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Goodbye Jesus

Why We Need Ex Christians To Come Back To The Church


truthseeker10000

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Cat comes into a Rational Recovery meeting asking attendees to return to the local corner serving establishment, "because it needs patrons".

 

 

Well Skip, one thing makes this poster different from other fundy/recruiting is the "degree" of doubt in the speech. My roots were RCC. In my world today, there are many RCC cultists.

 

Now, what I noticed that was "different" about this one is the degree of doubt between the lines, in the heart of what he/she is saying.

 

The RCCs I know and have known fall into three basic catagories.

 

1. Total silence - NEVER talks about religion at all.

2. Stark defenders - Will warn you of hell, mortal sins etc etc (basically fundy RCC)

3. Sticky Sweet - Will "act" all understanding, give you the shirt off their back, and slowly ease you into "biting" at their bait to join them.

 

This one I at first thought was catagory "threeish" but NONE of the RCC (non passive, actually attends church) I have EVER know express doubt about their belief or the bible. This one does, or I am reading the post wrong. It may very well be an act of doubting, searching, but the "urge" to join him/her might only be a self token to sooth their own guilty conscious for being here and posting.

 

I could be totally wrong on my read of this person, time and future posts will prove which way the pendulum swings (or the AXE). I have no problem whatsoever raking this one over the coals either, like you, if they prove to be a fundy in sheep's clothing.

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if I treated you better than I treat myself, wouldn't your world be better?

 

I suspect that your concept of "better" does not align with mine.

 

That is the problem with the Christian concept of the golden rule. I don't want you to treat me the way you want to be treated because, frankly, you believe some weird things, and I don't trust the way you might want to treat me.

 

I'd like you to treat me the way that I want to be treated.

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Annoying altar calls and evangelizing aside... Sounds to me like you have some right and noble aspirations (IMHO) but you're working off some faulty assumptions and trying to use a broken, polluting, deathtrap to get you there. I'm not buying, and if that stuff is what you joined up for, I fear you have some disappointments coming.

 

With deference to the RCC... they don't do sordid alter calls...

 

Yeah, but the whole OP's tone is reminiscent of one.

 

True!

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Here is my observation, and what I would add to this thread, 10K, and for whatever you think it's worth...

 

First, you come to us posting as a Roman Catholic, and inviting us to return to your church. Well, as our good friend Ruby Sera pointed out to you, the Catholic church tortured and burned our ancestors for heresy. It was for my family line part of what drove my ancestors to emigrate to these American shores in the year 1732. So from square one you should not expect me to be in any way receptive to an appeal from a RCC devotee to come back to the Mother church. On top of that, I'm an atheist and an ex-christian. You've offered nothing whatsoever to get me to reconsider that position. I see no reason to believe that any man-like gods exist, and of course there is no evidence that a supernatural wizard called Jesus Christ ever existed as well.

 

I believe you are a person of good will, and that you mean well. But if you try to evangelize for a renewal and revamping of "the Church" in a place like this, your efforts are likely to fail and very decisively...after all, most of us here were at one time fundie-protestants who were taught from day one that catholics were idolators and counterfeit christians to start with, destined for hell-fire. Of course, we ex-christians don't even give a shit about that stuff nowadays, but the wall is still there, albeit decayed and crumbling.

 

Can you dig it? I knew that you could...

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if I treated you better than I treat myself, wouldn't your world be better?

Absolutely, but your church and god are not required for that to happen. I'm not even remotely Christian, and I try to treat people better than I would myself.

 

None of what you have said thus far is enough to get me to abandon my beliefs and join you in the RCC. Why should I abandon a belief system that I am perfectly happy and content in to join an institution steeped in immorality and controls by guilt?

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Church may work for some but usually once passion like you are experiencing comes alive in them that is the last place that it will be able to grow and flourish in. Before long it will be stifled by all the rules, fear and thought police till its a but a good memory and nothing else.

 

Sojourner, thank you for this post. This part especially helps me better understand what happened to me. Thanks for writing it.

 

If you will take the time to read testimonies and posts you will find many folks here have had the same epiphanies you have had. They may label them differently but many here could describe the same thing and tell you how instead of drawing them to church, it drew them to become athiest or agnostic and deeply in touch with humanity. And in all honesty I have found much more that I had no idea I was missing by hanging with these folks than feeling I have something they are missing.

 

 

sojourner

 

Thanks also for this summary of what you have been learning here. It helps me better understand you and I like when I can understand people. Thanks.

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TBH, and I'm happy to admit cultural difference here, but it's nothing I've not heard from RCC's in the Uk since I was a nipper... Church needs good people to shake it up... yadda yadda... and nothing happens...

