Admin webmdave Posted September 28, 2007 Admin Share Posted September 28, 2007 Sent in by Ellytoad Before I begin, I want to point out that I am, indeed, an ex-Christian, so forgive some of my terminology here. Do you know what my least favorite Christian teaching is? It is the one that states how Jesus could have smited all of mankind off of the face of the earth for our evilness but instead, out of the pure generosity of His heart, decided to die for us instead. Yes, the belief that fills so many Christians up with tearful thankfulness used to make me think I was totally worthless. Such a feeling is apparently a healthy one in Christianity's eyes, because it means knowing just how ugly and deserving of Hell one's soul truly is. After a time of wallowing in this state of mind, I began to realize that mankind was far more innocent of its "sinful nature" than my former fellow believers would have me think. There's two details that brought me to that conclusion; one, we were born with the weakness of sin inside of us, and two, it is apparently impossible for us NOT to sin, so we are basically born screwed. Unless we died as children, and therefore never having committed the crime of reaching the age of accountability, we have personally hammered Jesus to the cross ourselves. Without knowing it. The problem is, when I told all of this to a fellow Christian on a message board one day, he became angry. He accused me of refusing to take responsibility for my own wrongdoings, saying that it's "always someone else's fault" and generally missing my entire point altogether. It's a pretty weird spot to be in... being incapable of being entirely sinless but being completely responsible for every last thing, even stray thoughts of envy or anger. And then getting told that you deserve hell and are nothing but crap who was just given the gift of redemption because that's just how nice God is... yes, I'd say that really sucks. I'm so glad I'm free of that now, and can accept myself again. I can look at my "nails through the hands of Christ" simply as mistakes to learn from, not things to beg for forgiveness for. I can stand on my feet and hold my head high... not with pride, but with confidence in my own true individual value. Thanks for reading, Ellytoadhttp://exchristian.net/testimonies/2007/09...self-again.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThemOrUs Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 That's one of the things that really started driving me away, the doctrine of Original Sin, which holds that because of Adam man is born in a sinful state and deserves eternal hell from birth. Paul really harped on this doctrine, and it was even more fully fleshed out by Augustine and made especially pointed for Protestants by Martin Luther and John "burn 'em at the stake" Calvin. Put another way, this doctrine teaches that from the moment we pop out of the birth canal we deserve to die and burn in Hell forever because 6000 years ago a rib-woman took advice from a talking snake. I could no longer accept that the Bible was the product of a supreme intelligence, for a supreme intelligence could not possibly be so cosmically unjust and bafflingly stupid as to hold people responsible for something their ancestors did, especially when the punishment involves suffering forever for a finite lifetime's worth of deeds. That was one of the many things that "broke the spell" so to speak and made me realize I had been basing my life on a fairytale, and an enormously lousy one at that. Genesis is pure myth, and it can't even stand as an allegory that can teach valid spiritual lessons because it frankly blows chunks...it's horrible! Though I pretty much doubt the existence of any deities at this point, I can say that if there really is a God, the Abrahamic deity isn't it. No supreme intelligence could possibly be such a petty, vindictive, viscious nincompoop. Todd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaddjohnson Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 I'm so glad I'm free of that now, and can accept myself again. I can look at my "nails through the hands of Christ" simply as mistakes to learn from, not things to beg for forgiveness for. I can stand on my feet and hold my head high... not with pride, but with confidence in my own true individual value. I agree with you, especially here. We make mistakes: we're selfish sometimes, we make assumptions... Okay, so realize this and move on. We can learn from our mistakes, and we can improve. As I've thought about the concept of prayer, I've began to realize / become convinced that there is nothing special about praying. Rather, I suspect that praying is merely a form of acknowledging our mistakes and moving on. It's just another way of doing things, but not THE way by any means. My two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrisonjj Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 That's one of the things that really started driving me away, the doctrine of Original Sin, which holds that because of Adam man is born in a sinful state and deserves eternal hell from birth. Paul really harped on this doctrine, and it was even more fully fleshed out by Augustine and made especially pointed for Protestants by Martin Luther and John "burn 'em at the stake" Calvin. Put another way, this doctrine teaches that from the moment we pop out of the birth canal we deserve to die and burn in Hell forever because 6000 years ago a rib-woman took advice from a talking snake. I could no longer accept that the Bible was the product of a supreme intelligence, for a supreme intelligence could not possibly be so cosmically unjust and bafflingly stupid as to hold people responsible for something their ancestors did, especially when the punishment involves suffering forever for a finite lifetime's worth of deeds. That was one of the many things that "broke the spell" so to speak and made me realize I had been basing my life on a fairytale, and an enormously lousy one at that. Genesis is pure myth, and it can't even stand as an allegory that can teach valid spiritual lessons because it frankly blows chunks...it's horrible! Though I pretty much doubt the existence of any deities at this point, I can say that if there really is a God, the Abrahamic deity isn't it. No supreme intelligence could possibly be such a petty, vindictive, viscious nincompoop. Todd Well stated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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