Letting Go Of Faith Is Taking Back My Mind

[Jake49]

Having a discussion with a friend... We both used to go to the same Church a few years ago. Our journeys have gone in different ways, most significantly only geographically. We are also in different positions towards Christianity, faith, God and all kinds of other subjects. I wanted to paste what I wrote, just to hear if anyone has any thoughts about the general ideas I'm getting at here. If there's anything that provides a different angle to what I'm saying.

 

I would like to express that I do not want to hear from a Christian or any religious bias on this subject. I welcome discussion at other times, but for this, I am only really interested in hearing from ex-Christians, Atheists, Agnostics etc. Thanks.

(disagreement is fine... just for now in this, I would prefer that disagreement or discussion doesn't come from a Christian or a religious bias)

 

So we watch this video:

 

 

This sparked a discussion about faith, God, religion, Christianity. So here's my thoughts, if you can pick any sense out of my nonsense and have any comment, I value that, thanks

 

 

It is said that "faith is the belief, not in what is seen, but what is unseen". The position of having beliefs in the "unseen" presents to me three main angles.

That the understanding of the existence or non existence of God that could be seen as 'faith' is:

no. 1. beyond human comprehension

no. 2. reasoning based on undiscovered evidence

no. 3. there is a self inflicted blindness which has created the willful desire to not see.

 

I see that Faith so often comes after someone has said, "I don't WANT to see"... which if in childhood becomes a subconscious choice which prevents a manifestation of awareness in the conscious mind, by manifesting other kinds of behavior in the conscious mind, such as constructing realities (delusions).. similar to the pattern of denial. So before the declarations of faith from the conscious mind, First came a self inflicted blindness which creates this position of 'unseen'... and then comes the expression of, "Faith is the belief in what is unseen".. However, it is choosing what to believe that is unseen and subconsciously making the choice to remain unaware and in a state of unseeing/blindness.

 

"unseen" part is because of self inflicted blindness (no.3 above)... as opposed to 'unseen' being based on no.1 and no.2.

 

I would argue then, that the position towards 'God' of someone like Hitchens is more no.2 and that the position of someone of "faith" is more no. 3.

 

When someones position is opposed and argued against, who has already willfully made the choice to NOT see... that person will defend their position on holding onto what they accept in their self inflicted blindness by saying, "But I accept this by faith".

 

(to note at this point... The word faith can be stretched beyond its meaning. Some things which people call faith are actually something else. So when I talk about faith like this, you might want to defend some position of faith which I have no opposing argument against, and I actually value myself, like hope, or reflecting on the stillness of ones own intuition which may not present a clear knowing, but something which stirs passion and has a transcendence... for example, "I have faith in myself"... which is stretching the word faith beyond its meaning... but with the meaning it is being incorrectly used for, I value that meaning... it could be saying that within me, I see that I am valuable and worthy of love, which transcends the values of my surrounding world and the model of reality I have constructed in my mind).

 

To me, Faith from religions as to our true and authentic selves is no different to the faith that it takes to believe that oneself has no value and is unworthy of love. In this world, this is often the root cause to assume the position of not wanting to see, as the person has decided, "I do not want to see what I am... I do not want to see my unworthiness for love and my lack of value"... As this inadequacy is something which in this world is hammered into peoples emotional and cognitive development through all kinds of influences and experiences from environments in a society still full of unconscious thinking. This is not rooted in reason, science and evidence. (and also for religions such as Christianity and Islam.... this already assumed self identity of no worth and no value is confirmed and reinforced by the fallacy of "sinful nature" which says people are not only filthy and bad in their born nature, but that they are deserving of a place of eternal agony...(could inadequacy be reinforced in a greater way? I don't think so... that takes the imagination of the most cruel idea of a human to the greatest level).. Which, as I can go into also, is part of how well constructed and manipulative religion can be in fitting human sickness into it's grasp like fitting a plug into a plug socket.... religion is DESIGNED to fit damaged humans, as are many cultures, trends, patterns in the world... me being one of those damaged humans! )

 

So faith, is the ultimate suspension of critical thinking and it imprisons people, because as long as it is declared in someones life, it also reinforces the stability of the key unresolved issues in subconsciousness caused by a profoundly sick society and the lack of a parental agent to guide understanding in a childs emotional and cognitive development. Which if resolved, would cause a person to think for themselves and think critically. This is the manipulation of religion, the chains which bind people and the scissors which clip the wings off human consciousness.