 

 

It's a long time since I was a nipper and you still hear the same litany, so either they're not getting good people, or the horse is too damned ill to get on its feet...

This is actually where I wanted to see the conversation go, in one part of it. It has to do with the nature of Bureaucracy!! The people on the street, who are the feet of the machine are the ones touching reality around them and know the work that needs to be done. But way up, far up, in some bureaucrats office next to another bureaucrats office is a wholly separate reality! A reality of politics and culture of its own. Now keep going up further into the bureaucratic hierarchy. especially in the RCC, and you have this entity riding atop this lumbering beast that spans countries and cultures the world over, and long histories of traditions and practices, trying to move and adjust as a massive corporate entity in response to the voices down, way, way, way down there on the ground who talk directly to people on the streets, understanding through direct interaction with them. :phew:

 

It's a conundrum. The whole thing is a conundrum. As a massive organization, it can be effective in enacting changes, yet as a massive organization it is difficult for it to be able respond dynamically and fluidly. This brings us to Protestants! Like the little upstart, entrepreneurial enterprises in the business world, they fill the niche markets where holes are left exposed because the large corporation was unable to get their product to market in time to rapidly changing demands in a highly dynamic marketplace! What defines the Protestant is something different than what Mother Church offers. They're market niches is YOU! It's YOU and YOUR salvation! It's about the direct, and personal relationship with God! No longer do we work through the system, we go straight to the throne of God himself!

 

The downside of the Protestant enterprise is that it cannot be as effective on a global market. Instead it splinters and defines itself into many different start-up businesses, each clamoring for a piece of the available market, and all selling the "direct, personal relationship to God" products. Now along comes Fundamentalists!! They take this ME relationship with God, to a whole new level of market spin. It's not only about a direct relationship to God, it's about personal blessings! Talking in tongues, getting off on Jesus! It becomes so self-focused it shifts it's buyers away from society into an almost drug-culture. Yuk! That's what American Evangelical Christianity has become, and what it exports into 3rd world countries, exploiting impoverished countries with failing governments and warlords, promising truth and meaning to their lives! What they need is not Jesus - they need bread and water and stable governments.

 

So now the grand conundrum. I see someone like Jesus as having quite possibly been (or a least the movement that created the icon of Jesus) to be a social/spiritual reformation movement at the ground level, the grass roots level, within the religious bureaucratic system of Judaism, originally looking for reforms within the system (much like our new guest who started this thread is rightly pleading for). As this failed to make the sorts of inroads necessary during that period of history, as it is hard to move lumbering beasts quickly you know, this off-cast internal reform movement finds a niche market, becomes a popular product, then becomes a target for exploitation by another, even larger massive Bureaucracy: The Roman Government! It was the Corporate purchase of a small company, sending in their Mergers and Acquisition teams to assimilate them into the collective, while re-branding themselves in a new market strategy, as it was time for the corporate name to take on a new look and feel. Yet in and amongst the parts that make up new the corporate entity, you have the essences and cultures of the business they've consumed - the Jesus movement of love and charity, being an important part of them.

 

The conundrum is how does one function as a dynamic system to speak to the marketplace of humanity, yet be effective as an entity that can effectively bring the product to market? It can't be resolved in my opinion. So even though I admire the sentiments expressed in the opening post, does the answer really lie in the individual when dealing with a bureaucracy. Has it ever? Did it with Jesus? The RCC is the oldest, longest living bureaucracy in the history of the planet.

 

:phew:

 

OK, I'll leave it there for now. Thoughts?

 

I think it gets solved just as you are saying, but then inevitably re-forms. I think the answer is in the unity of the idea, pieces for, and performance of the action, and also identifying the correct combination of all to achieve the idea....church, government, business, whatever.

 

The lack of dynamic might be too many interruptions between the idea and the ability to act, as in too many heads in the RCC, or in business, middle management, or in government.....and on and on and on......

 

To the contrary, success is wonderful, a good restaurant, a good family, or landing on the moon.

 

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If I was going to go into ANY branch, the Episcopalian would be first choice due to my old friend Fr. Richard...

 

I have a question. It's somewhat off-topic. I'm Canadian as you are well aware. My prof was born American but has been teaching in Canada for twenty years, more or less. He told me that Church of England is Anglican in Canada and Episcopalian in the United States. You're in the UK, what I understand used to be called England, so I assume you're talking about Church of England. But you say Episcopalian. I'm somewhat confused. Are we all talking about the same thing?

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I think it gets solved just as you are saying, but then inevitably re-forms. I think the answer is in the unity of the idea, pieces for, and performance of the action, and also identifying the correct combination of all to achieve the idea....church, government, business, whatever.

