How Do You Do It?

[SleeplessGhost]

I was just wondering how everyone else, after leaving Christianity, found their new religion. I was watching Bill Maher the other night and he made a good point about Glenn Beck turning to Mormonism, that he just traded one delusion for another. I was slightly offended at first but I understood his point: if you accept that one religion is nonsense how could you go to another?

 

In my own case I had researched several religions before beginning my apostasy. I wanted to be able to disprove other religions and find out what about them was so evil, and why people would follow them knowing that they would go to hell. I eventually found a question that I could never find a good answer to, "What if you are wrong and someone else is right?" If I wasn't Muslim I was destined for hell, if they were right. I was destined for Hell by even questioning God (you know, my church). I found that my nightly prayers revolved more around what I had done to sin in the first place, since children are not responsible for their parents' sin. Eventually I found Wicca... and it felt like coming home.

 

I know from my research that Christianity makes no sense based on the bible and the many contradictory teaching it offers. I saw no evidence for faith healing, other than people claiming their back was healed. I never saw god heal an amputee. I have a largely logical portion of my brain that turned on and says that Christianity is a lie. In Wicca I have the same problem. I believe that when I do ritual, read tarot cards, or bless my house that I am really affecting change, even if it is only in my own thought processes. I no longer have the burden of proof I felt I needed as a Christian, because I am not commanded to convert. I am not so witless to witness to people anymore and I don't feel like I need to defend my faith. Mostly, it just feels right. I no longer fear a vengeful god, I do not feel the fear I felt when I worshiped, I feel empowered when I do ritual and peaceful when I meditate.

 

So. How do you separate your criticisms of Christianity from your own religion?

[Guest Valk0010]

I don't, I would say I am spiritual, but not religious. I would I guess be quasipantheistic.

[lunaticheathen]

I never viewed myth as rational fact. I honestly admit to believing things that are most decidedly NOT rational, but what on earth is so wrong with that? Like you stated, there's no need to defend your beliefs when you aren't brow-beating others into believing what you do.

Maybe it's easier for me because I left christianity because I found out Abraham's god is a total fucking dick. I couldn't worship a being I didn't like or respect. I think that's far and away enough of a reason to walk away from christianity - I have "rational" reasons too, but they came later, and I really don't need them. YHWH can appear to me tonight, and I'd bitch him out for being a complete bastard, and not stopping me from attempting suicide on his fucking behalf.

[Deva]

So. How do you separate your criticisms of Christianity from your own religion?

 

It isn't always easy. Superficially there are many things in Buddhism that are similar to Christianity. I simply remind myself that it is not fundamentally about the same subject. I enjoy some ritual in my life. I like the chanting and the mantras. I like many things about Buddhism, especially the emphasis on compassion and joy. I don't want to lose the positive motivation and the beauty that my spiritual practice brings to my life.

[florduh]

It's kind of funny. My former pastor began his religious life as a Jehova's Witness. The more he studied, the more he came to think the religion was deeply flawed and made no logical sense. JWs just weren't "rational" so he turned to mainstream Christianity (a Baptist-like sect) and is somehow able to accept it as a perfectly rational and correct belief system. Go figure.

 

Anyway, cognitive dissonance is the answer to your question.

[Objet_trouve24]

It's a lot easier when your gods represent concepts, like love and wisdom, or represent nature, like the sun and moon. I know those things are real, and have no problem believing in them.

 

I don't believe they exist as actual person type gods, like the god of the bible, but if they did, I wouldn't mind. It's interesting to think about. I have some belief that love and wisdom can take material form, visions and such...but I don't know. It's not really that important to me. More important to live life well, and for my religion to comfort me and help me understand and deal with life.

 

I certainly don't fear them any more than I would fear another human or regard them as higher than me, I regard them as helpful friends, addressing them as "kindred" (brothers and sisters).

 

I love that scene in Conan where he prays "and if you do not listen, then to hell with you!"

[DesertBob]

It's a lot easier when your gods represent concepts, like love and wisdom, or represent nature, like the sun and moon. I know those things are real, and have no problem believing in them.