 

This is a significant pattern of human development which gives birth to so much abhorrent behavior we see in the world. So much stupidity.

 

Although Hitchens goes further than I can in saying that there's no difference between "God" and Thor, Allah, Zeus, Vishnu, father Christmas and the flying spaghetti monster... He points out the abhorrent and stupid behavior and has a lot of angles which cannot be ignored, apart from someone who has willfully chosen to be blind and stop thinking for them self (or of course with exceptions for people with mental disabilities). Hitchens and other people from his position view religion and faith, not just as someones personal life choice... but as an illness, a delusion. They don't say that a person does not have sincerity.. and they do not contest the great value and worth of all human life.. they actually celebrate the wonder and awe of human life. They want to see science and progress in our species, and evolution... and recognise that there's things which hold us back.

 

I'm really rambling on here lol.... You know I'm just exploring all this myself.. I don't "know" any of this, even if it might seem that I am asserting that I do. However, I am basing this on my own critical thought of it all

 

You know my position anyway... I VALUE and have reverence for claims that there is a presence in the universe which man has called 'God'... My position is that for me to assert a knowing that there is a God based on 'faith'.. is not sufficient. In this sense (and I don't really like to give my view a name) I am Agnostic. I am searching, critically thinking and trying to think for myself, which puts me in a position of unknowing, and being open to examining and critically thinking about the claims I have about a presence in the universe which has been called God.In this sense, who I am, my value, my worth... is also not based on faith... it's based on evidence. Based on evidence my value and worth and the value and worth of every human is as deep and wide as the universe, as in quantum physics we can understand that everything is part of the same quantum field. This opens up new values I have in human life, self love and self respect and also thinking about where our species has come from, where we are today and where we are going. I don't want to get my sense of value and worth from what the world says, what society says, what experiences in my story so far say to me that I accepted in childhood, or what a culture says, what a Qur'an or bible or anything says, or what a religion says.... I don't want to have my identity in something which when I ask for a true understanding in it, it stands there with folded arms and says, "Accept it by faith", "Accept it because that person says so"... "Accept it because that is what you think in your mind".

 

 

I question it all. I will not be told who and what I am... I will learn how to discover that for the rest of my life, based on science, evidence, reason and an awareness within me that whispers of something real (i.e. "listen to your heart"... "Consciousness".. the distant voice of your intuition, your gut feeling... and learn how to develop that... in a world of environments which prevent that).

 

Where as "Accept it by faith" is the option for someone in the position who cannot see another option. It is actually the equivalent of presenting the option of, "put your mind into a box and move it to one side... and accept this as truth that you believe in". It is like climbing inside a cave. This kind of faith is, 'the ultimate suspension of critical thinking'... and it is a laying down of ones own mind, to blindly accept something. The foundations of that acceptance may have sincere and honest experiences (like I mentioned, my deep value and reverence for claims in a presence in the universe which man has called God... through the personal experience of guidance/influence in my life which transcends the self constructed model of reality I experience in my conscious mind)... However, when I take that honest, sincere experience at its base level... it is open to so many possibilities as to what my experience is there... If I ignore my own critical thought into those possibilities of what this could be other than God, and choose to accept that not only that it is God, but that it is "this God" of whatever religion, then I have stopped thinking for myself about that... Which again, has a reason... and if I realise that there is something I don't want to think about, then that's good, because that realisation has identified an unresolved area in my subconscious that would cause me to behave in such a way as willful ignorance and manifest such behavior in my conscious mind.

 

To construct a belief system on top of a willful choice to stop thinking and call that 'faith'... is to close ones eyes... and accept a constructed belief structure by 'faith'... The constructed belief structure provides both the solution to hiding from what has been chosen to remain unseen, as well as projecting a new 'reality' which gives a sense of seeing in the comfort of ignorance from what is unseen... which explains the elation of, "I was blind and now I can see"... the sense of relief that comes when like explained above we fit into a religion like a plug into a socket. When I plug into something like this, it aligns with so many things, including the innate human drawing to connection, where this sense of "I am reunited with God" through a religion comes from. By fitting into a religion like this, what I have actually done is connected into something which provides a delusion which has been carefully constructed for thousands of years to cradle a damaged human so as to reinforce the stability of the delusion as well as to take control of the conscious mind through acquiescence of the subconscious mind by the damaged true and authentic self of a person. By accepting faith, I have SUSPENDED any critical thought from the point of my sincere experience upwards.. I've put that part of my mind on hold... I've stopped really thinking for myself... Which inevitably gives birth to a lot of stupidity that is seen in religion, and that stupidity becomes part of the basis of Hitchens arguments.