 

The lack of dynamic might be too many interruptions between the idea and the ability to act, as in too many heads in the RCC, or in business, middle management, or in government.....and on and on and on......

 

To the contrary, success is wonderful, a good restaurant, a good family, or landing on the moon.

Well, THAT'S about as clear as mud...

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if I treated you better than I treat myself, wouldn't your world be better?

 

I suspect that your concept of "better" does not align with mine.

 

That is the problem with the Christian concept of the golden rule. I don't want you to treat me the way you want to be treated because, frankly, you believe some weird things, and I don't trust the way you might want to treat me.

 

I'd like you to treat me the way that I want to be treated.

 

 

Excellent point, Eric. Oh what wisdom and insight.

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One does not need church or religion or a mythical "christ" archetype to have charity and happiness. One need only have empathy, and that we get naturally.

 

And the RCC has caused suffering around the world for over 1600 years. The time for its dissolution is long overdue.

 

agree and agree and agree - but how else you gonna get people to be nice. the bible says christ came for those who needed him. people already living the way christ asked are already doing God's work.

 

buddhists seem to end on empathy and compassion and charity, but it takes a long freakin time to reach that end. christ says start with charity. i just seems easier to me.

 

You can't make people be "nice". Even if you could a massive organization forcing a lie on people is hardly a good step in that direction. Stop worrying about the whole rest of the world and how you can "bring them up to speed on morality", fix yourself and only yourself. Thats all you can do, charity, love, kindness in a real and internally motivated way don't just happen, and you can't make them happen in someone. You could put on a good show of it, maybe even get some people to adopt it if you force it as culture. But it isn't real, it won't last.

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Give me a break Pip,

What do you see wrong

I didn't see anything wrong, end3, it isn't a question of right or wrong. I just didn't see anything...maybe I'm just a retard, Yes?

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Agreed. And very well said.

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Give me a break Pip,

What do you see wrong

I didn't see anything wrong, end3, it isn't a question of right or wrong. I just didn't see anything...maybe I'm just a retard, Yes?

 

Piprus, it's not you. Maybe it was while you weren't posting. We've been around and around with end3. He's clear a mud everywhich way you look at him.

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Pip,

 

His analogy talks about small business filling the gaps for what big business is unable to achieve because they are too large. i.e. to many middlemen etc. The same thing happens in many types.....church, government, etc. And I would assume the cycle repeats itself. Just trying to point out when it does work, it is dynamic.

 

And he is saying there is no way to maintain the dynamic.

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Pip,

 

His analogy talks about small business filling the gaps for what big business is unable to achieve because they are too large. i.e. to many middlemen etc. The same thing happens in many types.....church, government, etc. And I would assume the cycle repeats itself. Just trying to point out when it does work, it is dynamic.

 

And he is saying there is no way to maintain the dynamic.

Thank you end3, I was clear enough on AM's post, I just didn't tune in to your response. The issue of the monolithic and oft-times immovable bureaucracy is well known to many of us in the US. When it works, it's usually because a little human being in there somewhere has become human again instead of a hive-dweller or cubicle-farmer.

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The world is better when you seek happiness as instructed in the Catechism. Happiness is the hole puposely left which needs filling. It can only be filled by seeking out God. You can become closer to God only through Charity. Charity is defined as loving one another the way Christ loved us. That means loving each other more than yourself or at least attempting to.

 

Actually this is explained by Erikson in normal psychological development.

 

note the lack of god*

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Does anyone feel like the Lion's Den is like a bar, and the christians coming in here are sleezy pick up artists trying to use new, innovative pick up lines? It is just an odd thought that crossed my mind when I laid eyes on this thread again. It is like, hmmm what new angle can I use on these ex-christians to lure them back into a church pew.

 

 

You'll notice that their comments change but never evolve.

 

The narrow mind is far too tunnel visioned to catch a critical thinker, much less a skeptic.

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If I was going to go into ANY branch, the Episcopalian would be first choice due to my old friend Fr. Richard...

 

I have a question. It's somewhat off-topic. I'm Canadian as you are well aware. My prof was born American but has been teaching in Canada for twenty years, more or less. He told me that Church of England is Anglican in Canada and Episcopalian in the United States. You're in the UK, what I understand used to be called England, so I assume you're talking about Church of England. But you say Episcopalian. I'm somewhat confused. Are we all talking about the same thing?

