My New Thoughts On God & My Former Isolation

[ThunderPooch]

I am a struggling deconverter from the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Sect aka Brainwashing Cult.

 

However, i am currently a deist and logically every seems pretty wonderful. although subconsciously i struggle immensely...suicidal at times. the reason is when stuff is pumped into your head at an early age it is near impossible to get rid of. cognitively before the age of 5 is critical for learning. that is why language sticks like super glue when learned in these years as apposed to trying to learn it later. that is why RELIGION SHOULD BE BANNED FROM BEING TAUGHT TO CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OLD. it should be a crime. brainwashing is made possible during these formative years. it's the same reason radical muslims almost can't help believing they need to kill infidels.

 

Anyhoo, I have mostly been a loner in life due primarily to my religion. I have projected the idea of a rejecting, vengeful god onto other people. my mother used to tell me that my friends were going to hell. slowly i became unable to be friends with anybody or love anybody. after all, if god looks at some people as nothing more than fire wood how can i invest my time and love others. i also felt as though other people would reject me. after all, they are evil, and i am no good, and if i'm not just the right way they will reject me. i was taught that god would reject all those who didn't believe. i subconsciously projected that rejecting nature onto others. i also projected the idea of having to "believe the right way" onto other criteria to be accepted by others. i still feel as though i need to be smarter, richer, better, happier, better looking, etc, to be accepted and loved by others. i pretty much believe no one can accept me if i don't "do it the right way." i am so damn lonely it hurts to no end. thanks religion.

 

i just wanted to be loved and love others, but it all got screwed up.

 

the meaning of life is to find meaning for yourself and a truth you can live by. also death is not a curse that leads to more death because of sin, but it reveals god's mercy. death is a blessing on two accounts. it gives urgency to our lives because we don't have an infinite amount of tomorrows. it also gives a reprieve for those who are suffering. god was compassionate enough to let those suffering eventually die. god simply can't stand to see someone suffer too long. that is why an eternal hell is improbable. nature reveals god's nature. the more you look the more you realize god is pretty wise and much better than Mr Bible God aka Supreme DoucheBag.

 

god gives us responsibilityto make this world pleasurable or cruel. and after we die may we be blessed to rise again on this earth or another and once again take notice of god's creation. after we die i think we may get a chance to see god and he will reveal what he wanted us to learn. that is my hope anyway. poor hitler will have to take a lot of night classes. course #1 will be: Why compassion is better than genocide. haha course #2: Why people like you (Hilter) allow some people to be greatful of the good life.

 

i am slowly learning the lessons i need to, but boy is it hard when you are brainwashed. SPIRITUAL ABUSE SHOULD BE A CRIME- so not joking.

 

God bless all compassionate athiests, agnostics, and deists who knew deep down in their gut that something was so immoral about Mr Bible God that you had the courage to walk away. Might shall not make right. And self preservation and fear are not worthy motives. Christians truly do the heavy lifting each and everyday. they do and believe what they know is immoral just so they can avoid Hell. shame on them for not having the courage to do what is right.

 

from one sad, broken former believer who is slowly turning things around. i want god to help me, but i know now that how he helps is through others. i refuse to go it alone any longer. i have to be there for myself and have the courage to let others help me when i abandon myself.

 

if just one person gets some solace or can identify with this i will be very pleased.

[Horsey_Girl]

Many poison dart frogs secrete lipophilic alkaloid toxins through their skin. Alkaloids in the skin glands of poison frogs serve as a chemical defence against predation, and they are therefore able to be active alongside potential predators during the day. About 28 structural classes of alkaloids are known in poison frogs.^[3][16] The most toxic of poison-dart frog species is Phyllobates terribilis. It is argued that dart frogs do not synthesize their poisons, but sequester the chemicals from arthropod prey items, such as ants, centipedes and mites. This is known as the dietary hypothesis.^[17] Because of this, captive-bred animals do not contain significant levels of toxins. Despite the toxins used by some poison dart frogs, there are some predators that have developed the ability to withstand them, including the Amazon ground snake (Liophis epinephelus).^[18]

 

Chemicals extracted from the skin of Epipedobates tricolor may be shown to have medicinal value.^[19] One such chemical is a painkiller 200 times as potent as morphine, called epibatidine, that has unfortunately demonstrated unacceptable gastrointestinal side effects in humans.^[20] Secretions from dendrobatids are also showing promise as muscle relaxants, heart stimulants and appetite suppressants.^[21] The most poisonous of these frogs, the Golden Poison Frog (Phyllobates terribilis), has enough toxin on average to kill ten to twenty men or about ten thousand mice.^[22] Most other dendrobatids, while colorful and toxic enough to discourage predation, pose far less risk to humans or other large animals.

