Believe Or Be Damned -- But Don't Live

[Llwellyn]

Christianity takes the human mind and disassociates it from the present moment.  It cuts our ties to the present, and ties us to the past and to the future.  Christianity tells us to "believe" or "be damned" -- orienting human cognitive experience away from the present and to the past and future.  St. Augustine’s opinion was that the present is merely a “knife-edge” between the past and future.  The Bible tells us that the present can only be useful for believing so that we are not damned.  According to Hebrews 10:35-39, "In just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith.  And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.  But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."

 

"Believe."  What are we to believe?  We are supposed to launch into the past and believe a bunch of things about past events.  First and most importantly, we are supposed to remember Christ suffering on a cross approximately 2000 years ago.  After that, in order of importance, we are supposed to believe in the incarnation, the creation, the fall of man, the conversion and call of Abraham, the Hebrew captivity, the Exodus....  The list goes on and on and on.  In addition to Biblical history, it is important to believe in Church history -- the Nicene Council, the Reformation, etc. etc. etc.  When we start down the road of remembering the past, the road doesn't have a natural stopping point -- our minds crystalize with facts, details, stories, and beliefs.  Many of these beliefs are ugly, grim, and brutal (even if they are true).

 

"Or be Damned."  Why believe?  Because we are asked to imagine a future world of curses (hell) and blessings (heaven).  Christians are told to anticipate the future and make all present decisions in light of this imagined future.  Again, the beliefs about the future are ugly, grim and brutal (even if they are true).  So, instead of living in the present, Christianity fills the human mind with the cobwebs of beliefs, memories, and images.  It jerks us away from what is real (the present) and takes us into a place that is unreal (the past and the future).  To "live by faith" means to cram a bunch of ideas into our head -- inaccurate, depressing ideas that cut us off from the only life that we'll ever have.

 

But humans must live in the present.  Both the past and the future are "unreal" -- they are figments of a human's imagination.  The only experiences we ever have, and the only actions that we ever take, are in the present moment.  I am writing this post not in the past or in the future, but in the present.  The present is what we have, and not the past or the future.  We have never lived in the past, and we will never live in the future.  Stcherbatsky, a scholar of Buddhist philosophy, explains that according to their presentist ideas, "Everything past is unreal, everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, or mental is unreal. Ultimately real is only the present moment of physical efficiency.”

 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  Do you see things differently?  Thanks!

[Sheerbliss]

I think some churches use their requirements as distractions from the present. When you're raising six kids, continually praying,  and spending hours and hours every week in church, how do you have time to consider whether your belief system is a fraud?

[atkegar]

It seems to me that so much of traditional xtian teachings, especially from the fundagelicals, is future based, especially after death. Another reason that it is nonsense. I increasingly realize that really all there is is the present. Well presented.

[kclark]

I definitely agree. I can't count how many times I heard "build your hopes on things eternal," "you can't take it with you" and so on. Every thought, choice and action is to made with some unproven eternal fate in mind and so your name can written in the "Lambs book of life." Ironically that mentally does real consequences in the present, as it makes people not fight for their rights or to accept less in life because "heaven last always."

[RachelSkates]

GREAT post.......You nailed it with disassociation. I have this and I can say that I have always been really confused by the way therapists have been OK with my religious delusions but not general disassociation. 

 

When I was being abused I was still an Xer. I went to therapists to try to help.

 

It was NOT OK that these persons hit me, abused me, and ordered me around and told me how to do things or ELSE.

BUT it was OK for me to believe in a god who said, " YOU WILL DO IT MY WAY! If you mess up or just don't know about me---NO EXCUSE! Or ou will burn in hell forever!!!'

The one (my abusers) were bad persons---but the god was a good thing.

 

If I went into a trance from PTSD and was off in my own world---that was BAD

However, if I went off into a mystical trance like Teresa of Avila- that was OK and even GOOD!

 

If my abusers dictated my thoughts, my therapists would all get disgusted. If I was told that I was not allowed to go to school, that was bad.  

If a god told us to think one way, to have no bad thoughts, to not even think in ways he did not like....that was OK. 

 

YEAH, I have thought about the way xianity separates us form reality and fosters something that mimicks mental illness. Disassociation. And yet, it is accepted. I DO NOT GET IT.

