Why Are You So Angry?

[Randi]

So I get a lot of questions from my former church-friends asking me why I'm so hostile toward Christianity and Christians. I'm not necessarily angry at Christians, but I'm definitely angry toward Christianity. Most of it has to do with being taught some really harful horseshit about my sex, my own body, and my own genetic disorder I was born with. They're all intertwined. Obviously, that's super fucking personal and I'm not going to rattle off to some churchy guy or gal about it, so I have a bit of trouble answering the question. I'm angry for a whole host of reasons, but I have a hard time articulating them. I'm currently in the process of writing a blog post about my anger, so I'm curious... what makes you angry about Christianity?

[freeasabird]

I don't like calling it anger, only because the Christ-tards will mistake it for my heart being hardened but here goes:

 

I'm angry because looking back I can spot things past ministers said - that upon reflection with clarity - I'm now pretty sure they never believed themselves yet continued to spew the lies.

I'm angry because my parents should have read the bible, found it to be lacking, and stoped the cycle of religious bullshit being passed down. But they never did.

I'm angry because religion poisoned my morals, which I now have to remake as an adult.

I'm angry because religion is intollerant of everything not of itself. Therefore I must hide my lack of belief or face possible negative consequences in relationships, both personal and professional.

 

 

 

[BrotherJosh]

I would say I am less angry and more dismissive, which they often mistake as anger. I see no more need in discussing the viability of a benevolent bearded sky daddy than I do in discussing the size of Santa's boots. That being said that is how I relate to friends and family when it comes to Christianity. However, in general I do have a certain amount of anger towards it as a whole in that it impedes and infringes on the rights of others (women, LGBT etc...) sticks it's nose into politics (Rick Perry, Bachmann etc...) covers up or advocates child abuse (Catholic Church, hell doctrine) impedes scientific progress (stem cells, creationism) and generally promotes hatred, divisiveness, us vs them attitudes and downright ignorance. It's a belief system stuck in the past furiously trying to drag others back with it.

[AlphaToOmega]

I'm not angry. Just frustrated.

People who look at white paper and call it black then use arguments like, because if you shine green light on it, its is then green so its all in your perspective, just frustrate the shit out of me with their arrogance and self delusion.

[florduh]

I'm disappointed in myself that I let my brain shut down long enough to get drawn in. Whatever Christianity did to me, I allowed it.

 

What I do get angry at is the militant political force that uses the religion to intrude on the rest of us and erase the line between church and state. Christians, please go speak in tongues, pray, sing praises, handle snakes - practice your religion all you like but leave me the fuck alone!

[Margee]

Randi, I am just so angry at the whole god - damned lie I believed all my life.

 

Psalms 91, 1-16 was my favorite. All bullshit now.

 

1Those who live in the shelter of the Most High

 

will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. bullshit

 

2This I declare about the Lord:

 

He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;

 

he is my God, and I trust him. bullshit

 

3For he will rescue you from every trap

 

and protect you from deadly disease. bullshit

 

4He will cover you with his feathers.

 

He will shelter you with his wings.

 

His faithful promises are your armor and protection. bullshit

 

5Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,

 

nor the arrow that flies in the day. bullshit

 

6Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,

 

nor the disaster that strikes at midday. bullshit

 

7Though a thousand fall at your side,

 

though ten thousand are dying around you,

 

these evils will not touch you. big bullshit

 

8Just open your eyes,

 

and see how the wicked are punished. bullshit

 

9If you make the Lord your refuge,

 

if you make the Most High your shelter, bullshit

 

10no evil will conquer you;

 

no plague will come near your home. big bullshit

 

11For he will order his angels

 

to protect you wherever you go. big bullshit

 

12They will hold you up with their hands

 

so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone. bullshit

 

13You will trample upon lions and cobras;

 

you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet! bullshit

 

14The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.

 

I will protect those who trust in my name. big bullshit

 

15When they call on me, I will answer;

 

I will be with them in trouble.

 

I will rescue and honor them. bulllshit

 

16I will reward them with a long life

 

and give them my salvation.” all bullshit

[ScifiChick]

Randi, I am just so angry at the whole god - damned lie I believed all my life.

