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Goodbye Jesus

Did You Feel Guilt?


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I remember when I first got "saved" as a teen on a manipulative camp. The reason I did it was to be accepted by family and friends, but I tried to kid myself that it was for real feelings of God and "needing to be saved" and that all the fuzzy feelings I was getting were God telling me it was right. But, the one thing that always held me back was that I couldn't create the guilt and shame I was supposed to feel about "my old life". I knew I was supposed to be ashamed and feel I needed to change, but when I looked back on my life, I just saw it as me trying to survive for most of it. I'm not saying I'm perfect, It's just I was always surrounded by family I disliked, I hated the people at school I upset, so I thought everybody I'd ever been sneaky too deserved it. I tried to fixate on one incident around 2 years before, sleeping with a girl as an older teen when drunk then hurting her feelings by not wanting to see her again afterward. The stupid thing was a month after that she was dating my best friend and hugged me and said it was ok. And she was almost married by the time I was "saved", but I fixated on the incident because I needed something to feel guilty about because I knew I had to feel shamed by my old life to be a Christian, and I went on about it to the youth pastor "I didn't like the way my life was going back then so I knew I needed to change". When in reality the only thing i didnt like back then was that i wasnt getting laid enough or with people i liked and when my teen friends moved on and I was lonely I gave up and went to church to be accepted into family.

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I was indoctrinated into the nonsense at the ripe old age of 8. Now, I've met a few people who were smart enough to see through the fairy tale at that age, but I was not one of them.

 

As a result of being gullible, naive, and having a desperate tendency to want to please, I was horrified that the things I did "hurt God's feelings", and I was relieved that there was a way for me to make him happy. And I also totally believed that it was amazing that he loved a wretched creature such as myself.

 

Looking back on this makes me so angry I cannot see straight, primarily because when I see a cute little 8-year-old, the last thing I want to do is make them feel like complete and utter garbage.

 

So yeah - I had the guilt. Be glad you didn't. :)

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Now I come to think of it, I did feel constant guilt for things I did as a Christian, like not telling cool friends I was "saved", and not feeling belief. It was trying to work up "shame for my old life" that was a stumble for me.

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Now I come to think of it, I did feel constant guilt for things I did as a Christian, like not telling cool friends I was "saved", and not feeling belief. It was trying to work up "shame for my old life" that was a stumble for me.

 

I've never thought about it before, but this is exactly what I was like. I used to find myself really struggling to consider myself 'saved' from an old sinful life and living a 'new life in jesus' as they called it. I would often find myself thinking - but I really am/was not that bad and would find it hard to feel the way I thought I should. Similar at tent mission type meetings or when at camps etc. I'd find myself searching for things that I could 'repent' for so that I'd get those 'forgiven' feelings. The irony being that at the same time I'd go through horrendous periods, sometimes a good few months on end, feeling like I was this awful, sinful person, nothing about me was good enough for god or for the church and I felt guilty purely for existing and 'being' me. It's such a bizarre thing to put people through. I had both this arrogant superiority complex where I felt like I was this 'moral' being who could do 'anything in the name of jesus' and yet also felt utterly worthless and guilt ridden for normal urges. It practically encouraged paranoia and delusions of grandeur...

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giult in christianity is one of the mechanics that make the religion work. giult its self is when you do somthing that comes in conflict with the mental manifestation called the christian god who is given and constructed through the emotional influences from their freinds, pastors or parents. most people dont relize how deep christianity will reach into your brain and it will destort yuor entire inturpretation of reality so when you do somthing that goes agiasnt the ideals of your select christianity you are "sining". all people ultimatly have difrent inturpritations of their own god base don the tiney minute difrences from the influences in their life for example some mormons belive in polygomy but some do not and those that do not feel giult is they did polygomy. another example is the amish. the amish belive that anything post industrial revolution is a sin and so they cut them selves off from time and live in a prepetual state of frozen progress, those who leave the amish way of life are presumed to deserve hell.

 

there is nothing supernatural about giult, its simply when other experinces or influences conflict with the ideals of christianity imbeded in your psych.

 

when it comes to morals themselves though (witch is a whole nother can of worms) they are biult from our biology and the civilization we create and are mixed with religions themselves. so when you give up religion you arnt giving up your morals for those are defined by greater things that religion its self like so many belive for difrent reasons.

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I felt incessant guilt over things like pornography and masturbation from like 11 years old. I'd lay in bed at night and worry about how terrible I was, and how I wasn't keeping myself pure.

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I felt incessant guilt over things like pornography and masturbation from like 11 years old. I'd lay in bed at night and worry about how terrible I was, and how I wasn't keeping myself pure.

 

about 50% percent of yuor brains activity is actualy created by the testostrone in your body and so when you masturbate your brain becomes slugish and slow. becuase christianity is so obssed with "sexual sins" the general idea is created that if your masturbating you are sinning so when you feel that decrease in brain power it is inturpreted as some "super giult" amoung christians and it makes them hate themselves when they look at porn or what ever.

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I have a natural tendency to feel guilty for breathing. 36 years in church put my guilt into hyperdrive and melted my brain. It's no way to live.

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I feel damn lucky in that christianity seems to have burnt out any guilt function that my psyche once had. I rarely feel any guilt over any thing. I kinda remember what it was like- back when I was a kid (deconverted at age 13). But I just don't get that feeling anymore.

 

My wife on the other hand... she's like you, Galien. Her every thought and emotion seems to be somehow tied up in guilt. She didn't get that from christianity so much as her dad.

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Without guilt, there can be no religion.

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I felt much guiltier after getting saved than I ever did before that. But before I got saved, I was never exposed to preaching like I was afterward. Before I got saved, I partied a lot and felt little guilt. Some, but not tons. After I got into the church I felt guilty for everything.

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Without guilt, there can be no religion.

This is QFT.

 

I have just bowed out of a never ending circular debate where I pointed out the entire theme of the babble is based upon the simple premise of

 

SEX IS BAD or NEKKID IS BAD.

 

The xian god is the gawd of the genitals not the gentiles (or was that a typo in the babble?)

 

The xian god is really very interested in who we are fucking and how and when. Maybe with all the internet porn is the reason he is noticeably absent these days?

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Oddly, I never felt guilt. I think that my particular subgroup in evangelicalism (Bible Church / IFCA) was not of the hellfire-and-brimstone persuasion, and had a fairly manageable set of "rules" that I didn't have any issues complying with -- basically, "don't drink, don't chew, don't go with girls that do" kinda stuff. Similarly I was no kind of grief to my parents, who just wanted me to get acceptable grades and stay out of "trouble". Being a geek and having totally harmless interests, that was not a problem for me.

 

I had some secret fantasies as a teen about certain young ladies, I suppose, but considered that an annoying fly to swat and would never have acted on it. In retrospect, I should have, but at the time, the fact that I didn't seriously flirt with "fornication" was enough to keep my conscience happy.

 

I never considered how much harder a time some of my fellow believers in more strident denominations (and / or with more vulnerability to guilt feelings) were having. I did note that some of my fellow IFCA-ers were conflicted about various things: sexual temptation (if they had opportunity and/or a more insistent sex drive, of which I basically had neither), failure to pray / study / read the Bible earnestly enough (I always felt like I was plenty earnest enough and didn't have to drum up some fake earnestness, thanks very much, even though in truth I spent as little time as possible in such pursuits as I understood them on some level to be pointless exercises), and maybe at times, people felt guilty for a general lack of zeal (which didn't bother me because I have always lacked even a legitimate sense of wonder and didn't see why that was such a big deal).

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