashing the bible in his hand in groups of four like a fighter ready to fight. He isbanging the world to rights. He believes that he is a macho missionary and a minister to a church of his own name and making.
I smile and point out that I am not interested. He goes for my jugular vein. Fire and brimstone is the order of the day. I laugh at his demeanour, but with a pleasant tone of voice I patiently go about unraveling his flawed and childish philosophy. But, at the same time I can’t help but ridicule his ignorance and self loathing. I ask why he doesn’t have a job. I ask why he lives off of his wife. I ask where his mommy is in case he needs a dollar to buy food. The playground spectators watch and listen opened mouthed. They forgot how easy it is to make a mockery of an idiot. They forgot how easy it is to stand up for oneself.
I point and prod now. I twist and turn his stock phrases and shabby rhetoric. His wife looks down at the buggy in confusion and escalating shame. The child cries. The bully gets more and more ruffled, humiliated and wound up. Given a gun he would love to shoot me. [With love of course].
He now has a serious problem though. He can’t compete. He can’t answer even the simplest of questions, because I keep firing back with counter questions. He is contradicting himself at every juncture. He is sounding very silly and lost. He needs to get out of it.He needs to cut and run. He is deflated and flagging. He is out of breath. He wants to hide in the hole he has just dug for himself.
He tries to finish with a weak and cowardly ploy.” I will pray for you”. He even says it in a nice tone of voice because he knows that he is a beaten man,and he now fears because his credibility has turned to rubble.
I reply."You can’t pray for me because that means that you are talking to yourself and pretending to talk to someone else who isn’t there. When you pretend to pray you are really covering up and hiding in humiliation and coming to terms with your hatred towards yourself and your animosity towards me because I have beaten you.Talking to yourself andpretending that your imagined friend has spoken back to you makes you by definition Schizophrenic. So tell me are you schizophrenic and clinically insane”? He replies in an uncertain manner “I am not insane” I reply. “If you honestly believe that you are speaking to an invisible person and that this person is hearing you and communicating back to you and telling you things, then you are definitely Schizophrenic. And remember that this person that you have invented is one of colossal egotistical grandeur who in your mind would have created the universes and the multi-verses. You are pretending like an insecure child pretends when he or she is reading their christmas list to father christmas in anticipation. You are displaying classic signs of infantile delusions and a need to escape reality and live in a world of makebelieve. You are supposed to be a grown man. You have a wife and a child. You are supposed to display the countenance and responsibility of a father,
You can’t pray for me because that means that you are talking to yourself and pretending to talk to someone else who isn’t there He replies “Only god knows me, I know god speaks to me, I feel him”. I reply, “No that’s not what is happening. you are frightened of life and the stark reality of existence. You are scared of your own shadow. You are scared to live in the world as a man. You are frightened of tomorrow, next week, next year. You are even scared of this instance today. You want to leave and hide from me because I am making you look very stupid and you in turn are becoming more and more agitated and uncomfortable. Even your wife is looking away. These people witnessing this today will mock and laugh at you and they will never respect you ever again. The power of the bully is in the the act of a coward and what you have been mistaking for power is weakness”.
He mumbles “I only here as a servant sent by god to save people from the temptation of satan and his ways” I intervene. “You sir are speaking gibberish and making ludicrous claims without any evidence”. He interjects sharply,” I have evidence, it is all here in this book!” I reply immediately ”That is not evidence of any kind. I could bring out the Holy Koran, and would that be evidence for you?” He looks dumbfounded, “Well no, because that is not the book I believe in” I reply “Exactly! What you mistake for evidence is ignorance, and this ignorance and lack of any evidence that you call faith is personal fear leading to personal self loathing leading to a need to escape from life. These people know that you are trying to barter with nonsense and they will never give you the time of day ever again. And it is no good saying that down the line that you will be rewarded by a god. The simple fact is that you have to live and exist in this neighbourhood with these people. You can always move away from here if you have the money. But I don’t think that you have the money. And you have a good thirty to fifty years of your life left yet. Do you think that your wife wants to live a shunned and ridiculed existence for the rest of her life? Without respect life becomes unbearable”.