 

 

[Deva]

from one sad, broken former believer who is slowly turning things around. i want god to help me, but i know now that how he helps is through others. i refuse to go it alone any longer. i have to be there for myself and have the courage to let others help me when i abandon myself.

 

if just one person gets some solace or can identify with this i will be very pleased.

 

Yes, I relate to many things you have said. I came out of a very serious belief in Christianity. I was raised Fundamentalist Baptist. I tried for many years to make it work. I don't consider myself an atheist or a deist, but its certainly OK if you are a deist or an atheist. That is great.

 

I agree that "god helps through others" and I will also say anything, animal, plant or human, anything at all, can be a help. Help is all around. I wish you the best on your journey. We are all here for you.

[Antlerman]

from one sad, broken former believer who is slowly turning things around. i want god to help me, but i know now that how he helps is through others. i refuse to go it alone any longer. i have to be there for myself and have the courage to let others help me when i abandon myself.

 

if just one person gets some solace or can identify with this i will be very pleased.

I understand this. I think the difficulty for me in believing that I would be saved from outside myself was that it was not what needed to happen for me, which was to become stronger in myself, and though that to become more than myself. We first have to heal inside, then as we become whole and fulfilled, it will flow out naturally to others. There is no need for some authoritarian to preach dictates at you. If it doesn't come from within, then it is false and not of love.

 

Love yourself, and through that you will find love for others. There is no judgment on you.

[flockoff]

Here's one major problem with your story ...

 

It doesn't account for the multitudes of people who were indoctrinated into religion but didn't have the same reaction to it or the same problems. Many people who were brought up into religion had healthy social lives and didn't shun others because they thought they were hellbound. Some people took the opposite route and made friends with many people hoping to convert them to Christianity so they wouldn't go to hell. So it comes off like you're blaming religion for things it can't be proven directly responsible for. Christians are going to allege that you're just mad at your mom and you shouldn't be blaming God. And whether this god is real or not, it's a reasonable thing to question.

 

Your mom telling you your friends were going to hell and you should stay away from them for it tells me she had a greater influence on your being a loner than religion itself. I was a loner too and my earlier memories of what may have caused it was my grandmother banning two of my friends from her house because we made a fort out of her sofa cushions in the living room or some silly thing. She probably didn't mean it, but the point is it had nothing to do with religion. It sounds like your mom never opened a bible, so your story would fall on deaf ears for those who did.

 

I'm not saying you don't have legitimate grievances. Religion can be used a handy tool to conrtol people and it does ruin their persepective on the world if they never find a way out of it. But there's people who become Christians as adults, and then complain that they screwed their lives up because they didn't find Jesus when they were children, and then some of them teach Sunday school or parochial school so they can give kids the indoctrination they thought would've helped them. How does anyone know that you wouldn't have been one those people if you had the childhood you wanted?

 

I don't agree that it should be illegal to teach kids about religion. Even Richard Dawkins says that kids should be taught about religion, in the sense that it's an important part of society and kids shouldn't be kept ignorant of what beliefs are out there. I would encourage children to think critically and rationally of what ideas to accept instead of locking them away from religion or deism or anything else. But I absolutely could not condone a police state of telling people what to do.

 

What about telling kids about your god? Should telling kids about god as you see him be treated any differently from telling them about religion? Many people would take issue with children being taught to believe in a god regardless of whether there's a hell. Do you think there's really a distinction? Who are you decide for others?

[flockoff]

I hope nothing I said came off as an attack. Really, I can relate to your story, but I just have other ways of looking at it.

[Overcame Faith]

Hi, ThunderPooch.

 

I am sorry you are struggling with your deconversion and other areas in your life, as well. If you have read some number of posts here, you will see that you are not alone and you will also find others who have gone through perhaps some of the near same things you have. Sometimes just knowing that can be helpful to people. I know I found it helpful to read of the travails of likeminded people so I knew I wasn't going crazy or something.

