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Goodbye Jesus

Email From Former Mentor


msipsy218

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I saw my former mentor at Walmart yesterday. I happened to be asking my friend if she needed "some cleaning shit" as I saw him, so he heard me cuss. I guess that's where the "sin" stuff comes from in the email....

 

I wanted to share with you guys because I'm not feeling strong enough to handle this on my own right now. I feel defeated and I do not want to go back, but I need some encouragement. Here is what he said:

 

"Hi Michelle. Seeing you yesterday moved me to send this message to you out of love. It was good to see you. I wish we could've talked. I know we were both kinda busy at the time. The truth is, I want to send you a message everyday until you come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't bombard you out of respect, though I feel I am letting you slip away. I believe you feel some sense of freedom from "religion", and no responsibility to spiritual truth right now, but I am 100% sure that the freedom you feel is not really freedom. It's bondage. I've been there. Not having to answer to a God I perceived to be too far away.
You see, there is a false sense of security that comes from denial. We can suppress the truth, but it's still truth. Not being mean here Michelle. If i were believing a lie, i feel (hope) i would want someone to tell me the truth. If you are believing a lie, wouldn't you want someone to tell you the truth? Sin is pleasurable for a season. And sin manifests itself in rebellion. Thats why it separates us from God. You once walked in Christ's light according to the truth. You had fruits of righteousness. The tears you shed and the testimonies you gave were/are real from a heart that loved the Lord. You could not have faked that. God is loving, merciful, forgiving and faithful. He loves you, He will be merciful to you (when you return to Him), He will forgive you if you ask, and He will be faithful all your life.
Satan is the author of confusion. He is a real enemy. Yours and God's. It's a slow fade Michelle. I've been there too. Don't give up.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. – Isaiah 1:18
In Isaiah’s time the views of how one interacts with the gods were very different. The ancient gods were vengeful and unpredictable. But Isaiah presents the Lord as one who wants to reason with us. The maker of the universe is willing to humble Himself to help us see our faults and need for forgiveness. This was as radical back then as it is today. When we couldn’t understand God, He came to us in Jesus Christ to reason with us and bring us back to Himself.
We love you."

 

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Wow, what a hypocrite.

 

Anybody who claims they know something when they have no objective evidence is lying.  If I tell you that I am a doctor then there should be something somewhere that backs this up.  You should be able to verify it with objective evidence.  If no medical school has ever heard of me and no medical license board will vouch for me then why should you believe such claim?  Your mentor claims to have the truth yet no God shows up to back it up.  It's just stories told by men and stories written by men based on older stories told by men based on even older stories told by men.  Your mentor knows as much about God as the average crazy homeless guy mumbling to himself in the gutter.  Without objective evidence knowledge is not possible.  Knowledge is zero.  Every cemetery in your town is filled with people who were certain that they were living in the Last Days and Jesus would return in their lifetimes.  100% sure doesn't count for much when it's based on emotions or dogma.  If you believe or not won't make a difference.  Either way thirty years from now you are going to look back at these religious threats the way I do at the religious threats about God returning in the 1980's.  I put my whole life on hold because the Antichrist was already unleashed on the world way back then.  And yet here were are and there was no Great Tribulation.  Oh but it's going to happen any second now.  It's been any second for the last 2,000 years.

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part of me really wants to call him out on the "if I believed a lie" thing....but I don't have the heart to do it right now.

 

I'm realizing more and more that it will not be possible to keep friendships in tact or to really leave all of this behind without pissing some people off.

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Wow, that was an unbelievably arrogant email.  Not sure if I would dignify it with a response, but of course that's up to you. He has no knowledge of your thought process and is so presumptuous and rude.

 

If I did respond (which I doubt I would) I would say something like "you didn't know me at all, and you still don't."

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part of me really wants to call him out on the "if I believed a lie" thing....but I don't have the heart to do it right now.

 

I'm realizing more and more that it will not be possible to keep friendships in tact or to really leave all of this behind without pissing some people off.

 

 

That realization has been hard for me to come to as well. This morning I was ready to just say “fuck it” and go on Facebook and start blasting away. I don’t want to burn bridges, but more and more I’m beginning to see that for those who aren’t family members, I’m just a project now; someone to pray for. I suspect that some might find me intimidating, which is probably why my wife sees more letters and emails than I do. I guess I should consider myself lucky in that respect, but some part of me wants to have more opportunities to confront people.

