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Goodbye Jesus

How has your paradigm changed?


Vigile

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For now, I'm still a republican.  I still like Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News Channel.  I still kinda like George Bush.  (although I always thought Iraq was a big mistake)

 

 

 

Personally I can tollerate your beliefs if you can tollerate mine. The world would be damn boring if we all agreed with one another. My sister in law deconverted not too many years after I and she is still pretty much a right wing, Fox News Republican. I don't think that you have to become more liberal just because you deconverted.

 

There have been some fascinating responses to this question and I'm glad I asked. It's really eye opening and I found myself empathizing with so many of them. Borg and Appellation both brought up a really interesting point about how their views toward life and non believers changed. I remember the same thing. I never had the attitude that I was better than a non believer, but I always felt that I couldn't relate completely because they were different. It was so freeing to just join the human race and not approach life putting everyone in one or the other categories of saved or not.

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My views are pretty much the same fundamentally pre & post de conversion.

Being raised ultra-left liberal pagan my value system was basically formed before jesus abducted my family.

Along with rejecting the church teaching on homosexuality I rejected the conservative political and religious points of view.

One of the things I constantly questioned was how could these people who preached love and compassion be so hateful and careless toward others in need. And for people who believed that god provided for them, they were awfully concerned with their own wealth and how to expand their personal power.

 

PR

 

My views on homosexuality and the environment (I'm not sure why these two unrelated issues) started to change a few years before my deconversion. I even quit one church because the pastor was using the pulpit to garner support for a local anti gay law. Before I deconverted I thought that homosexuality was a sin, but I also understood that I was a sinner and so was everyone else. I couldn't understand why the church was so aggressive in selecting out homosexuality as if it were somehow special when I knew that everyone struggled with one sin or another.

 

Now of course I see that even my supposed liberal view on it back then was also offensive.

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Maybe many of us go from the right to at least the middle, if not the left politically, because we no longer are being programmed at church on what our "leaders" want us to do. But there are many libertarians on this site, and we seem to be more politically diverse than the church would believe (the ol' athiest/commie team-up).  :)

 

 

 

I find myself now developing some libertarian ideas. I'm still pretty far left socially, but fiscally and in regards to foreign policy, a weak government has appeal. Age and the fact that I'm a business owner contributes I'm sure.

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Before I deconverted I thought that homosexuality was a sin, but I also understood that I was a sinner and so was everyone else.  I couldn't understand why the church was so aggressive in selecting out homosexuality as if it were somehow special when I knew that everyone struggled with one sin or another.

 

These were my exact thoughts when I was a christian, too.

 

HOLY SHIT! MAYBE THIS IS PROOF THAT WE WERE NEVER REALLY CHRISTIANS!!

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HOLY SHIT!  MAYBE THIS IS PROOF THAT WE WERE NEVER REALLY CHRISTIANS!!

 

 

It's not as if I haven't been accused.

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Oh, yeah, me too. But maybe this is the real litmus test.

 

Maybe christians, in determining whether we were genuine or not, should ask:

 

"Okay, tell me this. During your time when you claimed to be a christian, just what was your opinion of the queers?"

 

If you say, well, they were sinners, just like me.

 

BINGO! you failed the test.

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... In my younger years through Christianity, the idea to have an intimate relationship could only be after getting Married.

 

... This view of mine has changed. I am willing to have an intimate relationship without considering a Marriage. But I have yet been able to meet a gal for a serious relationship. But if I do. I just want it to be a secret intimate relationship and not get married. So Marriage and intimate relationship in my view of things is seperate and not the same anymore.

 

... Christianity in my earlier years had me believing in the Republican Party and had me hating Jimmy Carter when he was President. I was having my transition when Ronald Reagon became President. I was for him during the elections. I was against the Repulican Party after his term.

 

... After realizing that I struggle with a disability, job situations are discriminating and Science wasn't Republican agendas. And I got learning more about human rights that the Republican Party has no consideration for. I am now Democratic and Liberal with all these issues. As for me. I hate all the Repulican views on their issues. Its the thing that has me thinking they will actually make End Times a self fullfilling prophecy for us all. Not by God, but by Politics and World Leaders. They will end this life of ours on this planet.

