Nadooshka Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Hello everyone, I've been reading many posts in this forum and they are helping me to get mentally and emotionally balanced, well, as balanced as possible. I grew up in a fundamentalist congregational church, was taught about how to study the Bible, and I sincerely believed it! I really wanted to worship the god I learned about. That was a creator god who sustained the universe. The thing is though, I didn't know that this same god allowed, no, commanded murder and slavery. At church, the preachers wouldn't dare shed light on those difficult scriptures. I noticed discrepancies between what I read in the Bible and what the preachers shouted from the pulpit. I asked them the hard questions, like, how can people who have never heard of Jesus go to hell? Like the aboriginal bush man living in a eucalyptus tree. And what about all those poor starving orphans in 3rd world nations and their parents who are killed? They don't know about Jesus. I never got a straight answer. When I was 15, I became a fan of the transcendentalist authors, Emerson and Thoreau. I had always been attracted to pagan spirituality and had an attraction to Native American spirituality, but I was also told that all of that was of the devil, because you know, loving nature is not the same as loving the creator. But that love for nature never left me. As of late I have been crazily going back and forth between fundamentalist Christianity and paganism. The thing that keeps me in limbo is the idea that hell may be real. Not necessarily a real physical place, but a whole other dimension. Now I know that it could just be my imagination gone wild, but how can I be sure? There's no way to prove something does not exist. What I do know for sure is that I feel like I'm in the right place when I have my table set up with symbols for earth, fire, water, and air. To me it just feels right to be a pagan. I guess I'm seeking validation for my chosen spiritual path on some level. I just want to be comfortable in my skin and stop being on the fence and know without a doubt there is no hell. I have been reading about how the idea of hell gained popularity, and the meanings of words like sheol and Gehenna. And even after reading about that, I still have this feeling of what if?! Like, what if, by some strange way, there is a god who can defy the laws of nature and create a dimension called hell? And there goes my imagination again. Or is it? Thanks for reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryG Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Welcome, Nadooshka! Glad to have you here. You'll find others who've been on similar journeys. Many ex-christians follow an attraction to more free, less dogmatic types of spirituality, especially at first. And no matter what spiritual path we embark on we're often scared back by stupid, endless, vicious threats of hell. Boy, does that hell program ever get rooted deeply. You write beautifully about your dilemma. You'll find friends, common experiences -- and I hope both courage and direction -- here. The struggle can be so hard, frightening, and wearying in the beginning. But the freedom to follow your own spiritual path is so liberating in the long run! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Hello everyone, I've been reading many posts in this forum and they are helping me to get mentally and emotionally balanced, well, as balanced as possible. I grew up in a fundamentalist congregational church, was taught about how to study the Bible, and I sincerely believed it! I really wanted to worship the god I learned about. That was a creator god who sustained the universe. The thing is though, I didn't know that this same god allowed, no, commanded murder and slavery. At church, the preachers wouldn't dare shed light on those difficult scriptures. I noticed discrepancies between what I read in the Bible and what the preachers shouted from the pulpit. I asked them the hard questions, like, how can people who have never heard of Jesus go to hell? Like the aboriginal bush man living in a eucalyptus tree. And what about all those poor starving orphans in 3rd world nations and their parents who are killed? They don't know about Jesus. I never got a straight answer. When I was 15, I became a fan of the transcendentalist authors, Emerson and Thoreau. I had always been attracted to pagan spirituality and had an attraction to Native American spirituality, but I was also told that all of that was of the devil, because you know, loving nature is not the same as loving the creator. But that love for nature never left me. As of late I have been crazily going back and forth between fundamentalist Christianity and paganism. The thing that keeps me in limbo is the idea that hell may be real. Not necessarily a real physical place, but a whole other dimension. Now I know that it could just be my imagination gone wild, but how can I be sure? There's no way to prove something does not exist. What I do know for sure is that I feel like I'm in the right place when I have my table set up with symbols for earth, fire, water, and air. To me it just feels right to be a pagan. I guess I'm seeking validation for my chosen spiritual path on some level. I just want to be comfortable in my skin and stop being on the fence and know without a doubt there is no hell. I have been reading about how the idea of hell gained popularity, and the meanings of words like sheol and Gehenna. And even after reading about that, I still have this feeling of what if?! Like, what if, by some strange way, there is a god who can defy the laws of nature and create a dimension called hell? And there goes my imagination again. Or is it? Thanks for reading. Welcome to the forum. I use to have a lot of fears for things that can't be detected. For me the cure was atheism. Maybe that is where you will end up or maybe not. It doesn't matter to me what you believe so if religion is for you that is fine. If you want to break religion's hold over you then let me know and I can give you a few pointers. Sure there usually is no way to prove something doesn't exist. But if there is no evidence that it exists then there is no reason to believe it is true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodsy Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Welcome, Nadooshka.....so glad that you are here. You have found a safe place, a home here. I know from experience that the people here know what you are going through and can help you. Wishing you much peace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milesaway Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Welcome. That fear you describe is the self-serving part of religion. It makes you feel like you need it in order to succeed or amount to anything, and makes you feel like it's your fault when everything turns to shit. They create the problems and then sell you the cure. You're out of there now. Your journey is yours, nobody else's. If you feel like paganism is right for you right now, then go for it. If you decide to stick with it for the long haul, then that's fine. If it turns out that paganism is merely a stepping stone to a more irreligious way of thinking, then that's fine too. You get to define spirituality for yourself from here on out if that's an avenue you wish to continue with. Some here have gone back to church, but it almost never lasts. Knowledge is power. The more you learn about the christian concepts and how they were all taken from other religions that predated it by thousands of years, the less power it has over you. You don't fear Hades or Osiris, do you? Their hells were every bit as real to the followers of Zeus and Horus. The more you read, the more you'll realize that hell is nothing but an empty threat, and the ones who threaten you with it look like the boy who cried wolf. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slave2six Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Hey Nadooshka. For me, the whole hell thing is very simple. Would you create such a place? If not, then you are better than the Christian god. End of story. I swear, all the traits attributed to the Christian god are uncharitable. If there is a god and he is in fact good, he'd be insulted that people think of him in that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted January 22, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted January 22, 2014 What got me over the fear of hell was realizing that I'd go to hell either way. If I am honest about my doubts and disbelief then I will go to hell. On the other hand, if I betray myself and my doubts I will go to heaven and spend eternity with a god who would have thrown me into hell for having honest doubts, which would effectively be hell. In short, for me hell is a false dichotomy, not because there may be more than two options, but because both options are essentially the same. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rach Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I grew up in a fundamentalist congregational church, was taught about how to study the Bible, and I sincerely believed it! I really wanted to worship the god I learned about. That was a creator god who sustained the universe. The thing is though, I didn't know that this same god allowed, no, commanded murder and slavery. At church, the preachers wouldn't dare shed light on those difficult scriptures. I noticed discrepancies between what I read in the Bible and what the preachers shouted from the pulpit. Exactly. I was raised in the church and I had no idea of what the Bible really taught, what Yahweh was really like! Had I only known! When I read the book it was nothing like what had been presented in the church. I was disgusted. It is clear that the whole religion of Christianity as taught by the church is a fantasy of what they wished the Bible were like. They wished that Yahweh was tame, loving, trustworthy, and so in their minds they made him that way. But the actual book presents a raving psychopath of a god who enjoys bloodshed and setting living things on fire. It's no wonder the church has to give him a total makeover to make him presentable. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nadooshka Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Thank you all for your replies. I have given Christianity so many chances, and every time, I find things just don't add up. It helps to have a community that understands! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted January 23, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted January 23, 2014 Welcome! There's no way to prove something does not exist. And that's what they count on to sell the unbelievable, improbable and impossible to the fearful masses. You can't prove their unfounded assertions are wrong, so they pretend the default position is "therefore they must be right." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger26 Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 NADOOSHKA, I am wondering what the name that you are using really means. It sounds very Russian, which is the part of the world that i am from Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted January 29, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted January 29, 2014 ^^^I thought the same thing; my wife is Russian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaLeah Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Hi, Nadooshka, and welcome! Please don't be afraid of hell; I assure you it doesn't exist. I was a little scared of it when I deconverted too, because the brainwashing is strong about hell. But the world and humans are far older than religion, and the underworld / hell was borrowed from previous religions and amped up to even worse as an incentive to keep people from leaving the faith. Christianity didn't make it up, and the Bible doesn't go back in history even more than a tiny blip on the whole history of mankind. Also... where is hell? When the Bible was written, they thought it was the underworld... literally down in the earth somewhere. We know that isn't true now. Science has since explored down into the earth and we know what's down there, and hell isn't. And where is heaven? They used to think it was up in the clouds, the heavens. (See the Tower of Babel story.) But now we know there is atmosphere and then outer space... no heaven. We've sent rockets up there... to the moon... and beyond..... and yet "God" punished people in the Old Testament for building a tower up to heaven, as if they could have actually reached it if God didn't strike them with different languages so that they couldn't understand each other. This is clearly a parable for why we have different languages rather than a truth. We know we have different languages because when people are sequestered into different continents and countries, their languages become unique to their own region. So you already know this logically. You fear hell only because it was brainwashed into you to fear it. Even though you are 99.9% sure it's ridiculous now, that .1% fear it MIGHT be true is what is bothering you. Because it's just so awful! The terrible eternal torture if you're wrong! But if God WERE real, what sort of loving God would invent such a dreadful sadistic place to send his own creation simply for not "getting" the truth that He hasn't clearly revealed? That would be sick. You wouldn't do that, and you couldn't possibly be as loving as God is supposed to be. You wouldn't wish hell on your worst enemy, so why would God wish it upon someone who just didn't know? You might think, Well, God is holy and can't have sin in His presence... so then God could just let people be dead. Or send them away from him to a different planet. Why eternal hell fire torment? That's just cruel. And God is supposed to be love, not cruel. So... logically, it all falls apart. It will take you a while to wrap your brain around this and undo the brainwashing, but keep reminding yourself that it's absurd, and it WILL sink in eventually. Also, it's fine to explore paganism. I had a long time of New Age exploration after I left Christianity. I could have stayed there, but my brain eventually took me to atheism. However, I know a lot of smart, good, kind people who are spiritual and have faith in something mystical, and I don't think it's a bad thing to explore or believe in. Keep questing. And keep questioning. Intellectual curiosity is a good thing. Let no one discourage you from it. Love and hugs! -RaLeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nadooshka Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 @ Ranger and Redneck: I got it from someone else I know. I'm not Russian, but I like the name. @RaLeah: Thank you! My fear of hell is pretty much nil now, especially after more study of the Bible and history. Fruitless discussions with brainwashed people helped me to see religion for the farce it is too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pensatore Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Hey Nadooshka. For me, the whole hell thing is very simple. Would you create such a place? If not, then you are better than the Christian god. End of story. I swear, all the traits attributed to the Christian god are uncharitable. If there is a god and he is in fact good, he'd be insulted that people think of him in that way. I love your answer slave2six. Just goes to show how sadistic and unjust the christian god is. I too fear hell but not that much anymore thanks to the very supportive and also extremely intelligent people here at Ex-C (new here but I have been lurking for 4 months now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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