 

When I read your original post I got really angry at his condescending attitude and arrogance. Hell, even his shitty exegesis of Isaiah 1:18 pissed me off. It sounds corny, but I wanted to stand up like Doc Holiday in Tombstone and tell this guy, “I’m your huckleberry.” So for whatever it’s worth, just know that some guy on the internet related enough to your story to want to do that. We’re here for you.

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You see, there is a false sense of security that comes from denial. We can suppress the truth, but it's still truth. Not being mean here Michelle. If i were believing a lie, i feel (hope) i would want someone to tell me the truth. If you are believing a lie, wouldn't you want someone to tell you the truth?

 

He doesn't really mean his own words. He does not really want to hear the truth that he is the one who is believing a lie. Strange how his own words reveal his own denial of the truth and, in a way, makes me feel sorry for him and the other millions like him.

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You are not his project, and none of the stuff he believes is real. Also, he said that if he was believing a lie, he would want someone to tell him that. I doubt he really means it, but I'd call him on his bluff. He's the one believing a lie, and he so much as begged you to tell him that.

 

If you answer, tell him that -- or just delete his arrogant diatribe and forget about it.

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"Come let us reason together". If you feel up to it, why don't you call his bluff? If not, maybe send him one of the real good  books by a good atheist author like Christopher Hitchens, for example, and tell him you will reason with him after he reads the book with an open mind. That's the last thing he wants to do. But, he may say he will read the book and not do so. Then your "reasoning together" can be your interrogating him about the points made in Hitchens book. To me, that would be fun. But not to everyone.  I guess I have a bit of meanness in me, sorry to say.)

 

But he is a deluded self-righteous bastard. Truth is you will never get someone like that to concede anything, no matter how obvious. The whole point is that he does not want to reason with you or anybody else. He wants get a "star in his crown." Of course you do not have to argue with him if you don't want to. But I suggest you at least write him so he can't go around telling people you didn't even respond. Remember, evidence is with you.    bill

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I agree with all of the above, esp. with MM and HA.  My reaction on reading that email was, what a crock of shit.  I don't know the guy, and if I did, I would be less quick to say it, but...  all his assertions about the truth show misplaced confidence in himself.  Reminds me of a sign I saw on a highway:  "The Bush-Cheney oil cartel - often in error, never in doubt."

 

I got a few letters like this when I left Calvinism, one from a friend and one from a mentor.  At that point, I could see through their assertions to the lack of ground underneath, but it still hurt, and I grieved over the loss of what had seemed good friendships.  Cos that's what it was, a loss.

 

Later I had to admit how many of those friendships were cemented by ideology, and fell apart when the ideology was no longer shared.  Sad.

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I'm realizing more and more that it will not be possible to keep friendships in tact or to really leave all of this behind without pissing some people off.

 

There's your answer. It's tough for some people, but I quickly got to the place where in that situation I would have simply told him to blow me. BTW, that's a much more powerful show of disgust when it comes from a woman. Just saying.

 

It's okay to ignore or blow off assholes. Good luck, and hang in there. 

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I saw my former mentor at Walmart yesterday. I happened to be asking my friend if she needed "some cleaning shit" as I saw him, so he heard me cuss. I guess that's where the "sin" stuff comes from in the email....

 

I wanted to share with you guys because I'm not feeling strong enough to handle this on my own right now. I feel defeated and I do not want to go back, but I need some encouragement. Here is what he said:

 

"Hi Michelle. Seeing you yesterday moved me to send this message to you out of love. It was good to see you. I wish we could've talked. I know we were both kinda busy at the time. The truth is, I want to send you a message everyday until you come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't bombard you out of respect, though I feel I am letting you slip away. I believe you feel some sense of freedom from "religion", and no responsibility to spiritual truth right now, but I am 100% sure that the freedom you feel is not really freedom. It's bondage. I've been there. Not having to answer to a God I perceived to be too far away.

You see, there is a false sense of security that comes from denial. We can suppress the truth, but it's still truth. Not being mean here Michelle. If i were believing a lie, i feel (hope) i would want someone to tell me the truth. If you are believing a lie, wouldn't you want someone to tell you the truth? Sin is pleasurable for a season. And sin manifests itself in rebellion. Thats why it separates us from God. You once walked in Christ's light according to the truth. You had fruits of righteousness. The tears you shed and the testimonies you gave were/are real from a heart that loved the Lord. You could not have faked that. God is loving, merciful, forgiving and faithful. He loves you, He will be merciful to you (when you return to Him), He will forgive you if you ask, and He will be faithful all your life.