Lost for words he turns to the buggy for a glance at his child. He secretly acknowledges where this situation is going. He turns away and barks in defiant ignorance.“Hey, Murial shut the kid up, I think we are done here today.” But as he walks away he is limping like a lost dog. The wife follows passively holding back the fury of degradation because she knows that she will be back at the store tomorrow earning a dollar to keep this hopeless man going for another week. What a mess. The coward only liked to push and shove. The christian coward. The christian bully. The christian parasite never acknowledged the golden rule, “What goes around comes around”. The christian coward might slap an old defenceless lady today and call himself a christian hero but you can be guaranteed that the old ladies son will come around and slap the christian coward back twice as hard the next day!
What I learned:
Don’t get angry or violent. Be patient and stand your ground, be it for one second or five hours. These men are cowards and bullies and don’t like to be hit back. They get humiliated easily. When they are hit back by the blistering intellect and counter questioning of truth they will crumble and leave you alone.
https://absenceofsilences.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
A Firm Atheist Heads Back To Church
By summerbreeze ~
I've been attending a new Mega-Church here in my town for a while now.
This is not the former Mega-Church that I had previously attended, it's a newly-formed non-denominational church now housed in a previous gigantic athletic club with thousands of members, and millions of dollars worth of renovations.
It was a while back that I decided to start lying to my Husband.
He had gone thru about 6 mos. of tests and interviews to finally get the diagnosis that he was a victim of Agent Orange. (He had done two tours in Vietnam )... He was declared 100% disabled with so many health issues, I couldn't count.
Very soon after the diagnosis, I told him that I had had second thoughts about being a non-believer....that I now believed in God and Heaven. He seemed very relieved, even recommending a church that a lot of people he knew raved about. He had never been a church-goer, but was a solid believer.
He has so little to cling to these days: on oxygen 24 hours a day and talking a lot about his Dad, who died 30 years ago.
This turn-about with his health happened very quickly, it was only last summer that he was mowing the lawn and whistling.
Going back to church services seems all too surreal for me, it's almost like being in the Twilight Zone.Going back to church services seems all too surreal for me, it's almost like being in the Twilight Zone. I'm glad that the place is so huge that I can be a little fish in a big pond. I vowed that I would not serve on any committees...no women's groups or bible study groups and no prayer-circles.
Just hussle in on Sundays, then head for the car after the service.
Last Sunday's service was all about Heaven. Mike's face had a soft glow, and I knew that he was thankful that he would see his Dad, then eventually much later see the girls and Grandkids ( and maybe even me ).
I of course am the same 'ol Atheist that I have been, and it's very hard for me to smile and sit thru the rubbish that is being spewed out, but when I observe the peace that comes over my Husband, during those services, I know that in life there are times that we have to bite the bullet, and pretend for the greater good.
I'm typing this with tears in my eyes.....sometimes I wish that there really WAS a Heaven. But I know better, and just have to keep reminding myself that it's what you do in your life, and how you treat people in the here and now that really matters, because time is precious and this is all we have.
This is not the former Mega-Church that I had previously attended, it's a newly-formed non-denominational church now housed in a previous gigantic athletic club with thousands of members, and millions of dollars worth of renovations.
It was a while back that I decided to start lying to my Husband.
He had gone thru about 6 mos. of tests and interviews to finally get the diagnosis that he was a victim of Agent Orange. (He had done two tours in Vietnam )... He was declared 100% disabled with so many health issues, I couldn't count.
Very soon after the diagnosis, I told him that I had had second thoughts about being a non-believer....that I now believed in God and Heaven. He seemed very relieved, even recommending a church that a lot of people he knew raved about. He had never been a church-goer, but was a solid believer.
He has so little to cling to these days: on oxygen 24 hours a day and talking a lot about his Dad, who died 30 years ago.
This turn-about with his health happened very quickly, it was only last summer that he was mowing the lawn and whistling.
Going back to church services seems all too surreal for me, it's almost like being in the Twilight Zone.Going back to church services seems all too surreal for me, it's almost like being in the Twilight Zone. I'm glad that the place is so huge that I can be a little fish in a big pond. I vowed that I would not serve on any committees...no women's groups or bible study groups and no prayer-circles.
Just hussle in on Sundays, then head for the car after the service.