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Then: Although I questioned Christianity, I believed the "end times" was around the corner and felt things such as national ID was coming as a sign.

 

 

Now: :twitch: I think things just evolve, I believe the national ID already exists in the form of SS numbers. I think Technology is both a blessing and a curse. It can be used for great things, but also as another form of control. I still don't support anti-constitutional legislation, but today it's out of reason instead of fear.

 

 

Then: Pro-Death Penalty (Gods justice is swift)

 

 

Now: Death Penalty isn't done justly, I also don't trust the Governments versions of things. While in a few cases I would like to support it, I think we should have a sort of equivalent to devils island where truly horrific evil people reside with each other.

 

 

Then: Pro-war

 

Now: Against unprovoked aggression and anti-pre-emptive war

 

 

Then: Thought Clinton was a lying cheating evil bastid president

 

Now: Know he was a saint compared to what we have now (The Devil you know is better then the one you don't know I guess) :vent:

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I couldn't understand why the church was so aggressive in selecting out homosexuality as if it were somehow special when I knew that everyone struggled with one sin or another.

 

So f*ing true!

 

I think I must have thought that sometime. But still I was anti-gay, even when I knew other sins were commited even by the leadership of the church!

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I've lived too long and seen too much for anyone to tell me what to think anymore.  I'll think whatever the hell I want to.

 

When I was a christian, I fell in step and spewed the party line.  But those days are gone.  THANK GAWD

 

 

I may disagree with your politics, but at least your brain is now open for business.

 

Congratulations! You made it!! We can talk now.

 

Welcome to the land of the thinking.

 

P.S. Al Franken is on every weeknight at 11:30pm. Sundance Channel.

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I used to think of people as being either "saved" or "unsaved". I defined everyone by their religion rather as a part of humanity, even close family members and I'm still struggling to break this habit. It would've been inconceivable for me to think about marrying someone who wasn't a Christian only a year ago. Now, I think it would only cause major conflict between us by knowing at anytime, he could choose god over me or emotionally blackmail me into doing things "god's way".

 

When I used to believe in all that armaggedon, rapture stuff, I was always anxious about how I was behaving at every moment. Jesus could come at any moment and being in the midst of "sinning" would cause me to lose my place in heaven. So that compounded the anxiety I was feeling already. Now, I can think freely, decide my own ethical stance on issues and not worry about posessing the correct doctrine.

 

But one thing I've lost was the sense of having a human-like god at my side whenever I was going through a tough time. I still believe in god in a universal sense but not as a man called Jesus who solves all your problems or will punish you if you mess up. I've had to learn to depend on myself and my family, knowing that the bad things I thought only happened to "sinners" could happen to me too.

 

That's a scary thought and I believe that's what makes Christianity so attractive. If you're a believer, it teaches, you're exempt from facing serious problems like homelessness and poverty. Believers therefore, use religion as an insurance policy rather than as a way to help those who are facing these problems. And what's worse, if you do have problems, you're blamed for not being "godly" enough or not having more faith.

 

Being mentally ill, losing my job and almost committing suicide have given me more compassion for others, something that Christianity failed to do. I believe we alone are responsible for one another and looking to God to solve our problems is a way of shirking off our role to make society better.

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I still have mym same views of conservativeness on all issues exceot the social ones which I am liberal on. I still support the death penalty but not welfare.

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It's not that different from when I was a liberal Christian, except that now I have a lot more self-esteem because I don't have to feel guilty about everything. I don't have to worry about my non-Christian friends going to hell. And I enjoy life a lot more.

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the biggest noticable difference in my POV after deconverting is that when i used to listen to sermons on TBN, they used to see mystifying "Wow, this man KNOWS what he's talking about"

 

now they just don't hold any luster.. they actually seem more scripted than anything.. not only that, i realize that they preach about the same things over and over again, only packaged differently (really though, how many sermons can you pull out of one book?)

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Wow Borg and Appellation, just incredible posts. I was saying, "uh-huh, uh-huh" all the way through both. Both of your thoughts were just right on the money.

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For me, things started changing with exposure and experience, just the usual part of growing up. But college was the deep kicker.

 

Homosexuals- I never knew I was supposed to hate them. I asked mom about gay people not long before I started high school, and all she said was: "You've got three gay cousins." And she specified who they were. It was my favorite three! So the very idea of hating family was just preposterous and I wasn't going to do it.

