Hooked On A Feeling

[RipVanWinkle]

The extent to which the good parts of Xtianity become true is up to us humans. bill

[Galien]

The extent to which the good parts of Xtianity become true is up to us humans. bill

Then I guess we are shit out of luck.

[RipVanWinkle]

Why? That's what one of the greatest parts of being Exchristian. bill

[Galien]

 

Why? That's what one of the greatest parts of being Exchristian. bill

Why? Because christian or not I don't see this fucked up carnage we call our world as being a positive thing Bill. How long have we had to get our shit together as a species, and we still can't do it? On a personal basis we can be whoever we are, but as long as we remain complacent as a group about the awful shit that goes on in the world nothing will change.

[boftx]

 

Why? That's what one of the greatest parts of being Exchristian. bill

Why? Because christian or not I don't see this fucked up carnage we call our world as being a positive thing Bill. How long have we had to get our shit together as a species, and we still can't do it? On a personal basis we can be whoever we are, but as long as we remain complacent as a group about the awful shit that goes on in the world nothing will change.

 

 

At the risk of being slightly off topic, I have to expand on what Galien has said about having failed to "get our shit together as a species..."

 

I think I can argue that intelligence is an evolutionary dead end. True, thanks to our intelligence we have not only become the meanest, baddest sons of bitches on the planet, but we have also developed technology and understanding of the Universe to the point that we are beginning to see the folly of religious dogma.

 

That said, how much sooner would we have started to throw off the shackles of shamans if we had been wiser? As it is, much of our intellect is used to defeat the very purpose of evolution. Just think how much effort goes into keeping every single human alive and reproducing (i.e. seat belts, heroic medical procedures, various laws, etc.) who even just 100 years ago would have helped natural selection along by not surviving. Not only have we stymied natural selection, but we have created a huge problem in over-population. (Granted, that might set the stage for a huge round of natural selection if the right disease comes along again.)

 

The next advance for humans can only come if we begin to evolve wisdom and "get our shit together."

[Galien]

Oh fuck...I forgot I was supposed to be worshipping evolution now. Quick someone post a video of an athiest speaking sacred words so I can remember what I am supposed to believe again....

[ExCBooster]

Another way to look at it: some things are just things. In fact: almost all things are just things.

 

Not good, not bad, but, at the very core, technically neutral. We each decide, when we judge anything, what things are good, and what things are bad. Christianity is a very judgemental mindset, and I can imagine it's easy to carry that aspect along with you, even after you leave. Evolution is actually a fantastic example (reason #2 why it scares the jibblies out of fundamentalist types). Most random mutations are in the junk code of the genome, and do nothing at all. Most of the rest are neutral, to whether the organism thrives or dies. Few can hurt or help the odds of survival. But, even then, the changes are morally neutral, and only get a value added, when we have a cause to judge. Take drug-resistant tuberculosis. It's had some mutations that help it resist our treatments. We may judge that as bad, because it's killing people we could otherwise have saved. But, in the abstract, it's just doing what it does. Somewhere, on the side of a fish tank, a

jiggles along, mopping up algae. And it's just there. Present, neutral, and you can decide for yourself if they're charming. It will never know, either way.

 

We each have the power to judge, but we each also also have the power to withhold judgement. Deciding which things to get up in arms about can help direct your energies in life, but it can also help to take a step back, and recognize that there are no intrinsic good or bad things, that you apply them in your own mind, with your own cultural background. If you think helping people is good, then it's a credit to our species that we categorically think that smallpox was bad. The part where we're hoarding cultures "just in case" the other guy wants to use it as a weapon... smallpox was just doing what smallpox does, humans wiped it out, because saving people is what we do, and humans are keeping it alive, because warfare is also the other side of the coin. The same tendencies that make us band together against a common threat are the very same ones that make us go to war. Back to the thread topic: warm fuzzies from sharing feelings in religion. It makes you feel good, funds soup kitchens, and starts holy wars and genocides. We can choose to drop religion, but we can never get rid of our mental wiring for social cohesion. Remove that, and maybe we're no longer human. Ultimately, though, nature knows no distinction.

[Galien]

I'm over social cohesion, which is probably pretty obvious. Groups don't care about the individuals in them and would sacrifice them at a moments notice. I have no respect left for that.

[ExCBooster]

I'm over social cohesion, which is probably pretty obvious. Groups don't care about the individuals in them and would sacrifice them at a moments notice. I have no respect left for that.