Satan is the author of confusion. He is a real enemy. Yours and God's. It's a slow fade Michelle. I've been there too. Don't give up.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. – Isaiah 1:18

In Isaiah’s time the views of how one interacts with the gods were very different. The ancient gods were vengeful and unpredictable. But Isaiah presents the Lord as one who wants to reason with us. The maker of theBrother  universe is willing to humble Himself to help us see our faults and need for forgiveness. This was as radical back then as it is today. When we couldn’t understand God, He came to us in Jesus Christ to reason with us and bring us back to Himself.

We love you."

 

"Thank you my dear dear friend for your email. I was beginning to forget how Christianity completely scrambles people's sense of reason and reality. Thank you so much for reminding me that I made the correct decision by rejecting the utter stupidity of Christianity. I am happy to be free of the insane babblings of the Christian culture and church. Your email was a good example of those babblings. I'm going to now go spend 10% of my gross income on cigarettes and whiskey. Have a nice day. :-)"

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Honestly, I'd love it if I got an email like that from a former church member or pastor. When I left I never received so much as a phone call or an email, even after 15 years. I would love to rip him apart, point by point. Nothing in that email makes sense beyond pure emotionalism and guilt.

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Everyone has my permission to use the following in their own e-mails as if they wrote it themselves provided that they replace the part in parentheses with an actual leader's name.  Feel free to mix it up or add to it as needed.

 

 

There is nothing spiritual about truth.  An idea can be true or false but spiritual has nothing to do with truth.  If you have never realized that gods are imaginary then you have not been here.  There is no separation from God because there is no way to separate somebody from his or her imagination.  Bondage is blindly accepting a religion and then submitting to all of its rules.   I suspect that you have no idea how it feels to be free of religion and all the mental anguish that comes from trying to convince yourself that the religion is “the truth”.

 

You, pastor (insert name), believe a lie.  The Bible is a collection of stories that were written by men and then rewritten by men over and over again until nobody even knows what the originals looked like or even who wrote most of it.  The result is a contradictory mess.  There is no such thing as sin because there are no gods to offend.  Stop putting your guilt trip onto other people.  It’s immoral for you to get your living by making other people hate themselves.  Others can live good, moral and ethical lives without religion.  It takes religion to justify evil deeds as “obeying God”.

 

The reason things were different in Isaiah’s time was because Isaiah had a different religion.  If he had met you then he would have called you an idol worshiper.  Paul probably would have called you a false Christian.  Religious sects are in competition with each other.  Your religion isn’t a continuation of theirs but rather it replaced their religions.  Paul’s religion is dead.  Isaiah’s sect died out thousands of years ago.  It’s not any of the religions that carry on using the same names.  The God that Ezra invented when he created the Old Testament is a God of genocide rather than love.  Ezra’s God is incompatible with Paul’s God.

 

Reason is the destroyer of faith and Jesus Christ is a myth.   I hope that someday you come to reason and leave all of that nonsense behind you.

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Honestly, I'd love it if I got an email like that from a former church member or pastor. When I left I never received so much as a phone call or an email, even after 15 years. I would love to rip him apart, point by point. Nothing in that email makes sense beyond pure emotionalism and guilt.

 

 

Me either and I'm ignored generally if any former church folk see me :(

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His email to you sounded like something I would have written 2 years ago. And I would have meant every word of it. I honestly can understand where he comes from but will he be willing to sit and be quiet and listen to your story? Don't think so.

 

I have found that most reason around faith.... Once read a striking remark, can't remember who it was. But basically said that we have a schizophreniac (spelling) relationship with science. We are willing to send people to prison and sometimes to death based on scientific evidence but we have a whole different standard when it comes to religion....

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Hallelujah sister. That email of impassioned, drama-infused, religious-jargon pleas is quite something. The intent is to add a notch on the bedpost of Yahweh and win brownie points for himself. You are indeed a project to these people.

 

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Hold him to his fantastic promise. When he slacks off on that daily message when you don't come back to the Lord Jesus Christ (because of him) as he's envisioning, ask where your daily love movement is. GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

There's a myriad of things to debunk in his email, but why waste your energy feeding these peoples' unhealthy righteousness/sin fixations.

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When I was a young fundy I wrote similar letters to close friends whom I felt had backslidden.  I did it out of love, and I meant it sincerely.  Understandably, it just pissed them off.  I think responding with a rational response might be kinda cool.  