 

Psalms 91, 1-16 was my favorite. All bullshit now. all bullshit

 

That was one of my favorites too Margee. I used to suffer from night terrors and I would read this Psalm and "stand on it" whatever the fuck that means, and try to fight the night terrors that way. Ironically, the terrors started going away right after I kicked God out of my life.

 

To the OP: I'm angry that I was serving the dark side for so long. I see Christianity as an evil plague that has infected our society and it is so frustrating to see free thinkers and atheists vilified because they don't believe in a fairy tale... yeah, I'm basically frustrated with Christians and angry with the religion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Deva]

Yes, I am still angry. As a child I was made to feel afraid of events that never will happen, such as hell, the rapture, etc..

 

I was made to believe that Jesus loved me, would save me, etc., and had a crappy time anyway..

 

I was sold a bill of goods.

[chosendarkness]

You don't need to explain yourself to those people. Who are you so angry? Because anger is a natural emotional response to abuse. The question you ask them is, 'why aren't you angry'?

[ShackledNoMore]

It's kind of sickening how they use the anger card, too. An ex-christian may not be angry or may be. They may be quite justifiably angry. But to the xian saying "you're just angry" it is proof in their mind that your unbelief is unjustified, explained by your own hostility toward the One True God^TM. It's annoying that they try to use this sort of horse-shit as ammo.

[dichotomy]

You don't need to explain yourself to those people. Who are you so angry? Because anger is a natural emotional response to abuse. The question you ask them is, 'why aren't you angry'?

 

I agree with this.

 

The reason I am angry is because I wasn't *allowed* to be angry when I was a Christian because it was a sin - I've had 20+ years of anger and emotion all spewing out in 2 years. I'm not so angry now, but I was LIVID for at least a year, just thinking about it used to make me boil up inside.

 

Oh and of course Margee's point is true to. I'm angry that I believed a whole heap of dung for the larger part of my life!

[Vigile]

I'm not angry anymore, but I've had more time than most here to process it. I generally have no ill feelings toward xians, unless they are obnoxious, but I do maintain a pretty severe hatred toward their belief system.

[Vigile]

It's kind of sickening how they use the anger card, too. An ex-christian may not be angry or may be. They may be quite justifiably angry. But to the xian saying "you're just angry" it is proof in their mind that your unbelief is unjustified, explained by your own hostility toward the One True God^TM. It's annoying that they try to use this sort of horse-shit as ammo.

 

It actually doesn't bother me that they do this. The fact that they are able to swallow extraordinary claims with the weakest, less than ordinary levels of evidence just tells me they have some sort of logical deficiency, so it's not surprising they would make such an odd leap on this one too.

[Onyx]

I'm moderately angry but at the wrongheaded parts of the Christian doctrine and The Bible. I.E Hell and the tendency to justify bigoted ideas with Scripture. Occasionally I will get pissed off at people like Fred Phelps. What will make Christianity more lovable? If it abandoned these beliefs. It does not matter whether Hell or Satan or God exists or not, if it is genuinely immoral then we must oppose it. If Hell exists, it is immoral and evil. Nothing can justify eternal torture. If we can't justify even American tortures of terrorist suspects, what can justify eternal torture? By extension, Heaven is immoral too. Why? It's just like the dictatorship to live in luxury while the peons starves.

 

Besides, the whole vision of the Judeo-Christian cosmos is extremely limited. Pfft, we only get to visit Hell, Heaven and God himself? That's so claustrophobic. Why? If you stay put in one place for a oh say, forty years, wouldn't you want to see different places? At any rate, I'm glad we only have our Universe and only the limitation of death and technology to hold us. We can think of spaceships without worrying about what lays after death to Gliese and Mars. It may be frustrating, but paradoxically it's millions of times better than being raptured to live in places for eternity never to age, never to grow, never to comprehend the wonder of the whole scheme of things. The universe is vast, stupendous, mysterious! Would you rather say like (to paraphrase Revelation) God, "that we will have no tears, no memory, no pain in Heaven and pain, tears and evil in Hell?" or like Rutner Hauger in Bladerunner, "I've seen things you would not believe... all like tears in rain."? Existence has a poetry and beauty that religion will never ever comprehend. Even if we die, we will see and experience things never to be forgotten and sometimes only for yourself that no other being in the universe will ever fully understand but beautiful nonetheless. It is incredible that in our time, we have lived to see Internet being itself, incredible to think we will travel to any place in cargoes of flying machines in matter of hours, it is incredible to remember that we have medical and scientific feats that were never thought of before like eradicating polio. Our grandchildren will have such experiences but their experience will be not the same as ours. They will witness things so sublime and amazing that our great experiences will seem but like rehearsals for them. We have what we have, but they will travel greater, deeper and wider than us who have done so upon our forebears. So, I decry the whole religious wrongheadedness and embrace Life, yes I will Yes.

