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Goodbye Jesus

Have you lost anything because of your belief in Jesus/the bible/Christianity?


Anushka

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I lost good friends 

I lost the opportunity to love 2 different men

I lost my peace fearing God's punishment and that made me bow down to man made rules that ruined my life :(

I didn't meet my Boaz even though I served and loved Jesus :huh:

I feel like crying now :(

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I lost my judgment for a number of years.  Then I found it again when I left.

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I lost a shit load of precious time that I can never get back by praying and reading the bible.

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Lost time and opportunity I guess. A lost decent education that I'm trying to make up for.

 

As far as relationships go there was no opportunity in my little christian sect, but being introvert I cannot say whether I would have met anyone if I hadn't been christian. 

 

I also lost some really crazy beliefs, lost the fear of going to hell, and lost living in a fantasy world that was 6,000 years old and had a deity intervening every so often.

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Leaving the church I lost fear, the constant questioning of gods will, dissatisfaction with the limited social circle of the church, a shitload of anxiety and stress, black and white thinking, judgemental attitudes of other people, a very us vs them attitude towards unbelievers, isolation from the wider community, anxiety about when people would question my crazy beliefs and how I would justify them. In the church I lost a lot of time and opportunity to gain friends, a partner, all the fun things I was unable to do. However, upwards and onwards. I could cry and scream and I did for awhile but time is precious. I try not to look back. 

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I am losing every day.

 

Instead of being with someone to share my life philosophy, beliefs, and desire to spend what time we have enjoying life and each other I, because of a previous belief in xiantiy, am with someone who is addicted to religion.

 

Trust me. This addiction is just like any other addiction and has many of the same impacts.

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I really wish that I had gone to Columbia University instead of David Lipscomb college, way back in 1979.

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Lost? I was born into it. Things were taken before I could claim them: self-respect, identity, freedom to be who I am, the list goes on. *I* was demolished before I could form an identity. 

 

It's taken sixty years to re-grow myself from scratch. Some parts are irreplaceable and the scars will never heal. 

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1 hour ago, R. S. Martin said:

Lost? I was born into it. Things were taken before I could claim them: self-respect, identity, freedom to be who I am, the list goes on. *I* was demolished before I could form an identity. 

 

This is probably the most damaging thing about it all. That you get to what you hope to be about the halfway point of your life, and you realize you're starting from scratch with who you are, and you are miles behind those who had the gift of growing up without religion. Yes, some of the scars will probably never heal, but damn I'm going to do my best to ensure they don't damage my life any more than I can help it.

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I lost probably around $15,000 paying for Bible college. Still paying off those student loans for a colossal waste of time. I am going back to school but I already used my pell grants from FAFSA so thank god I still have my grandparents college fund that they didn't let me use on Bible College (which was smart even though I didn't appreciate it at the time. I wonder if they knew I was going to change my mind on this whole religion thing?).

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56 minutes ago, TylerJ said:

I wonder if they knew I was going to change my mind on this whole religion thing?).

 

Smart folk, those grand parents!

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On 10/9/2017 at 12:53 PM, Tsathoggua9 said:

I really wish that I had gone to Columbia University instead of David Lipscomb college, way back in 1979.

 

My daughter went to Lipscomb for a semester. When she came home she said, "Dad, I'm wasting your money. I'm not learning anything because I have no interest in going to college right now."  I said okay. About five or six years later, after she was married and living in San Diego, she decided it was time to get an education. She enrolled in school and paid for it herself. 

 

Relatively few kids are ready for college after graduating from high school. And even fewer of them have any idea what they want to study or what kind of career they want to prepare for. Parents that have a kid that knows exactly what they want to study in college and are relatively sure what they want to do to make a living after college are extremely fortunate. Most kids are clueless and why shouldn't they be, they're teenagers. Who knows what you want to do with your life when you're 18,....except to get laid of course. ;) Well, I guess that is one thing college is good for. B)

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16 hours ago, Geezer said:

 

My daughter went to Lipscomb for a semester. When she came home she said, "Dad, I'm wasting your money. I'm not learning anything because I have no interest in going to college right now."  I said okay. About five or six years later, after she was married and living in San Diego, she decided it was time to get an education. She enrolled in school and paid for it herself. 

 

Relatively few kids are ready for college after graduating from high school. And even fewer of them have any idea what they want to study or what kind of career they want to prepare for. Parents that have a kid that knows exactly what they want to study in college and are relatively sure what they want to do to make a living after college are extremely fortunate. Most kids are clueless and why shouldn't they be, they're teenagers. Who knows what you want to do with your life when you're 18,....except to get laid of course. ;) Well, I guess that is one thing college is good for. B)

 

Well, if ya wanna get "laid", Lipscomb sure ain't the proper place!   HA!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lots of lost time and brain power. I spent a lot of time fretting over Biblical passages that are truly irrelevant. Christianity put a damper on personal development and general aspirations of success. If I was studying to improve in something, I felt guilty I was putting effort into things that were worldly and not "glorifying god" somehow. And what's the point of financial success anyway? Jesus loves poor people. It's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven don't you know! For nearly anything you try to do that's positive for your own well being the Bible can remind you that you shouldn't be doing it. Anything that isn't glorifying god is just your own selfish vanity.

 

Trying to go through life while fully embracing Christianity is like sailing a ship without realizing your anchor is dragging.

