Talking The Talk

[ShackledNoMore]

It's little wonder the steps toward deconversion is a confusing time. First, we have "if you had faith like a mustard seed." Well, we WERE xians, we HAD bought into it. Then we heard all the time: "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Then, we have "seek and ye shall find" from the gospels. Finally, we have the entire chapter of Hebrews 11, starting with the famous verse that all good fundies have memorized: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Then Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews) goes on about the great faith of people who routinely talked to god in the flesh and witnessed his dramatic miracles, according to xian mythology.

 

There are some mixed messages, there, aren't there? We have to believe without any evidence whatsoever, yet we get a lot of messages that we WILL find this faith if we seek god. I think some of that message helped me come to a point where I could look at those parts, and say, "OK, I can ask god to just touch my arm and let me know he exists."

 

Trust and obey! Indeed! That's the line that they have to push, because if we don't trust and obey we'll loose our sheeply status and see through the scam.

[R. S. Martin]

The greater the trust, the harder the fall of the betrayal. And they ask why we're angry. I kept seeing through the scam all the way from Day 1. They kept putting on bandaids from the beginning. They kept telling me when I got older I would understand. I trusted them because, well, one HAS to trust one's own mother and spiritual leader, right? Otherwise, one is alone in the universe. So I trusted.

 

I clung for dear life to promises in the Bible like "Seek and ye shall find." I searched the Bible cover to cover. I skipped most of the OT laws and prophecies but something told me the secret wasn't in there anway. If it were, someone would have found it and written about it, and nobody did. I read enough literature and listened to enough sermons and asked enough questions to feel confident that if I was missing something really important in the Bible, I would have been shown it. Nothing turned up. I think I can say I searched the Bible cover to cover either personally or by proxy.

 

• The Bible does not tell us how Jesus' death saves us.
  
• The Bible does not define sin in a meaningful way.
  
• There is no evidence in the Bible for God's existence.
  
• The "faith" chapter proves only that a lot of people thought god existed and helped them. People died for political reasons, too, not just religious, so that proves nothing.
  

When I finally deconverted and defended myself with "Mom used to say when I got older I would understand, but I still don't understand," I was told, "Maybe we don't have to understand."

 

That felt to me like the utmost betrayal. I wanted to smash faces, windows, something. All these years I had labored to find The Answer, because of the promise "seek and ye shall find," and "when you are older you will understand," only to be told I don't have to understand.

 

That is NOT OKAY!

 

That is a broken promise is ever there was one. THE BIBLE IS LYING!!!!

 

I looked really long and really hard--that is many decades of my life I will never get back and much life energy I have forever forfeited. And now I am told it doesn't matter?!?!!?

 

THE CHURCH LIED. MY MOTHER LIED.

 

That is too many lies for one lifetime. And I am told it doesn't matter.

 

If the bible can lie about stuff we can prove in this lifetime it is probably also lying about hell and god and judgment day and all the other stuff.

 

Finally I begin to see hope. Next time my siblings accuse me of unbelief or what have you, I can tell them: There is no hell.

 

Sibs: What are you talking about?

 

Me: The Bible lied about other things. I guess it also lied about hell.

 

Sibs: What did the Bible lie about?

 

Me: In Matt. 7:7 it says: Ask, and it shall be given you, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find. There are very important parts about the Plan of Salvation that the Bible does not explain. I searched and prayed for the answer for fifty years and God did not give me the answer. Matt. 7:7 is a lie.

 

Sibs: You can't go by that! You don't understand everything.

 

Me: I know, but neither do you. What I do understand is that I searched for fifty years and I did not find. That is long enough for God to answer. Matt. 7:7 is a lie.

 

Sibs: Do you realize that you are saying God is a liar? The Bible says God cannot lie!

 

Me: In order for God to be a liar he would have to exist. The Bible is right when it says God cannot lie.

 

I'm not sure what would happen as the enormity of this statement hits home. One thing I do know; all they can do is hate me. I can see myself taking on the stance of my paternal grandfather, making the statement unperturbed and with authority, and letting the chips fall where they will. Let the sibs rage. Their religion won't allow them to resort to physical violence. If I decided to go this route, I would first have to evaluate that I was emotionally and psychologically strong enough to over-power them and out-last any power struggles. There would be one of me against ten or more of them--depends if spouses and kids join the fray. They have the same genes I do--same grandfather. I cannot foresee a situation when such a show-down would be remotely valuable for anyone involved but it feels good to imagine it and write it out.

 

It helps clarify my thoughts, if nothing else.

[ShackledNoMore]

I can really identify with that! When I was a kid, I expected I'd have the wisdom as an adult that I assumed they had. I did get older and wiser, and I found that what I had been taught had no merit. And I was NEVER credited (by family, xian leader sorts, etc.) with being a thinking adult after I came of age. Never. Not to this day.

 

The bible and those who peddle it make grandiose claims. We saw through it: if the claims were more than fables and fabrications they would have borne themselves out. But not when you're a young, trusting, ignorant, impressionable child. At least not for many or most of us.

 

Why would they silence a fledgling intelligence, and inquisitive mind? When your intelligence matures with age and blossoms, the questions don't go away, they only become more perceptive. And then when that happens they change their tune. You're right: that kind of betrayal damn well ISN'T OK!