I think you're definitely right, Galien. That kind of wanton cruelty isn't something I respect either, and I'm on this site because I was sick of seeing good kind people kicked around by social enforcers - either the human kind, the structural kind, or the internalized kind. That anger, as unpleasant as it is to feel, is a part of the positive side of group cohesion. Rules were broken, and you want to make it right. I believe that that is good. And I mean that in the moral sense. Check out Ren there, under Moral Concepts. That's what I mean by a cultural universal. Being nice to people, is, in fact, universally understood. It's wrong, in the purest sense, to manipulate people like they do.

 

(IMO, the studies done on reciprocal altruism - in animal studies and in game theory - make a great kill-shot against the twits that think you can't be moral without the Bible. Well, the golden rule is a serious candidate for a cultural universal, and, in other news, crab-eating macaques, wasps, and vampire bats can't read. It's not just information, it's ammunition. That's why many of these groups are so keen to pervert trust, and make the flock feed out of their hand for facts, too. If the Earth isn't 6000 years old, they lose credibility, and all the social capital they've been greedily building up.)

[RipVanWinkle]

ExCBooster: Do I disqualify myself from membership here if I admit that your last post was a little

esoteric for my simple mind? You are trying to and maybe succeeding in thinking too far in the future

for me. I have a hard enough problem trying to keep up with the here and now. I'm not criticizing you. It's just way ahead of where my thinking is.

 

I don't think nature's "purpose" or direction in evolution is necessarily in the human kind's best

interest. It's a poor model, indeed. Survival of the fittest? But goals that we as a species have set

are no better. I'm going to leave those problems to better minds than mine. I just take what I believe to be moral from some of Xtianity, other religions and my own thinking and try to make them work. I

have to make my impact on this world, such as it is, by being as fair and forgiving as I can to the man or woman "at my shoulder". At least I can't do too much harm that way. If something is not working, I try something else, a little bit at a time. Of course I have to pick myself up off the floor from time to time. But the number one enemy of each of us is despair.

 

The world is a mess, but not as bad as it used to be, at least on a day to day basis. And the

improvement is due to mankind, not nature or religion. I see religion as an enemy and nature as both

friend and enemy.

 

As far as groups are concerned, I'll be perfectly frank by saying that I've never been a member of a

group that I really liked, except for maybe boy scouts. But nothing of major importance can be done for

society without them, like it or not.

[Blake]

Margee, I sure can relate. Whether it's solemn Orthodox chanting or contemporary Gaither-style productions, it still causes a little stirring in my heart. I've learned that feeling emotions as a result of listening to this music doesn't constitute the reality of "God" at all, just the reality of human passion. Before I would have called it the Holy Spirit. Today I simply call it the human spirit. Music evokes strong emotions in us, and that's a completely natural thing. Combine that fact with old feelings of communal "on fire" worship and it's easy to see why people get so riled up about it.

 

I am moved because I too am an emotional person, not because of some divine descent from on high moving in my heart. A beautifully performed hymn can make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and bring a tear to my eye, but that doesn't make its message a reality.

 

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?"

[Margee]

Margee, I sure can relate. Whether it's solemn Orthodox chanting or contemporary Gaither-style productions, it still causes a little stirring in my heart. I've learned that feeling emotions as a result of listening to this music doesn't constitute the reality of "God" at all, just the reality of human passion. Before I would have called it the Holy Spirit. Today I simply call it the human spirit. Music evokes strong emotions in us, and that's a completely natural thing. Combine that fact with old feelings of communal "on fire" worship and it's easy to see why people get so riled up about it.

 

I am moved because I too am an emotional person, not because of some divine descent from on high moving in my heart. A beautifully performed hymn can make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and bring a tear to my eye, but that doesn't make its message a reality.

 

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?"

 

 

You hit the nail on the head for me Blake. Music still 'moves me' as much as ever. I have some very beautiful meditation music and every time I play it, I can shed tears and I don't know why...it's not happy music or sad music.. it's just so beautiful? It is my spirit moving within me - not the holy sprit.

 

I am so glad you're here with us Blake!!