[RipVanWinkle]

Your post is very well done and true. I just thought of a metaphor that might apply to Xtianity: Xtianity has its flock living in the past and future, to the exclusion of paying much attention to the present. It makes me think of the Xtians  (sheep) holding a loaded and cocked gun, listing to the stores of past evil deeds of the enemy and of its future plans to destroy Xtianity. They are hyped up and ready to fire  whenever the church sounds the alarm and at whomever the church identifies as the enemy (such as Obama, as the antichrist?). Upon receipt of word from their Xtian leader, the Xtian sheep are jolted into the present day, ready and anxious to give their life on the side of god.

 

This may be far fetched and may sound paranoid, but I'm sure that quite a large number of Xtians are that brainwashed. Think of the radical Muslims. Remember the Orson Wells radio show back in the 30's or 40's about Martians landing in DC? Millions believed it and panicked. Just a thought; maybe a crazy one. But there it is.      bill

                                                                                                                                      

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I've come to realize the best time to live for, is the here and now. I have a Bible verse that I quite liked to use against my mom, it says you have no clue what happens when you die, so live well while you can. I drove her insane with that XD

[Llwellyn]

Thanks for all of the thoughts.  Apparently, the present is not for living.  Instead, it is useful only for for ruminating on the idea of the atonement and the other Christian thoughts concerning the past and future.  This is perhaps why Christianity sometimes seems like just a special kind of OCD:  "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"  2 Corinthians 13:5

 

[NEWsong]

Good discussion...Delusion and Dissociation are not only the causes and symptoms but seems to be the GOAL of religious teaching; not just christianity.

 

I had been associated with churches who would not approve of "meditation" and living the in the present. Any "new age" thinking and discipline was SCORNED and cast OUT as "not being christian" doctrine and therefore of "no good" to anyone. Any talk or questions about other religions, thoughts or philosophies were quickly DISMISSED as being irrelevant to our "christian life". We were discouraged from allowing our thoughts to consider OTHER possibilities and the FEAR that was displayed by them, as I look back at it now, might not have appeared as fear for themselves but was tauted as "fear for my soul". What deception.

 

Side note: We do not see how we suffer and so we fail to learn from it. We attributed suffering to "being good christians". My mother suffered all her life with a narcissistic man. She had very little joy and she died of cancer first. Her suffering brought her pain because she did not heed it. He did not suffer, he had no moral or christian code that required him to obey and suffer in order to "be good"...he lived a wonderful life. 

 

When I was deeply indoctrinated in the "christian box" thinking, I could not become aware of my own delusional state and the extent to which dissociation from this world really means dissociation from my true human life when I "accepted and lived" the christian life. I am angered at those who MINDLESSLY believe and continue to be the "blind who leads the blind"...I was even angered at myself for perpetuating the delusion by being the "singer/songwriter/worship leader/prayer warrior"...I would like to go back and ask "forgiveness" of those whose faith I "strengthened"...they are still in delusion and I am free...

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

..I was even angered at myself for perpetuating the delusion (...)...I would like to go back and ask "forgiveness" of those whose faith I "strengthened"...they are still in delusion and I am free...

My little brother, seeing how religious I was, wanting to be better than me, became more religious than I was. Now, I've since let go of it. And I feel sometimes I've accidently lead him on the path, and now he wants to "keep faith strong for longer".

[NEWsong]

 

 

My little brother, seeing how religious I was, wanting to be better than me, became more religious than I was. Now, I've since let go of it. And I feel sometimes I've accidently lead him on the path, and now he wants to "keep faith strong for longer".

 

 

I understand this BD but I realized that I WILLFULLY and CONSCIOUSLY believed for MANY reasons and there WILL be reasons that your brother will continue to believe UNTIL he comes to the same conclusion that you did. I find myself shaking my head a bit but really it is UP TO THEM to make the decision; though we perpetuated the delusion, we NO LONGER BELIEVE or present behavior that reinforces their current belief. I expect this to cause conflict once the "difference" is discovered by my christian family...peace to you. 

[falemon]

Whilst reading A Road Less Travelled, he talks about the childhood perspective of omnipotence (ultimate power) and eternity that people are supposed to grow out of in childhood. It seems that Christianity perpetuates these childhood fantasies, retarding their growth as human beings whilst adding great delusion to the fantasy by having them believe that their verbal demands have the power to influence events in the physical world.

 

[mymistake]

All of my adult life as a Christian I suffered from panic attacks and depression.  However recently I have been able to eliminate the vast majority of all that crap by simply reminding myself that I do not have to regret my past.  If I feel the bad stuff coming on I say "I don't have to regret my past" and it is gone.  There is no sin.  The concept of sin was the thing that was imprisoning me.  The concept of sin was invented by Christianity to give Jesus something to do.  So Christianity was causing my problems.  Deprogramming is my cure.