Last Sunday's service was all about Heaven. Mike's face had a soft glow, and I knew that he was thankful that he would see his Dad, then eventually much later see the girls and Grandkids ( and maybe even me ).
I of course am the same 'ol Atheist that I have been, and it's very hard for me to smile and sit thru the rubbish that is being spewed out, but when I observe the peace that comes over my Husband, during those services, I know that in life there are times that we have to bite the bullet, and pretend for the greater good.
I'm typing this with tears in my eyes.....sometimes I wish that there really WAS a Heaven. But I know better, and just have to keep reminding myself that it's what you do in your life, and how you treat people in the here and now that really matters, because time is precious and this is all we have.
Denial and Jealousy
By Mark2pt0 ~
Do you have a Christian friend that seems genuinely intrigued by the fact you have walked away from Christianity? Perhaps there are even a bit jealous because they have thought about doing so and just can’t seem to do it. Have you ever wondered why those people can’t just take that next step?
I’m sure there are a multitude of reasons, but I have a Christian friend who has given me a new perspective that I believe is probably much more common than we realize. I think it not only explains why some people can’t allow themselves to make that change, but I believe it also explains why so many Christians get mad at those of us who walk away. Let me tell you the story.
When I first announced to those closest to me that I was an atheist the responses I got from nearly all my friends and family were all very common ones, except for Bernie. Bernie was curious. He had lots of questions, but none of them condescending. As time went by it seemed as if he was more interested in my atheism than his God.
Eventually I couldn’t help myself. I asked him how he was able to live day in and day out with the questions and misgivings. I wanted to know why he still never considered giving up his faith when he had such huge doubts about it. I wasn’t expecting the answer I received.
He looked me directly in the eye and said, “I’ve donated untold hours in service to God. I’ve given more money than I care to think about in tithes and offerings to my church. It is easier to live with the doubts about my beliefs than it is to think I wasted all that time and money.over the years. If I were to suddenly believe there was no God that would mean I could have spent more time with my family as opposed to spending my time dragging them to church. If I were to suddenly become atheist that would mean I could have used all that money I gave to my church to do more for the people I love and care about. You see the bottom line is that to give into those doubts is to admit I was conned for all these years. It means I was a sucker.”
"To give into those doubts is to admit I was conned for all these years. It means I was a sucker.”I must admit I was shocked. Those words opened my eyes. I went through a period during my deconversion process in which I thought about all the time and money I had given to a belief system and institution which amounted to a lie in my eyes. The difference is it motivated me the other way. Instead of doubling down and refusing to allow myself to even fully consider just how much time and money I had wasted I decided from that point on to never waste my time and money on things that didn’t matter ever again.
I thought about his words for the next few days. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something hidden in those words that perhaps he
couldn’t even admit to himself. It finally hit me. He didn’t come right out and say it, but in my mind at least he viewed becoming an atheist as a tacit admission that he had been selfish. He had used his religion as an excuse to keep from having to ‘get his hands dirty’ by actually bothering to help those in need. He had used his religion as a way to not have to think for himself on everything from social issues to ‘eternal’ issues. It was easier to let a pastor tell him what to think. He had used it to absolve himself of the responsibility of having to teach his children morality. He could just parrot the line from his chosen pastor and denomination and then it was God’s word, not his.
So many of the things Christians say in regards to atheist seem to make a lot of sense in this light. They want to say we can’t be moral without God. They want to believe we are evil. I would venture to guess that they believe this, but not just because they were taught it. I think they believe it because to admit an atheist can be moral without God is to admit they don’t need God. They would have to admit that there is so much of this life on Earth that they have kept themselves from experiencing because of a false belief, and I believe it makes them angry because they are envious of the freedom they see in our lives.
There are countless examples of how this line of thought makes sense. The bottom line is I think this is perhaps a big reason so many otherwise rational Christians can’t allow themselves to even consider walking away despite their doubts.
I’m sure there are a multitude of reasons, but I have a Christian friend who has given me a new perspective that I believe is probably much more common than we realize. I think it not only explains why some people can’t allow themselves to make that change, but I believe it also explains why so many Christians get mad at those of us who walk away. Let me tell you the story.