[ExCBooster]

william7davis - no, actually, you've got it exactly right. "Our best interest" has nothing to do with it at all. There is no purpose. Natural selection's bar is set quite low: survive long enough to breed. My point, in those links about game theory and altruism, is that there's a heap of evidence to suggest that humanity, specifically, and a few other social animals, are set up for being "hooked on exactly that feeling." Sea turtles lay a heap of eggs in a nest, and that's the last the mother has to do with any of them. A handful may make it to adulthood, but they're equipped to do that. Human babies die in very short order if they're similarly abandoned. In fact, just lack of contact can stunt growth. That's why premature infants that are in incubators actually must be handled and cuddled - it's a literal physical need. Your brain produces an emotional high at sports events or concerts for a reason: to reward social behaviour, and group cohesion. Upsides: rescue efforts, charities. Downsides: rioting, mob justice. Religious events also use the same circuitry: to build a community and ensure conformity. That's why there are so many holier than thou busybodies who tear other people down to enhance their own status - they're (quite literally) addicts to belonging. And yes, this is just as ugly, if not actually uglier, than other kinds of addiction.

 

All that being said, however, doesn't make love any less real. Love isn't "just a feeling," or even some abstract ideal - it's a chemical process, as physically real as getting hit in the face with a water balloon. Nature makes no judgements, there is no intrinsic purpose, but, if, as a human being you decide that the purpose is love, and love is a good thing, then yes, it's as "real" and "good" as anything. It's just nice to remember, sometimes, that the sky doesn't judge, and there are an untold number of mole crabs that have no opinion or concept of humanity as a group at all (I'm sure they're too busy staying away from predators).

 

It's just one perspective, and I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but sometimes it's nice to have a weird, fresh one. As to whether this whole thing is a dead end? Only time can tell. At least we have the capacity to wonder.

[Thought2Much]

Margee, as I and others have said here before, for many people Christianity is their drug. They get their fix on Sunday mornings, and then need another fix on Sunday evening and Wednesday night. When they don't get their fix, they crash. All they talk about is their drug and when they can get their next high, and they can't focus on anything else in their lives.

 

While I could get caught up in the moment at times and think I felt God's presence in prayer or worship, I never seemed to be able to make myself the "addict" that others around me were. I thought there was something wrong with me, and that I wasn't making a connection with God that these other people made so easily every time they were in church.

 

As time went on, I realized more and more that I wasn't the one with the problem. Since I stayed in the church for so long after my deconversion, I really got to see it all from an outsider's perspective, and seeing the blatant emotional manipulation turned me off of the entire experience, and made me realize that none my past "highs" at church were real. Because of this, I can't say I miss it at all now, but I can certainly understand why others would.

[Voice]

It was the same for me, the emotional bliss.  I'm sampling some of this Vinyard music now.  It's actually better than most of what I listened to then, but similar to what we did in services.  Thing is, I was one of the musicians, so it was more than just listening, I was creating the moods.  Extremely powerful.  Haven't found anything quite like it.  I haven't tried heroin.  I wonder if that's what it's like.  Leaving it all did have the same patterns as quitting an addiction.  I went cold turkey with no friends, it was harsh. 

[inorbit]

About the time this was first posted, I had been thinking/going through the same thing.  It haunted me ever since.  I even ended up drinking a bit too much one night with a Christian friend and apparently spilling the beans about my inner turmoil, even going into details about my experiences I never tell anyone.  They were cool about it, thankfully.  I can't entirely remember everything I said...  Man, I slept great that night.

Well, it's still bothering me, so I decided to vent about it on my blog.  Here's the link, but the text is below:
-----------------

The ache in my heart wants it to be true.  For better or worse, something has been awakened in my… soul?  I feel the ache in my chest in random, quiet moments.  So many moments of screams and heartache met by silence.  Those far outnumber the small tastes of apparent goodness.  In those moments, there was such clarity.  No hints of whatever it was being esoteric.  I touched something very real.  Whether that something was God or the universe or my own consciousness… I don't know.  But, it was a strong hit that has left me a recovering addict ever since.  Once.  One night, alone in a foreign country, with an aching desperation, I connected with something.  That was almost 15 years ago.  The ache still remains.  It flies in the face of logic, even the part of my brain that tries to explain it in the context of the complexities of neuroscience.  Talk about cognitive dissonance.  I have nothing else to back up what I've seen, no objective viewpoint through which to interpret my experience.  The Bible does not stand up to scrutiny.  History does not either.  Christianity has no corner on the market of Truth.  Though I cannot believe in the face of overwhelming evidence, yet that experience still profoundly affects me.