 

Even though our childhood indoctrination can have a profound impact on us, that is not the end of the story. Neither you nor anyone else is truly a prisoner of their past. You are able to rise above the religious indoctrination and see people, not as some sort of vile thing doomed to hell, but as a fellow human being who is connected to you by the very simple fact of their humanity. We are all social creatures and we naturally crave the company, society, and acceptance of others. When we don't get that, we feel lonely. Think of the feeling of loneliness as the hunger you feel in your belly when you haven't eaten for awhile. In the same way the hunger is telling you to eat something, the feeling of loneliness is telling you to go out and connect with other people.

 

Try making connections with people without judging them or judging yourself. Just accept them for who they are and, most importantly, accept yourself. You really don't have to be "smarter, richer, better, happier, better looking, etc, to be accepted and loved by others." To be accepted by others, you simply have to accept them.

[ThunderPooch]

flockoff, i agree with your points. however, i also believe that any god or any person who believes in eternal punishment is not capable of true love. punishment is one thing. eternal punishment is simply torture. oh and my mother is a super duper christian. she reads her bible all the damn time, takes notes, attends seminars etc. she is a true fundy, not a picker and chooser. she even believes the immoral old testament twaddle.

 

i am fine with others. i accept others to no end, but i can't accept myself. i still fear people just won't understand me or have the time of day for me if they really knew me. yes i have other issues beyond religion, but it was religion that didn't allow me to address them in a healthy manner.

 

trying to save people from eternal torture is not a sane or ethical approach to life. flockoff you come across as a well-reasoned dolt just like my mother, all head and no heart. i could have made the same critiques of my post with the limited information i gave, but i didn't feel like writing a thesis to clear up nuances. i am not a straw man; so please don't rebuttal like i am.

 

sry, but your post struck me as naive. and yes the dolt comment was way below the belt, but i couldn't resist. please allow me that one injustice.

 

i thought this was for ex-christians who had struggles? christianity in my opinion is all about fear under the guise of love. it is a sick web of achieving love through shame. i hate it with a passion. just my opinion.

[flockoff]

Yikes ...

 

Um, well first of all I've never come across the term "well reasoned dolt" before, much less been called one ... is it like being a rational idiot? an educated dumbass? I'm okay with it, if for no other reason I don't think you know you're saying.

 

If you're comparing me to your mother (you do understand I'm an atheist, right?) by saying I'm too bookish and caught up in theology to see the total sickness of Christianity and why we should have no tolerance for it, I have to tell you that what initially compelled me to deconvert was that a very close friend had converted to Calvinism, and seemingly on a whim just started believing god sent people to hell for reasons they had no say in. I realized from that that the idea of hell was both irrational and heartless to begin with.

 

But the fact that Christians fail to see this is not a reflection on their capacity for love. Love is a simple and conscious choice one makes to seek what is best for someone without wanting something in return. Belief in hell doesn't negate that because for one thing most Christians don't spend their time thinking about it or see other people as "firewood." There are other, more altruistic reasons for their good behavior than fear. You can deny it, but it really looks like you're just projecting the way you used to be on other people.

 

Your mom is not an example of a typical Christian. Not even close. And because the bible is rife with contradictions, it is impossible not to be a "picker and chooser." If she reads it, she obviously for some reason threw out all that stuff in the New Testament about not judging others.

 

You are the one who wants to criminalize religious indoctrination of children, as if that's a workable or even ethical idea. Calling me naive after saying that is, well, exceptionally naive on your part.

 

My original post was to offer constructive criticism the same way I'd want someone to offer it to me if they thought it would help. I tried to amend my tone with the second post, but ... well, I don't know what to say now, except that this has gone outside of what this section of the board is for, so I'm willing to stop, if you are.

[Phanta]

Much wisdom can be gained in this situation from Horsey Girl's metaphor of the poisonous frog. We would all do well to take in those words of wisdom and ask ourselves, "What is the source of lipophilic alkaloid toxin in my life? Am I the very Frog that Secretes, or is there, indeed, an external Source?"

 

Favorite post ever. Layers of meaning. Beautiful... I daresay, if the community will allow, even Biblical.

 

P