When I first announced to those closest to me that I was an atheist the responses I got from nearly all my friends and family were all very common ones, except for Bernie. Bernie was curious. He had lots of questions, but none of them condescending. As time went by it seemed as if he was more interested in my atheism than his God.
Eventually I couldn’t help myself. I asked him how he was able to live day in and day out with the questions and misgivings. I wanted to know why he still never considered giving up his faith when he had such huge doubts about it. I wasn’t expecting the answer I received.
He looked me directly in the eye and said, “I’ve donated untold hours in service to God. I’ve given more money than I care to think about in tithes and offerings to my church. It is easier to live with the doubts about my beliefs than it is to think I wasted all that time and money.over the years. If I were to suddenly believe there was no God that would mean I could have spent more time with my family as opposed to spending my time dragging them to church. If I were to suddenly become atheist that would mean I could have used all that money I gave to my church to do more for the people I love and care about. You see the bottom line is that to give into those doubts is to admit I was conned for all these years. It means I was a sucker.”
"To give into those doubts is to admit I was conned for all these years. It means I was a sucker.”I must admit I was shocked. Those words opened my eyes. I went through a period during my deconversion process in which I thought about all the time and money I had given to a belief system and institution which amounted to a lie in my eyes. The difference is it motivated me the other way. Instead of doubling down and refusing to allow myself to even fully consider just how much time and money I had wasted I decided from that point on to never waste my time and money on things that didn’t matter ever again.
I thought about his words for the next few days. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something hidden in those words that perhaps he
couldn’t even admit to himself. It finally hit me. He didn’t come right out and say it, but in my mind at least he viewed becoming an atheist as a tacit admission that he had been selfish. He had used his religion as an excuse to keep from having to ‘get his hands dirty’ by actually bothering to help those in need. He had used his religion as a way to not have to think for himself on everything from social issues to ‘eternal’ issues. It was easier to let a pastor tell him what to think. He had used it to absolve himself of the responsibility of having to teach his children morality. He could just parrot the line from his chosen pastor and denomination and then it was God’s word, not his.
So many of the things Christians say in regards to atheist seem to make a lot of sense in this light. They want to say we can’t be moral without God. They want to believe we are evil. I would venture to guess that they believe this, but not just because they were taught it. I think they believe it because to admit an atheist can be moral without God is to admit they don’t need God. They would have to admit that there is so much of this life on Earth that they have kept themselves from experiencing because of a false belief, and I believe it makes them angry because they are envious of the freedom they see in our lives.
There are countless examples of how this line of thought makes sense. The bottom line is I think this is perhaps a big reason so many otherwise rational Christians can’t allow themselves to even consider walking away despite their doubts.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Men, Women, Sex, Religion
By Carl S. ~
As a follow-up to "Why Male?" of 2/21/15... From the "Anthology of American Humor," 1949, printed by the Magazine Digest Publishing Company, comes this gem:
Sixty-six years later, I am about to take that boy's observation much farther than he intended. The world is still suffering upheavals because the relationships between men and women still aren't "right" wherever religion dominates.
Send one donation to any of the world's charities to alleviate or end hunger and severe social inequality and you will receive requests from others. And they all tell the same stories: Mostly they are about women with four, six, or more children, without birth control, unable to feed their children. Then ask yourself: Where the hell are their husbands/lovers? Have they moved on, promiscuously spreading their seed, in imitation of the wild beasts about them? Have they, according to eyewitness reports, spent their earnings on drinking and gambling, instead of in supporting their families? Obviously their fundamentally religious cultures and traditions don't give a damn about making things right between men and women, for women. In fact, they don't see what's wrong about keeping the status quo going.
Predominantly, those countries in which things are mind-boggling not "right" are fundamentalist Christian and Islamic. Those cultures, impregnated by the spreading virus of religions, are infamous for denying women's human rights. At their heart are theologies and dogmas which regard women as inferior to men and under male control.
Perversely, while Christianity and Islam both condemn the spilling of sperm, the aborting of fetuses, contraception, and adultery, their scriptures praise the spilling of blood and stockpiling of corpses, and the rapes and enslavement of girls and women in" holy" wars.