 

It's the Anglican Communion is CofE to me but, since I'm dealing with mad foreigners and colonials I referred to it as Episcopalian. and the bit I still live in is called England... the United Kingdom comprises three semi-autonomous countries - England, Wales and Scotland (the latter having more autonomy from HM Govt than Wales) and the Province of Northern Ireland (which is something of a bone of contention, since we've just stopped killing each other over who is should belong to, following some pretty nasty stuff involving Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange) The Church of England is the 'state religion' of England. Church of Wales, which is a complete subsidiary of the CofE, is the State Religion of Wales. In Scotland, Anglican Communion is called Episcopalian and is the Church of Scotland, and it seems to be called Episcopalian in some of the current and past members of the British Commonwealth, and the USA, although Canada and Pan-African call it 'Anglican'

 

Effectively the Anglican Communion is an offshoot of the RCC, but does not recognise the Pope as more than another Archbishop, and is broadly a 'Catholic' Protestant movement, since Henry VIII was rebelling against the interference of the Papal throne in the running of state...

 

Currently there is a schism in the Anglican communion over the installation of an openly gay Bishop by the US Episcopalian Church, and the Pan African Episcopalian Church are spitting their dummy... This is adding to the strain that was applied by the Communion allowing the ordination of Women.

 

In terms of the Etymology...

 

Any church that has bishops is an episcopalian church. The capitalised Episcopalian Church is the Anglican Communion and can be termed Anglo-Catholicism, as opposed to Roman Catholicism...

 

there you go... clear as mud :)

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Does anyone feel like the Lion's Den is like a bar, and the christians coming in here are sleezy pick up artists trying to use new, innovative pick up lines? It is just an odd thought that crossed my mind when I laid eyes on this thread again. It is like, hmmm what new angle can I use on these ex-christians to lure them back into a church pew.

 

 

Ditto....you just nailed it Madame M....these sleazy Christians are the worst kind because they want to do what is called by the United States Marine Corps, "Mind Fuck"...but only after they have tried to intoxicate you with their sweet words and old doctrine in a repackaged foremat.

 

Yup, and AFTER you get sucked back in it's, "alright maggots! Drop to the floor and give me 50 hail marys RIGHT fuckin now!" in a manner of speaking...

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  • Super Moderator

I feel so violated . . .

 

- Chris

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If I was going to go into ANY branch, the Episcopalian would be first choice due to my old friend Fr. Richard...

 

I have a question. It's somewhat off-topic. I'm Canadian as you are well aware. My prof was born American but has been teaching in Canada for twenty years, more or less. He told me that Church of England is Anglican in Canada and Episcopalian in the United States. You're in the UK, what I understand used to be called England, so I assume you're talking about Church of England. But you say Episcopalian. I'm somewhat confused. Are we all talking about the same thing?

 

It's the Anglican Communion is CofE to me but, since I'm dealing with mad foreigners and colonials I referred to it as Episcopalian. and the bit I still live in is called England... the United Kingdom comprises three semi-autonomous countries - England, Wales and Scotland (the latter having more autonomy from HM Govt than Wales) and the Province of Northern Ireland (which is something of a bone of contention, since we've just stopped killing each other over who is should belong to, following some pretty nasty stuff involving Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange) The Church of England is the 'state religion' of England. Church of Wales, which is a complete subsidiary of the CofE, is the State Religion of Wales. In Scotland, Anglican Communion is called Episcopalian and is the Church of Scotland, and it seems to be called Episcopalian in some of the current and past members of the British Commonwealth, and the USA, although Canada and Pan-African call it 'Anglican'

 

Effectively the Anglican Communion is an offshoot of the RCC, but does not recognise the Pope as more than another Archbishop, and is broadly a 'Catholic' Protestant movement, since Henry VIII was rebelling against the interference of the Papal throne in the running of state...

 

Currently there is a schism in the Anglican communion over the installation of an openly gay Bishop by the US Episcopalian Church, and the Pan African Episcopalian Church are spitting their dummy... This is adding to the strain that was applied by the Communion allowing the ordination of Women.

 

In terms of the Etymology...

 

Any church that has bishops is an episcopalian church. The capitalised Episcopalian Church is the Anglican Communion and can be termed Anglo-Catholicism, as opposed to Roman Catholicism...

 

there you go... clear as mud :)

 

Thanks. That is actually very clear. One problem. You say Church of Scotland is the same as Church of England. What, then, is the Presbyterian Church? Here is where I get some of my information. I understood from my professor that Church of Scotland=Presbyterian. And that John Knox was the reformer who ousted the RCC and installed Church of Scotland in the 1500s under James who became the King James of the KJV Bible. Does this not agree with the archives on your side of the ocean?

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I was wrong... CoS is Pres, not Anglican Communion... sorry... it's a bit of a juggling act...

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Thanks.

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