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On 09/10/2017 at 6:07 PM, disillusioned said:

Personally, I don't find it helpful to consider what I've lost or gained because of Christianity. It has had an unalterable effect on my life. It has shaped who I am in ways that can never be reversed. Things might be better if I had been raised differently. They might be worse. I don't know who I would be without Christianity, and I can't know who I would be. All that I know is who I am now, and all I can do is go forward from here.

 

I'm trying to get to be as sanguine about it as this, but I based my career choices on this nonsense. I couldn't make friends with or have relationships with 'worldly' people. There's a parallel universe I never entered. What if Jean Luc Picard decided to stay on his father's farm, supported somewhat by some verses in some text?

 

I'm with someone I would never have chosen but for religion. 

 

I'm just trying to move forward with the help of Y'all here.

(I'm not American but I can still say y'all, right?)

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  • 1 month later...

When in the faith, I feel I lost a better education, as I was taught to go through school to pass and not trust the science of evolution. After I left home it only took an astronomy College class to get me asking questions and then after I went to seminary school for a semester, I left the religion altogether. I felt betrayed, having placed my trust in older people to tell me the truth and instead discovered it was all a grand illusion.

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I don't dwell on what is lost.  I rejoice because I don't believe that crap anymore.

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On 2017-10-22 at 2:47 PM, Lydie said:

 

I'm trying to get to be as sanguine about it as this, but I based my career choices on this nonsense. I couldn't make friends with or have relationships with 'worldly' people. There's a parallel universe I never entered. What if Jean Luc Picard decided to stay on his father's farm, supported somewhat by some verses in some text?

 

I'm with someone I would never have chosen but for religion. 

 

I'm just trying to move forward with the help of Y'all here.

(I'm not American but I can still say y'all, right?)

That's exactly what I'm trying to be, and most of the time I'm successful. But I'm still at the damn angry stage. Angry that this feels like such a handicap, my upbringing. I'll give you an example, last weekend I went out for the first time with those "worldly" people I wasnt allowed to associate with, and I feel so different. I hope there won't be that barrier forever, but right now it's so hard to relate to what they talk about - getting drunk, what shows they've seen, etc. Having grown up so much in the dark, it feels like such a hurdle becoming part of this world I wasnt part of. I'm also damn angry that all of the blame for the distance between me and my fundamentalist family is going to be put on my shoulders. I'm afraid I'm not going to know how to "play nice" with them because my emotions are just all over the map. 

I also based a lot of important decisions on my faith but I don't really regret those that much, it's the interpersonal difficulties that bother me more than anything else. Where do you fit, when you feel like you're in no man's land, just stuck in between? 

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I'm in the process of losing my marriage to a fundy who increasingly places his devotion to god before me. I've lost the fun, carefree man I married.

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6 hours ago, LostinParis said:

I'm in the process of losing my marriage to a fundy who increasesly places his devotion to god before me. I've lost the fun, carefree man I married.

 

I feel your pain, @LostinParis,

 

When I met Mrs. MOHO she was xtian but not really fundy. That came after we moved to Or-e-gun and began attending the Westbourogh Baptist Church of the Pacific Northwest </sarc>. I cannot believe the crap that comes out of these people's faces!

 

Gone is the pleasant young lady who I took dancing 3 nights/week and who otherwise put some life in my -sit in the corner and write software- boring ass life. She was replaced over the course of the past 10~12 years by a self-righteous, abusive, Bible-thumping nutter who  honestly believes that all medical conditions, political unrest, deadly weather,  as well as any human behavior she does not favor, are caused by Satan.

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I had some benefits from my 30 years of faith, mostly a nice non-fundy church to start with that helped me get out of my extreme shyness and talking with people that were generally kind and pleasant. I don't know if that would have happened otherwise, since I was very much like a clam, inside my shell and feeling safe there. I also gained a first-hand understanding of how the mind can be willingly deceived, even when evidence to the contrary is presented (I recall visiting some atheist forums and being struck that I could not answer their questions or thoughts). I hoped to use that understanding to write a book that would show the inner-world of an average believer to the rest of the world, and show how the Bible re-defines reality for them, and how that altered view is used to shape the laws and culture of our nation. I did write the book, but it needs more of me in it, and less philosophy to make it more interesting. Not really motivated at the moment, but it could help the public to get some insight into the current elections.

 

What I did lose was spending years subservient to superstitions that defined my reality. Like most guys, I was HORNY with a capital H, but also was supposed to be this born-again creature, not controlled by the flesh, a light shining in the darkness, blah blah blah. I was just a guy who thought "the Spirit" would give me a new life outside of standard humanity, but was sorely disappointed. Of course, I blamed my self, not the failed promises of scripture and the absurd lies it promotes as truth.

 

Now that I'm out, I sing on stage, go to jazz clubs, and have a lot of fun that would have been just horrible to contemplate previously while I was trying to be "holy". If church were replaced by people with a simple goal of being generally kind and generous, the whole world would be a lot better off, especially for those who are part of the church.

 

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On 08/10/2017 at 5:16 AM, Anushka said:

I lost good friends 

I lost the opportunity to love 2 different men

I lost my peace fearing God's punishment and that made me bow down to man made rules that ruined my life :(

I didn't meet my Boaz even though I served and loved Jesus :huh:

I feel like crying now :(

Don't waste your tears on that zombie Messiah.

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9 hours ago, LostinParis said:

I'm in the process of losing my marriage to a fundy who increasesly places his devotion to god before me. I've lost the fun, carefree man I married.

It's kind of like the matrix, the people who believe are dependent on god(The system) Remember he's not really him anymore, and he'll fight to defend his delusion. 

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