But it is in the interpersonal relationships between men and women where the most damage is inflicted, in the lack of respect and support for women's needs, their feelings, their rights to opportunities men take for granted for themselves. And then there's this sick nonsense: How would men like it if they had to live their lives outdoors in the heat all day long looking through a slit, deprived of sunlight's vitamin D? Women are not only denied the liberty of displaying their beautiful hair (a pleasure for both sexes), they don't even have the aggravation of a "bad hair day." What about, "Do unto others?" Fascinating, isn't it that no one brings these things up for discussion in the Islamic world?
In every single country where women are truly respected and supported, men are better off, children are better off, and society prospers. As has been verified in third world societies, give a mother financial support and the family is sustained.( Too often, giving financial aid to the men doesn’t work.)
What the hell is wrong with Islam anyhow in keeping the sexes apart up until marriage takes place? What is virtuous about boys and girls being raised separately, not sharing their different viewpoints, feelings, experiences, learning to respect each other, and getting to know one another before they become intimate?
Also, it's really wrong that they don't teach each man how to please a woman. That knowledge is essential, for both their sakes. No wonder things aren't "right" in the Islamic world, or anywhere else where these religion-derived denials reign. (By comparison, Hindus see sexual relationships as participating in the divine. Hindus like their women.)
These cultural, religion-driven traditions need to be overthrown, considering the sexual misunderstandings alone that they cause. No wonder the sexually repressed and frustrated men and women are joining fundamentalist Islam militancy. They are willingly, physically, and psychologically, mutilating themselves. They are going so far as to kill themselves and others. Are these their only religiously-sanctioned options to repressed sexuality - the promised rewards of a world paradise, culminating in the orgiastic destruction known as the "End Times?"
Perversely, while Christianity and Islam both condemn the spilling of sperm, the aborting of fetuses, contraception, and adultery, their scriptures praise the spilling of blood and stockpiling of corpses, and the rapes and enslavement of girls and women in" holy" wars.Human beings need to have and give love, affection, and respect. Gods and holy words are no substitutes. They do not touch nor caress, nor offer comfort, do not even give looks of understanding and empathy. Gods are abstractions. The gods do not respect.
How can there be any lasting peace on Earth without mutual respect between men and women and teaching it to their children, while religions inhibit them? We, who are the non-religious, must speak out and act for women. No Christian openly denounces the rigid sexuality-ignorant and misogynist St. Paul or his exhortation to women: be subjugated to men. No cleric dares to denounce God/Allah for hating women in simply being women. (These dogmas are in the cellular structures of their religious genes.) No believers will openly reject all the hateful words spoken against the female sex in their "divinely inspired, eternally true, and unquestionable sacred" texts.
Religions, which dominate so much of the world at present, have gotten something "wrong" from their very beginnings: the emphasis they place on being "right with God/gods” makes faith thicker than blood. That's perverted. What's important is that things must be right between men and women, and that this is passed on to their children by word and example. Will this make the world right? Well...it works.
The world needs this child's observed "rightness" for men and women, if the world is ever to be right. It should defeat the religious fundamentalist future that's nothing more than a repetition of the fundamentalist past. Any success by fundamentalist religion will only bring more repression of women than ever.
Does reading this make you want to support women’s and girl’s rights, including their education and empowerment? If so, I'm happy that you understand. And maybe my wife wouldn’t need to be so long-suffering with my typing if she knew about this.
A father trying to read was constantly interrupted by his small son. Finally he tore out of the magazine he was reading a page on which was a map of the world. He then took a pair of scissors and cut the map up into a jigsaw puzzle. "Now," said he, "when you get this all put together, I will give you a dime." Presently, the son brought the map to the father. "It was easy" said the son. "On the other side of the page, there was a picture of a man and a woman, and when you get the men and women right, the world is right."
Sixty-six years later, I am about to take that boy's observation much farther than he intended. The world is still suffering upheavals because the relationships between men and women still aren't "right" wherever religion dominates.