[Thought2Much]

Randi, I am just so angry at the whole god - damned lie I believed all my life.

 

Psalms 91, 1-16 was my favorite. All bullshit now.

 

But Margee, don't you see? The Psalmist is speaking of being protected by God spiritually, not physically! While the six day creation account must absolutely be taken as literal without any question, this is just a metaphor for your soul being protected from Hell by God.

[Reprobate]

You are wonderful Margee, I was just think my favorite BULLSHIT buybull verse is Matt. 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

 

What is wrong with being angry? Isn't anger an emotion that keeps us away from harmful people and situations. Yes I am angry at christains. Some are more or less harmless and just victims. I am angry that I gave some good years of my life to a system, and people, that held me back a damaged me emotionaly in many ways. I am now free to be myself, feel the emotions I feel, and stop bullshitting myself.

[chosendarkness]

You don't need to explain yourself to those people. Who are you so angry? Because anger is a natural emotional response to abuse. The question you ask them is, 'why aren't you angry'?

 

I agree with this.

 

The reason I am angry is because I wasn't *allowed* to be angry when I was a Christian because it was a sin - I've had 20+ years of anger and emotion all spewing out in 2 years. I'm not so angry now, but I was LIVID for at least a year, just thinking about it used to make me boil up inside.

 

Oh and of course Margee's point is true to. I'm angry that I believed a whole heap of dung for the larger part of my life!

I've often said I'm mostly angry at myself for being a Christian fundamentalist and related to people from that view -- but I shouldn't be so hard on myself, the truth is I was brainwashed by people who took advantage of my pain and depression.

[oddbird1963]

When I get angry at Christianity, I'm angry because I immersed myself in it whole-hearted and open hearted and only ended up broken hearted because I was so uncritical. I fell for it. For some reason I didn't have the internal resources to declare "bullshit" when bullshit was being served to me on a silver platter .

 

Initially, I swallowed it because I was a socially awkward teenager with low self esteem and it felt good to be considered a "good" person and part of a well-respected social group.

 

But, I was in it long enough to where I should have connected all the dots of irrationality, inconsistency and lack of correspondence to reality. Why didn't I see how I was hurting myself sooner?

 

Then I slap my forehead with my palm, bury my face in one or both hands and try to shake off the anger and grief and move on.

 

I get angry because I have to move on and I don't know how a middle aged man like myself can do it.

[NaturalMary63]

I'm not really in a place of anger anymore, but I can still see it from here. ;-) My main anger was for having been lied to by all of society about so many things.... Xianity, but all the other nonsense, too, eg ghosts, astrology, esp, universal mind, past lives, etc. That I'd bought into the whole kit and kaboodle - not knowing any better - and that people had used all that rubbish to manipulate my feelings and behavior in both overt and covert ways. I'd been duped. And yet I was the 'bad guy' for seeing the truth. I had a 'bad attitude.'

 

Well, ok, I'm bad. But at least I'm no longer blind and ignorant.

[Kaiser01]

im not really angry as much as i am disapointed.

 

im disapointed that christianity made me as a child fear for my life.

im disapointed that christianity forced me to belive all those around me were flawed and beneath me.

im disapointed that christianity kept me from learning real science, real history and the wonders of the universe and evolution. witch i found all on my own.

and im really disapointed i was forced to waste 15 years of my life blind as a bat in a world of imorality.

 

but most of all im disapointed that christianity made me hate myself and hate others.