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"Fuck you and the high horse you rode in on" sounds nice. Ultimately it'd just give him ammunition about "bitter" ex-Christians but that's his problem, not yours. He's the one who intruded on you with his manipulative "freedom is slavery" doublethink. At the very least, if you're asking what others would do, I'd tell him that I'm done with psychotic gods who'd damn people to hell, with doublethink, and with condescending SOBs who think they know what the afterlife will look like when they really don't. Tell him you don't feel like he showed you a lot of love, and that you don't think he really understands a thing about what you went through as a Christian or what you're going through now, and you're not really interested in letting him further into your life when he's shown himself to be so disrespectful and unloving already. Tell him you have zero interest in ever speaking to him again if he's going to treat you as a re-conversion project, and that you will not take kindly to further overtures. Then block his email address. While you're at it, block the addresses of other people from church too, and get to work on that FB de-friending blitz.

 

Nobody can ever make you do anything you don't want to do with religion, ever again. None of those assholes will ever victimize you again unless you let it happen. Be the warrior you need right now; be the uncompromising soldier whose family just got threatened. You got out of the warzone alive and don't ever need to go back. You are free.

 

What Would Madmartigan Do? Find a way to get this asshole into a dress and makeup, then feed him to some cave trolls.

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I'm toying with the idea of responding. I go back and forth. I have typed this out but I have not sent it:

 

(former mentor),

I have debated whether or not to reply, but decided that while we may not see eye to eye, it is most respectful for me to at least acknowledge your concern. You're right that I do feel freedom. I no longer feel the need to answer to people who are picking and choosing from a set of ancient books written and re-written time and time again. I do not mean to offend you, as I fear this may, but I want to be honest with you about my thoughts. I do not perceive god to be "too far away" but rather, nonexistent. A figment of my imagination. Yes, I really felt the things you talk about. They were very real to me. But not because of a spiritual "truth" but rather, because of a psychological manifestation. You are right, we cannot suppress the truth and that is why I am where I am. I will not argue doctrine with you because I know that you are firm in your beliefs and I do not wish to try to change that or convince you otherwise. It works for you, and that is great. It did not work for me. I have a great deal of respect and love for you and (your wife) and I sincerely want things to be good between us, which is why I almost didn't say anything, but I wanted you to know.

This sounds like a very reasonable response. Even if you don't send it, it probably helped a lot that you wrote it. For your sake I hope your husband gets the job, for it sounds like you need a new beginning.

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I'm toying with the idea of responding. I go back and forth. I have typed this out but I have not sent it:

 

(former mentor),

I have debated whether or not to reply, but decided that while we may not see eye to eye, it is most respectful for me to at least acknowledge your concern. You're right that I do feel freedom. I no longer feel the need to answer to people who are picking and choosing from a set of ancient books written and re-written time and time again. I do not mean to offend you, as I fear this may, but I want to be honest with you about my thoughts. I do not perceive god to be "too far away" but rather, nonexistent. A figment of my imagination. Yes, I really felt the things you talk about. They were very real to me. But not because of a spiritual "truth" but rather, because of a psychological manifestation. You are right, we cannot suppress the truth and that is why I am where I am. I will not argue doctrine with you because I know that you are firm in your beliefs and I do not wish to try to change that or convince you otherwise. It works for you, and that is great. It did not work for me. I have a great deal of respect and love for you and (your wife) and I sincerely want things to be good between us, which is why I almost didn't say anything, but I wanted you to know.

Sounds like a well thought out response without sounding angry or condescending to him. I hope you're feeling better about the whole thing.
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At first glance, their email seems to be genuine and sincere. This part however caught my eye:

 

 

I believe you feel some sense of freedom from "religion", and no responsibility to spiritual truth right now, but I am 100% sure that the freedom you feel is not really freedom. It's bondage

Basically, his underlying assumption for you leaving the faith is that you left to go sin. This presumption on his part is incredibly offensive. It shows that they do not know you or care about you because they cannot accept that leaving Christianity can be done on an intellectual level, only an (im)moral one. I would call him out on this, if you end up responding to him.

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At first glance, their email seems to be genuine and sincere. This part however caught my eye:

 

 

I believe you feel some sense of freedom from "religion", and no responsibility to spiritual truth right now, but I am 100% sure that the freedom you feel is not really freedom. It's bondage

Basically, his underlying assumption for you leaving the faith is that you left to go sin. This presumption on his part is incredibly offensive. It shows that they do not know you or care about you because they cannot accept that leaving Christianity can be done on an intellectual level, only an (im)moral one. I would call him out on this, if you end up responding to him.

 

I got the same thing from that and it was the only part that really offended me. It is either 100% presumption or based off of him hearing me use a cuss word. Which would still be messed up since he admitted to us that he often cusses at home.

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 Sin is pleasurable for a season. 

 

Having been a non-believer for approximately 8 years, now, I have to say that sin is pleasurable for at least 32 seasons (8*4).

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