I think you're on to something fundamental there. Many people honor something they call "the divine" in their lives, but they do not project it onto anything, such as a mythical figure, they just try to honor the principle. Or if they conceptualize a being, it is more of an archetype to them, not someone they literally believe exists outside themselves as an independent actor.

 

This gets into the whole concept of "worship". What is worship, exactly, and why do some people have an intense need to do it? I like Carl Jung's insight here. He would say that within each of us is our personal "gold", which, when we discover it, rather than accept that it's part of us and honoring it as such, tend to perceive it as something outside ourselves to be venerated and supplicated. If you are, unlike me, so constructed that you are in relatively close contact with your unconscious, you might experience the divine within you at times through dreams or even waking visions and take that symbolic imagery literally and project your "gold" upon it. You can have some pretty ecstatic (or, by turns, terrifying) experiences and you can spin a mythology around it.

 

Christians, and more generally Westerners, are all about doing rather than being; they are out of balance. They deny their inner life and project it out onto various things. These external things, be they mythical beings, the almighty dollar, or what have you -- become our objects of worship. Fundamentalist Christians have a particularly strong need for certainty, so they have a very detailed and specific dogma and conceptualization that they follow, but other than that twist, I'm not sure Christian faith is that different from any other faith system. It's a denial of the inner world and projecting it on the outer.

[Objet_trouve24]

Anyway, cognitive dissonance is the answer to your question.

 

 

Thanks for the stereotype.

[DayLight]

I was just wondering how everyone else, after leaving Christianity, found their new religion. I was watching Bill Maher the other night and he made a good point about Glenn Beck turning to Mormonism, that he just traded one delusion for another. I was slightly offended at first but I understood his point: if you accept that one religion is nonsense how could you go to another?

 

In my own case I had researched several religions before beginning my apostasy. I wanted to be able to disprove other religions and find out what about them was so evil, and why people would follow them knowing that they would go to hell. I eventually found a question that I could never find a good answer to, "What if you are wrong and someone else is right?" If I wasn't Muslim I was destined for hell, if they were right. I was destined for Hell by even questioning God (you know, my church). I found that my nightly prayers revolved more around what I had done to sin in the first place, since children are not responsible for their parents' sin. Eventually I found Wicca... and it felt like coming home.

 

I know from my research that Christianity makes no sense based on the bible and the many contradictory teaching it offers. I saw no evidence for faith healing, other than people claiming their back was healed. I never saw god heal an amputee. I have a largely logical portion of my brain that turned on and says that Christianity is a lie. In Wicca I have the same problem. I believe that when I do ritual, read tarot cards, or bless my house that I am really affecting change, even if it is only in my own thought processes. I no longer have the burden of proof I felt I needed as a Christian, because I am not commanded to convert. I am not so witless to witness to people anymore and I don't feel like I need to defend my faith. Mostly, it just feels right. I no longer fear a vengeful god, I do not feel the fear I felt when I worshiped, I feel empowered when I do ritual and peaceful when I meditate.

 

So. How do you separate your criticisms of Christianity from your own religion?

 

Just because something one used to believe in happened to be false, doesn't mean that everything else is false. Just because there are many false roads, doesn't mean that there isn't one true one. This is just a fact of life.

 

But regarding leaving Christianity, I didn't leave Christianity on my own. I was blind to the fact that it had problems. But when "god" started talking to me, He has opened my eyes and showed me. I learned that God is above religions, that He is a Being outside of our universe (although with us also), but which does not require worship or a belief in as a "god". He is more like a character from a science fiction movie, rathen than a religious figure. His image is quite different from the one portrayed in religions. He doesn't sit on the throne and require his subjects to worship him. And besides, he is not he, it's "they". They want to reach us, communicate with us. They want to help us and guide us (because they are much wiser and smarter than us). They have been involved in our lives and that's why there are so many stories of people getting miraculous help.

 

Some say that I am creating my own (new) religion. I like to think of it as - me leaving religions altogether. Although I still have to believe some things without proof, but mostly their teachings are more on the scientific side of things rather than "religious" kind. They are not giving me a bunch of rules to follow. They are simply opening my eyes and trying to show me things about life from a scientific point of view (and mathemathical point of view.) They called themselves: scientists and explorers. They are just beings. Highly evolved for sure. But not the god of christianity who knows all and can do all forever more and always.

