The Twelve Steps To Recover

[Jessica Sideways]

This was taken from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9104/ and I have to admit - it is pretty good.

 

1.) "We have admitted we are powerless over Christianity - that our faith has become unmanageable."

2.) "We came to the realization that Christianity could drive us to complete insanity."

3.) "Made a decison to stop turning over our free will to the care of a God we never fully understood in the first place."

4.) "Made a searching and fearless moral evaluation of our faith."

5.) "Admitted to society, the world and ourselves the exact inept nature of our religion, which is totally wrong."

6.) "We are entirely prepared to remove these 'holier than thou' attitudes."

7.) "Humbly agreed to keep our relation to God completely to ourselves."

8.) "Made a list of all persons we had deceived and turned over to Christianity and became willing to tell them the real truth."

9.) "Made direct amends to all persons we told would 'burn in hell' if they did not believe as we did."

10.) "Continued to take a spiritual inventory of our former beliefs and when we were wrong (which was almost always), promptly admitted how naive we were."

11.) "Sought through education and common sense to improve upon our disconnection from Christianity as we saw necessary, educating and empowering ourselves to carry the renunciation of our faith out."

12.) "Having had an intellectual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other misled Christians, and agreed to cease all further practices involving shameless religious persuasion and, furthermore, to never again use God as a terror weapon."

[Monk]

I LOVE this...it's only missing a step 13, where said reformed Christian makes the inevitable (and intellectually honest) leap into atheism/agnosticism.

[Jessica Sideways]

I LOVE this...it's only missing a step 13, where said reformed Christian makes the inevitable (and intellectually honest) leap into atheism/agnosticism.

 

Yes. Of course, calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair colour.

[Monk]

Yes, and I was in NO WAY implying that atheism/agnosticism IS a religion. Goodness knows it's not. All I was saying is that, if a reformed christians makes it all the way through those steps, they need to take one more into atheism/agnosticism. To do otherwise is to maintain cognitive dissonance, and this cannot be healthy.

 

I had taken the end result of the steps to be some sort of uber-liberal or new-age or enlightened christian.

[Jessica Sideways]

Yes, and I was in NO WAY implying that atheism/agnosticism IS a religion. Goodness knows it's not. All I was saying is that, if a reformed christians makes it all the way through those steps, they need to take one more into atheism/agnosticism. To do otherwise is to maintain cognitive dissonance, and this cannot be healthy.

 

I had taken the end result of the steps to be some sort of uber-liberal or new-age or enlightened christian.

 

Well, ideally, all people would be atheists. But liberal christians who know better than to impose their beliefs onto others despite objections is acceptable too. If we had less conservative Christians, we would be able to make strides in equal rights for LGBT people.

[PandaPirate]

Why should I be an atheist? It sounds as if you are shoving your beliefs onto the rest of us. Just because I don't believe in God of the Bible or of any other religion for that matter doesn't mean I can't be spiritual. I don't think you should tell everyone who deconverts that they should eventually become atheist.

[Guest Marty]

Why should I be an atheist? It sounds as if you are shoving your beliefs onto the rest of us. Just because I don't believe in God of the Bible or of any other religion for that matter doesn't mean I can't be spiritual. I don't think you should tell everyone who deconverts that they should eventually become atheist.

 

Atheists can be spiritual, I am. You say you do not believe in the xtian god or any other religion, but do you believe in a creator deity? Some sort of deity at all? If not you are an Atheist.

 

Being Atheist does not mean you do not believe in anything. That is a Nihilist. Atheisim is solely a lack of belief in anthromorphic gods.

[Monk]

Why should I be an atheist? It sounds as if you are shoving your beliefs onto the rest of us. Just because I don't believe in God of the Bible or of any other religion for that matter doesn't mean I can't be spiritual. I don't think you should tell everyone who deconverts that they should eventually become atheist.

 

 

I don't understand what you mean. No one is attacking being spiritual. You can be spiritual AND atheist/agnostic. You said you don't believe in the gods of any religion...so, unless you are a deist, that would make you an atheist by default anyway. In that case, I really don't see where you'd have a problem with our discussion.

 

And for the record, we weren't forcing anything on anybody so far as I could tell. It is my PERSONAL OPINION that agnosticism is probably the most intellectually honest position, but I certainly don't think everyone should have to think the same thing I do.

 

Perhaps you'd care to elaborate your position so we could be on the same page?

[PandaPirate]

I'm sorry if I came across as rude. I was having a bad day. Hell, a bad month. More on the neighbor from hell in another post.

 

I was just curious cuz this has got my head so fucked up I don't know what I am. I'm still reeling from being decieved. Still amazed that no one can answer my questions (for instance I ask my mom to explain how on the Winter Solstice the sun stops moving (percievably) for three days on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th. Then, on the 25th, the sun/son is "reborn" and begins moving north again, bringing longer days and warmth. Not to mention it does this just below the "southern cross" in the sky. Then there's this website that explains that the entire bible story is an astrological myth played out in the sky.

 

http://www.usbible.com/Astrology/bible_astrology.htm

http://www.usbible.com/usbible/default.htm

 

I ask Christians to explain this to me and since it makes sense out of the fairy tale book and is the most plausible explanation for the bible but all I get is, "The devil is twisting reality to make you think it makes sense."

[SWIM]

I'm sorry if I came across as rude. I was having a bad day. Hell, a bad month. More on the neighbor from hell in another post.

 

I was just curious cuz this has got my head so fucked up I don't know what I am. I'm still reeling from being decieved. Still amazed that no one can answer my questions (for instance I ask my mom to explain how on the Winter Solstice the sun stops moving (percievably) for three days on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th. Then, on the 25th, the sun/son is "reborn" and begins moving north again, bringing longer days and warmth. Not to mention it does this just below the "southern cross" in the sky. Then there's this website that explains that the entire bible story is an astrological myth played out in the sky.

 

http://www.usbible.com/Astrology/bible_astrology.htm

http://www.usbible.com/usbible/default.htm

 

I ask Christians to explain this to me and since it makes sense out of the fairy tale book and is the most plausible explanation for the bible but all I get is, "The devil is twisting reality to make you think it makes sense."

 

 

There are varing degrees of atheist/agnostic too. Some are hard boiled atheist. "No god exists, never have never will, end of discussion" Some are weak atheists "Could be a god out there maybe, if so I need proof, otherwise I don't believe".

 

Then there is the weak agnostic "I don't believe in god, but I feel there is more out there then meets the eye. I will speculate and theorize, but will not *believe* anything without proof, but I still ponder the mysteries of life" <--- thats me. A strong agnostic, believes in god in some ways, but no religion defines it, but the belief is there and strongly".

 

Don't know how accurate that assessment of the levels of atheist/agnostic is, others might disagree, but I think it is at least *close*.