After that night, there were so many nights.  Many.  Hundreds.  Probably thousands.  On all of those other nights, my soul was tortured by the silence, the emptiness, the steel ceiling that rebounded my tortured prayers.  So, why should that one night haunt above the rest?  Why should the battered woman return to her aggressor.  "But he said he loves me!"

I used to cry so hard that I would almost get sick.  I would drive aimlessly at night, park in empty parking lots, crawl in the backseat, and cry out for God.  I was brokenhearted, disillusioned.  And there was never an answer.  Not once.  That one night was the exception.

I was to believe that this was all part of God's plan.  I was told my hunger was a positive thing.  I was told I would be rewarded for the "desert season" I was in.

The season of great, tortured confusion and anguish did eventually pass.  It gave way to resolution, a sort of good-natured resignation.  I stopped fighting.  I accepted that God was "just there" whether I felt he was or not.

That lasted, until I began to really research what I had believed with a truly open mind.  I've written about that before, so I won't reinvent the wheel here.  But, that's what led me from resolute (read: resignation) faith to… Well, to no faith.

But, I'm still haunted by that night 15 years ago.  It breaks my heart to think, to realize that it could have truly all been in my own mind.  And, if it was, then ensuing emotional roller coaster was all for naught.  And, fuck, man.  That's really shitty.  My emotional and mental wellbeing were in shambles for over 10 years, all thanks to a misconception engrained through indoctrination?  At the same time, part of me is sad to let that memory, that night be buried for what it probably truly is.  It is a cherished memory.  But, it is a memory with so many painful strings attached.

Until I stepped back from Christianity for a while, I never realized how emotionally unhealthy and abusive the Christian relationship with "God" truly is...

---------------------

From how everyone else has replied here, I know I'm not alone in this.

 

[ExCBooster]

inorbit - letting go of Christianity does not, in any way, invalidate your experiences. There's a false choice hidden in Christian assumptions: that the choice is between Christianity and stone-cold atheism (or, at least, their straw man of what they think atheism is). This is not, however, actually the case. The real choice is between Christianity and everything else. (Time for a slice of pie chart.) Your options are wide, wide open. Even then, if you are an atheist (note my profile) this still doesn't discount mystical experiences - I don't believe in God, even if you brought me a sandal-ghost in a jar, because "God" is such a culturally moderated idea. There are many, many iterations of the human experience that have no native concept of a "God" in the Christian sense - which, in turn, implies that it is not universal, and, inductively, less likely to be true. Inconsistency refutes the concept. What is "God" as an idea, anyway? My opinion is that worshipping something just because it's more powerful than you is about as nonsensical as worshipping giraffes for being taller. A-Theism: non-belief in God. If you take your experiences as proof that there is something out there, then you can believe that there's something out there. God in the Christian sense? That's another question entirely.

 

Edit: (-- and one that you seem to have answered for yourself, already!) Really nice blog, by the way. You are very well spoken.

[FloridaGirl]

I never got really emotional about religion. When I have been to charismatic church services, I woulld just watch everyone else and find the hand waving, crying, crying, and speaking in tounges really entertaining.

 

It really got inside my head though . I just had this intense desire to know more and more about this loving God who created the universe. I wanted to know Him more than I wanted to know anything else in the whole world. I heard the promise that God could fill you up more than anything else in the whole world. Every time I felt bad, I would try with all my might to find if that promise was true. Every time I felt good, I would believe it was God working in my life.

 

I have two suitcases full of Christian books, mostly sermon type books and theological books I read- all within the span of just a couple years. That does not even count all the library books, websites I used to go to and sermons I used to listen to.

 

Too bad I started asking myself some simple questions questions and my faith all of a sudden just vanished.

 

When I have free time available, I just do not know how to occupy my mind anymore. It was like an obsession and a fantasy all at once. Religion can be really addictive.

 

I know I will move on with my life in time though.

[Guest r3alchild]

The only meaning that can be made is not what the universe makes for us, its what we make for ourselfs. Think about it, do you really want some universal spirtual system to take credit for a experience you need to define for yourself. Maybe thats what all spiritual things are, the very thing we create and define ourselfs.

[par4dcourse]

I don't miss a damn thing about church.

 

"For the first time in my life, I am actually happy."

 

That's what confuses the relig-o-bots that darken my door, Margee. They're so worried about pleasing the über spook, and I'm all relaxed and happy.