[Guest Xtech]

Odd. I find so many Christians to be very angry people. Angry about how the rest of the world does not hew to their wacky dogma and belief system; angry that they are persecuted for their martyrhood. Just angry angry angry, especially the men.

[DesertBob]

Randi, I am just so angry at the whole god - damned lie I believed all my life.

 

Psalms 91, 1-16 was my favorite. All bullshit now.

Margee,

 

Yes ... bullshit bullshit BULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHIT.

 

This sort of thing was the main catalyst that finally took me out of the faith. Unambiguous empty promises. There are no "unless" or "except when" clauses in that passage or in many others. What kept me in the faith more than anything else was these warm fuzzy passages that are supposed to comfort you but, beyond a certain point, only wound you, particularly if you've not been lucky enough to have what I'd call a "rationalizable life story arc" that includes an intact family unit / intimate relationships, lack of tragic clusterfucks, successfully minted children with whom you have comfortable, satisfying, respectful adult relationships, etc. In short, if your life goes well and/or you can pretend to yourself and others that it does, you believe it's because you cling to these kinds of promises.

 

Also sometimes I think we're angry at ourselves for being such schmucks, and being reminded of it all the time by having to deal with other church schmucks.

[RankStranger]

I was actively angry off an on for several years- but I was lucky enough to have ditched Jesus as a teenager, so I've had lots of time to deal with christianity and its remnants (though my up-bringing still affects me daily, like anybody else). I'm no longer angry at christians themselves for the most part- really I kinda feel sorry for them as I believe that they're infected with the mental equivalent of a computer virus. But I still hold a grudge against christianity itself, its institutions, its ludicrous doctrines, and the effect it has on people.

 

I'm pretty selective about which christians I'm willing to debate in person- especially if I have to see them or work with them regularly. My opinions and beliefs really aren't anybody else's business- and I'll only share them when and if I feel like it. Any christian that I discuss these with in person has to be thick-skinned enough to deal with what I have to say- AND I have to think enough of them to invest a little time so that they can know me better (or on occasion I'll debate a door-to-door Jesus-salesman just for my own amusement). Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between a strong opinion and anger- and a christian will automatically assume that any non-believer with a strong opinion is angry... there's no way to avoid that IMO.

 

So here are some reasons why I'm "angry":

 

 

I'm angry that christianity indoctrinates children- who are too young and impressionable to evaluate ideas on their own merits- into a non-sensical belief system based on shoddy history, speculation, half-truths, and damn poor reasoning.

 

I'm angry that christianity promotes an artificial, poorly constructed, maladaptive "moral" system that simply does not work for most people. Unless you meet the ideal standard (of whomever happens to be preaching and 'interpreting' scriptures)- you don't measure up and you're gonna burn in hell. What's funny about christianity is that its supposed 'morality' is quite flexible if you're the one interpreting and preaching the scriptures (it's easy to cherry-pick verses so that The Bible justifies yourself and your lifestyle at the expense of just about anybody who is different)... but once the cherry-picking is finished, the message is all about condemnation and rules (gotta standardize anybody who doesn't fit the ideal that's been cherry-picked).

 

I'm angry that christians constantly try to encode their silly beliefs into law, and use the government to promote their religion.

 

I'm angry that christianity's one-size-fits-all prescription for life stunted my social development and poisoned my youth. I condemned and refused to interact with people who didn't meet artificial standards that I'd been taught. I was afraid to explore anything outside my own rather narrow comfort zone as a teenager, and missed out on some rather common (and important) experiences.

 

I could go on, but these are what immediately come to mind.

[Randi]

Also sometimes I think we're angry at ourselves for being such schmucks, and being reminded of it all the time by having to deal with other church schmucks.

 

You hit the nail on the head for me. Living in the Bible Belt means I have religion in my face constantly. I'm angry that I can't speak my mind, bey they sure as hell can speak theirs.

[RankStranger]

Also sometimes I think we're angry at ourselves for being such schmucks, and being reminded of it all the time by having to deal with other church schmucks.

 

You hit the nail on the head for me. Living in the Bible Belt means I have religion in my face constantly. I'm angry that I can't speak my mind, but they sure as hell can speak theirs.

 

That's a good one. I'd like to add that to my list of reasons for being 'angry'.