Send one donation to any of the world's charities to alleviate or end hunger and severe social inequality and you will receive requests from others. And they all tell the same stories: Mostly they are about women with four, six, or more children, without birth control, unable to feed their children. Then ask yourself: Where the hell are their husbands/lovers? Have they moved on, promiscuously spreading their seed, in imitation of the wild beasts about them? Have they, according to eyewitness reports, spent their earnings on drinking and gambling, instead of in supporting their families? Obviously their fundamentally religious cultures and traditions don't give a damn about making things right between men and women, for women. In fact, they don't see what's wrong about keeping the status quo going.
Predominantly, those countries in which things are mind-boggling not "right" are fundamentalist Christian and Islamic. Those cultures, impregnated by the spreading virus of religions, are infamous for denying women's human rights. At their heart are theologies and dogmas which regard women as inferior to men and under male control.
Perversely, while Christianity and Islam both condemn the spilling of sperm, the aborting of fetuses, contraception, and adultery, their scriptures praise the spilling of blood and stockpiling of corpses, and the rapes and enslavement of girls and women in" holy" wars.
But it is in the interpersonal relationships between men and women where the most damage is inflicted, in the lack of respect and support for women's needs, their feelings, their rights to opportunities men take for granted for themselves. And then there's this sick nonsense: How would men like it if they had to live their lives outdoors in the heat all day long looking through a slit, deprived of sunlight's vitamin D? Women are not only denied the liberty of displaying their beautiful hair (a pleasure for both sexes), they don't even have the aggravation of a "bad hair day." What about, "Do unto others?" Fascinating, isn't it that no one brings these things up for discussion in the Islamic world?
In every single country where women are truly respected and supported, men are better off, children are better off, and society prospers. As has been verified in third world societies, give a mother financial support and the family is sustained.( Too often, giving financial aid to the men doesn’t work.)
What the hell is wrong with Islam anyhow in keeping the sexes apart up until marriage takes place? What is virtuous about boys and girls being raised separately, not sharing their different viewpoints, feelings, experiences, learning to respect each other, and getting to know one another before they become intimate?
Also, it's really wrong that they don't teach each man how to please a woman. That knowledge is essential, for both their sakes. No wonder things aren't "right" in the Islamic world, or anywhere else where these religion-derived denials reign. (By comparison, Hindus see sexual relationships as participating in the divine. Hindus like their women.)
These cultural, religion-driven traditions need to be overthrown, considering the sexual misunderstandings alone that they cause. No wonder the sexually repressed and frustrated men and women are joining fundamentalist Islam militancy. They are willingly, physically, and psychologically, mutilating themselves. They are going so far as to kill themselves and others. Are these their only religiously-sanctioned options to repressed sexuality - the promised rewards of a world paradise, culminating in the orgiastic destruction known as the "End Times?"
Perversely, while Christianity and Islam both condemn the spilling of sperm, the aborting of fetuses, contraception, and adultery, their scriptures praise the spilling of blood and stockpiling of corpses, and the rapes and enslavement of girls and women in" holy" wars.Human beings need to have and give love, affection, and respect. Gods and holy words are no substitutes. They do not touch nor caress, nor offer comfort, do not even give looks of understanding and empathy. Gods are abstractions. The gods do not respect.
How can there be any lasting peace on Earth without mutual respect between men and women and teaching it to their children, while religions inhibit them? We, who are the non-religious, must speak out and act for women. No Christian openly denounces the rigid sexuality-ignorant and misogynist St. Paul or his exhortation to women: be subjugated to men. No cleric dares to denounce God/Allah for hating women in simply being women. (These dogmas are in the cellular structures of their religious genes.) No believers will openly reject all the hateful words spoken against the female sex in their "divinely inspired, eternally true, and unquestionable sacred" texts.
Religions, which dominate so much of the world at present, have gotten something "wrong" from their very beginnings: the emphasis they place on being "right with God/gods” makes faith thicker than blood. That's perverted. What's important is that things must be right between men and women, and that this is passed on to their children by word and example. Will this make the world right? Well...it works.
The world needs this child's observed "rightness" for men and women, if the world is ever to be right. It should defeat the religious fundamentalist future that's nothing more than a repetition of the fundamentalist past. Any success by fundamentalist religion will only bring more repression of women than ever.
Does reading this make you want to support women’s and girl’s rights, including their education and empowerment? If so, I'm happy that you understand. And maybe my wife wouldn’t need to be so long-suffering with my typing if she knew about this.
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