 

I would say they are pretty smart if they were able to create us. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they found us. Maybe life itself created us. I have to admit, I am kind of confused on this one. So I won't say it either way for sure.

[Rev R]

I find that it's pretty simple.

 

"Absorb what is useful and discard the rest."

 

If there is an idea, belief or practice within a religious framework that doesn't jibe with science or your own experience cut it and see if the frame work still stands. A useful religion or spirituality will remain solid, a non-useful one will crumble.

[florduh]

"Absorb what is useful and discard the rest."

Ah, the key to all of life. Rev R, woot woot woot!

[Rev R]

"Absorb what is useful and discard the rest."

Ah, the key to all of life. Rev R, woot woot woot!

 

Let's not start throwing flowers at my feet just yet.

[lunaticheathen]

I find that it's pretty simple.

 

"Absorb what is useful and discard the rest."

 

If there is an idea, belief or practice within a religious framework that doesn't jibe with science or your own experience cut it and see if the frame work still stands. A useful religion or spirituality will remain solid, a non-useful one will crumble.

 

This is what I wanted to say all along! Thanks.

 

And just because something I believe doesn't make sense to someone "more rational," doesn't mean I suffer from cognitive dissonance. And saying so is a nice way of calling us stupid. So cut it out.

[Voice]

Your first question yields an answer that is not congruent with your second question.

 

Upon leaving christianity, I stepped out of religions completely. I embraced no religion. Joseph Campbell wrote some books on myths which helped me do that, as he writes from a perspective outside of religions, or this is what I perceived.

As christian mindfucks broke down and faded away one by one (this took many years), I found myself no longer judgmental of anyone for their beliefs, which was a step up socially. Several steps up.

 

So having no religion now, I'm open to ideas of all kinds, and am also in a position to be objectively observant of people's behaviors associated with religions. I like much of what Wicca represents. many of its models reflect real phenomenon and offer insights into realities underlying our existence. I really like the deep respect Wicca supports for the Earth, for us, for animals and plants, and the cosmos. I like that Wicca intersects ancient beliefs in the Tree of Life, one of the oldest and most accurate belief models embraced by humans which resonates deep within many of our belief systems today.

I'm also in a position to do exactly as Rev R stated so well. In so doing, many doors have opened to me intellectually and spiritually, which would never have been opened within the parameters of any one religion.

[Phanta]

I'm going to jump on the Rodney bandwagon: "Absorb what is useful and discard the rest."

 

I don't really have religion, though...so.

 

People who stick with a religion usually don't have significant cognitive dissonance around inconsistencies. Human beings are full of contradictions and most of them don't bother us. It's the contradictions that really strike a chord in us that create cognitive dissonance, not the contradiction on it's own.

 

If everyone felt cognitive dissonance every time they were self-contradictory, not one of us would be functional.

 

Phanta

[The Seeker]

I think in everyone -or most of us, a little religion is left even after leaving Christianity or any other religion. I also think even the most atheist one has irrational mini-beliefs throughout his average day. That being said, what I do is I try not to believe in anything irrational when it comes to the Big Picture (is there a God? How is he like? Where does life come from? Is there an Afterlife?) That doesn't prevent me from having some POV answers for those questions, but I recognize them as equually irrational as anything else that is already out there, messing up with millions of human minds. And I also acknowledge that I really don't know.

[L.B.]

How do I balance rationality with religion?

 

Well, I'm not an adherent to any particular religion per se,

but I love science fiction, I love great artwork, and I'm

a total Indian food addict.

 

That said, I read the Bhagavad-Gita and take the spiritual

principles out of it and then just sit back and enjoy the

visuals in my mind of gods, monsters, heroes and especially

Lord Krishna himself. What an awesome deity he is.

 

Otherwise, yeah, what Rev said.

 

The useful stuff stays useful. The rest is shit and can

be called such if there is no rational reason to believe it

outside of just liking the stories.