[Guest Xtech]

You got it. God of the gaps is what you are criticizing, and it is often willful ignorance, which is more and more inexcusable in our age of continuing amazing discoveries. Sure, sometimes it is genuine wonder at the mystery of life. But basically, god of the gaps.

 

PS Personally I am not a fan of the misanthropic Hitchens and his ilk. Something about our psychology, the way our brains evolved, predisposes us to creating supernatural beings (read about theory of mind in psychology if you are interested) and we are profoundly social critters. Religions surely give us something our human nature needs - and it also exploits it terribly. Can we move away from supernatural beliefs? Probably. But in the meantime condemning believers is not helpful. We can accept our flawed human nature and nudge it towards truth in more positive and successful ways than his sneering anti-religion screeds such as 'God is Not Great.'

[2Honest]

Jake, you found a way to put the craziness of Christianity into words, something that is not easy to do. I saved a bunch of your quotes for my Ex-C favorites.

 

 

 

I see that Faith so often comes after someone has said, "I don't WANT to see"... which if in childhood becomes a subconscious choice which prevents a manifestation of awareness in the conscious mind, by manifesting other kinds of behavior in the conscious mind, such as constructing realities (delusions).. similar to the pattern of denial. So before the declarations of faith from the conscious mind, First came a self inflicted blindness which creates this position of 'unseen'... and then comes the expression of, "Faith is the belief in what is unseen".. However, it is choosing what to believe that is unseen and subconsciously making the choice to remain unaware and in a state of unseeing/blindness.

 

 

Where as "Accept it by faith" is the option for someone in the position who cannot see another option. It is actually the equivalent of presenting the option of, "put your mind into a box and move it to one side... and accept this as truth that you believe in". It is like climbing inside a cave. This kind of faith is, 'the ultimate suspension of critical thinking'... and it is a laying down of ones own mind, to blindly accept something. The foundations of that acceptance may have sincere and honest experiences....

 

.....However, when I take that honest, sincere experience at its base level... it is open to so many possibilities as to what my experience is there... If I ignore my own critical thought into those possibilities of what this could be other than God, and choose to accept that not only that it is God, but that it is "this God" of whatever religion, then I have stopped thinking for myself about that...

 

 

 

I lived in this place you've described for so long. As Positivist says, "Christianity broke my brain". When I could no longer reconcile the reality of the seen/natural world with the unseen/supernatural world, the cognitive dissonance nearly drove me insane. It's almost like people continue to have faith and believe in the unseen out of self-protection. They choose not to see the real world for what it is in order to keep the dissonance at bay. They totally shut down that rational voice that tells them that what they believe doesn't make sense. It really is a self-inflicted blindness. I know because I lived in that blindness for many, many years. I didn't want to see reality. I didn't want to give up my delusion, it gave me what I believed was hope. Luckily for me, my rational voice screamed loud enough where I couldn't ignore it any longer. I've realized how much more freedom and hope there is when I am fully awake and aware of the world as it is. I am free to discover my own abilities and strengths. I am free to see the value in others and can lean on them when I feel weak.

 

This is the manipulation of religion, the chains which bind people and the scissors which clip the wings off human consciousness.

 

Beautifully said.

 

I don't want to have my identity in something which when I ask for a true understanding in it, it stands there with folded arms and says, "Accept it by faith", "Accept it because that person says so"... "Accept it because that is what you think in your mind".

 

or... "Accept it because if you don't something terrible will happen to you." "Accept it because without it you have no hope."

 

The constructed belief structure provides both the solution to hiding from what has been chosen to remain unseen, as well as projecting a new 'reality' which gives a sense of seeing in the comfort of ignorance from what is unseen... which explains the elation of, "I was blind and now I can see"... the sense of relief that comes when like explained above we fit into a religion like a plug into a socket. When I plug into something like this, it aligns with so many things, including the innate human drawing to connection, where this sense of "I am reunited with God" through a religion comes from.

 

This is what makes religion SO difficult to break away from. It is a tailor made system designed to reel you in and keep you there. When you do break away, you lose so much and it takes a lot of time and work to heal and move on. But it is definitely worth it, as I'm sure you would agree!

 

 

Thanks so much for sharing this, jake. You've inspired me again!

 

2H