 

Death Penalty- I'm in with Han on this one. I used to be very much against the death penalty. But a major hobby of mine through college was criminology. I read John Douglas's books on the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit, I fell in love with shows like New Detectives and Forensic Files.....and with learning how solidly they can nail someone with a crime now, my mind has turned. I don't want to spend twenty to thirty years feeding and clothing a worm that raped and buried alive little girls like in Fla. I think that not only is limited use of the death penalty just fine, I think it should be on pay-per-view.

 

Abortion- Used to be a pro-lifer. Heck I'm adopted, so it seemed kinda hypocritical to be for something that very much could have happened to me. But through high school and college, I saw some situations that sure didn't merit the mother to be to be forced to bear children that were the product of date-rape, drugging, or incest. Some bad things in life can happen, and how does a person start to feel in control again if they can't even make choices about their own bodies? I'm now for choice.

 

Drugs- got some family into this one. I used to be militantly anti-drug. I'm still pretty anti, but I don't think it's right to classify tobbacco legal and marijuana illegal when you are still engaging in the same activity (smoking) with both. Now I've never smoked pot (and feel no need to), but my feelings have still changed on the legal issue.

 

As my feelings and perceptions on things like this changed, I did notice my beliefs were curving away from that of christianity. And yes, that scared me at first. Until I studied religion. Then I was too revolted to stay in it.

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One of the reasons why I left/rejected Christianity was because of my poltical/social views being different from others in the church/other Christians. I spent more time reading essays written by Emma Goldman than I ever did reading the Bible.

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My paradigm didn't really change from pre-Xian to Xian to post-Xian, it just went public.

 

I was developing a set of conscious personal beliefs by the time I was 13 or so. They weren't in line with what my abusive, alcoholic mother insisted was reality, so I tended to hide them, otherwise I risked further abuse. I converted to Xianity for this same reason - it was a survival tactic. For a number of years I spewed the same sociopolitical and moral line as my abuser did; my own personal development kind of got put on hold, and what I'd figured out by then went underground.

 

I always had this uneasy sense, though, that the crap I was spewing about welfare cheats, reverse discrimination, and the stupidity of women who live with men without marrying them was basically a bunch of honk. I just knew it wasn't what I really believed.

 

So when I ditched the Xianity, I ditched the bullshit too. Had a couple of boundary-setting arguments with the egg donor, and it's all good. And boy, what a relief, not to feel like I have to say something I really don't buy because if I don't say it I'm going to get reamed. Yeah, F that. :Wendywhatever:

 

I am and always was generally liberal, and unabashedly so. Depends on the issue tho'. I'm a wild card as far as economic policy goes. Haven't decided where I stand on the death penalty. Believe in abortion on demand, gay marriage, legalization of various recreational substances, and various other things that tick a lot of conservatives off. But ya know, whatever. :shrug: Variety is the spice of life.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My shifting view of the world is actually what caused my deconversion. Ever since I can remember I've always been curious about sciences and the more I learned, the less the bible made sense. For years I had some doubts about god and christianity in general and for a time I was a bit of a creationist but I couldn't reconcile what we observed about the world and what the bible said. I recall vomiting the same crappy 'evidences' against evolution and doubting datation methods. And now that I look at it, it seems like I did so to convince myself more than convince others.

 

But lies repeated don't get truer and by the time I was at my second semester in something akin to the 13th grade (quebec school system is a bit different than elsewhere in canada and the us) my biology classes forced me to face the fact that evolution did explain alot about life. Six months later I spent 3 weeks on a outdoors trip with 50 non-christians, my grandpa died and that summer I stopped kidding myself and I finally walked away from my faith. Since then I haven't stopped reading on physics, evolution, chemistry, astrophysics and the roots of christianity. It's been one big year and I know I'm never going back. ^_^

 

Today I think I'm more open to new ideas. When I was christian it was always 'Oh is it a sin, what would jesus do?, what does the bible say about that subject?' etc, ad nauseum. Pre-fed answers chewed and vomited, rechewed and revomited from generations to generations replaced critical thinking. Now I'm still deprogramming myself from a 20 year brainwash and I try to open up and consider the other alternatives before deciding.

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