A Deppressing Love Story

[RogueScholar]

I can't say I ever loved God even when I believed in such stuff. I was simply terrified of death and hell. While I'm not keen on dying, I'm certainly not afraid of hell.

 

My thoughts are with you. I'm not sure how old you are, but once you get out on your own you will be able to explore the world and find out who you are as a person. It may seem far away, but it will get better and you have to hang on through this bumpy ride. Do not be afraid to take your time and explore. I had a few decades of life under my belt before I began to really explore my faith.

 

Also know, letting go of faith can be more liberating and wonderful than you could imagine. I've been transformed into a humanist over the past few years and I've let go of all the prejudice and hate associated with religion. I feel as though I'm better able to love and respect humanity regardless of their gender, sexual orientation or culture. The intense humanism and compassion that I am developing has been a truly liberating experience. Something that I never could have experienced when I was your age due to the ultra-conservative town that I was trapped in. I have not seen the place of my birth for years and really have no desires to become reacquainted to my childhood.

 

Hang in there as it will get better.

[megasamurai]

It's hard to let go when you hear stories of the supernatural scaring me into thinking God is real and will throw me into hell. Sometimes I try to create feelings of love for God under any means necessary. It's so hard to live with the emotional demands of "love me more than anyone or anything else or fry". I want to be free to feel whatever I feel. I want to love whoever my heart feels strongest towards. I want to let go.

[decafaholic]

I want to commiserate with you on growing up Assemblies of God. That is a mind fuck. I was AG from birth to age 19. i even went to Southwestern A/G University for 3 semesters, which was the breaking point for my faith.

 

I lived in fear of messing up and making god mad at me. Depression and anxiety defined my life. I think you know what this is like.

 

I got all these mixed messages about god. God loved me deeply and purely, but god also would never really be happy with me because i was not perfect. God will forgive you, but you have to ask him first and if you haven't forgiven everyone in your life, he will withhold forgiveness. God died for my sins, but it's up to me to maintain my salvation...what?? 

 

I want you to know if you keep reading good skeptical books, visiting the forums here, and making friends who don't go to church, you'll calm down and the fear will slowly go away. Medication has helped me tremendously and if you have a family history of anxiety or depression, you might see if your doctor thinks you could benefit from anti depressants.

 

The stage you're at right now, torturing yourself over whether you ever really loved god or if you could love god, is pretty normal. When you feel the time is right, you can stop beating yourself up over not turning out to be the good christian person you always thought you would be, and your family wanted you to be. Leaving your faith is so, so painful, but once you get through the shitty part, life becomes a lot more fun! 

 

If you find yourself freaking out, you might want to read a free ebook i wrote called Breaking Up With Jesus (there's a link in my signature). You might find the chapter about being pentecostal particularly helpful.

email me if you want to chat sometime.

[megasamurai]

Still, the things I've been fed have stuck with me. I was taught that atheists have no compassion and empathy. All of their reasons for disbelieving in God are excuses to eat babies and rape puppies. Any sign of compassion is fake. I was guilt tripped into how wrong it was to almost fall in love with an "evil" atheist. I still wonder, if she really was evil, why did she show me affection? Why was I so happy around someone if she was evil?

[RogueScholar]

Go to the source of how to define evil. Really read the bible, and not just cherry pick the feel good stuff. What does the bible day about people who wear different types of linen mixes in their clothing? What about people who work on the sabbath? How about women who are raped during war? If you find that you are cherry picking the good stuff because you don't think all the aforementioned people are evil or do not deserve hell and/or punishment, then you don't believe in the bible. If you don't believe in the bible, you cannot believe in hell.

[megasamurai]

This summer has been a living hell. My mom has constantly hounded me to return to Christianity and she makes me feel like scum. She thinks my sensitivity to the doctrine of hell is holding me back and corrupting me. She offered to pray for me to remove my feelings. I felt uncomfortable removing my compassion for non-Christians and refused. She knew how to strike an emotional wound on me by making my compassion look despicable. Her first argument was the fact that I've been rejected and hated my whole life for my tourrettes and autism. She explained that God felt the same way I do when I'm rejected. Because of this, God has every right to send non-Christians to hell. She explained that God could provide vengeance for me on my behalf. She explained that it would make no sense to defend people who hate me and harm me.

 

My rebuttal was simple, I felt I would be worse than the people who've hurt me if I supported God's plan. I thought it was vengeance, pure and simple. My mom knew my emotional weakness and explained that I was no sticking up for morality, but sticking for my own pride and refusing to admit being wrong on an intellectual and moral level. She said God does justice not revenge on those who offend. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn". It's morally right to cause equilibrium by inflicting as much pain as was given. God is hurt by non-believers enough that they deserve the amount of pain.

 

I had my doubts that this was morally right because I thought "bless those who curse you" was Jesus main teaching. She explained using Job that I had no right to doubt God because Job knew God was just even if he appears unjust. God told Job that he doesn't know how it's like to be in charge of the world. Since God is omniscent, he knows that what he does is for the greater good. She explained that things that bothered me like ordering the killing of children was morally right because the children deserved it and God was omniscent enough to know it would turn out for worse if the Canaanite children were to live.

 

I explained to her that I'm not the only one who morally disagrees with hell. She explained that these people are liers and know in their heart that hell is justice. Those people are just denying God's existance and goodness to justify evil and cruelty to humankind. They only feign compassion. She thought atheists were full of nothing but hate. It was wrong for me to empathize with them.

 

I feel like an awful and despicable person for not feeling affection for someone who I'm told is always morally right. My mom's rhetoric is enough to make me feel worthless. What should I do about her words? She seems to know how to emotionally manipulate me enough to force me back into Christianity.

[kolaida]

This summer has been a living hell. My mom has constantly hounded me to return to Christianity and she makes me feel like scum. She thinks my sensitivity to the doctrine of hell is holding me back and corrupting me. She offered to pray for me to remove my feelings. I felt uncomfortable removing my compassion for non-Christians and refused. She knew how to strike an emotional wound on me by making my compassion look despicable. Her first argument was the fact that I've been rejected and hated my whole life for my tourrettes and autism. She explained that God felt the same way I do when I'm rejected. Because of this, God has every right to send non-Christians to hell. She explained that God could provide vengeance for me on my behalf. She explained that it would make no sense to defend people who hate me and harm me.

 

My rebuttal was simple, I felt I would be worse than the people who've hurt me if I supported God's plan. I thought it was vengeance, pure and simple. My mom knew my emotional weakness and explained that I was no sticking up for morality, but sticking for my own pride and refusing to admit being wrong on an intellectual and moral level. She said God does justice not revenge on those who offend. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn". It's morally right to cause equilibrium by inflicting as much pain as was given. God is hurt by non-believers enough that they deserve the amount of pain.

 

I had my doubts that this was morally right because I thought "bless those who curse you" was Jesus main teaching. She explained using Job that I had no right to doubt God because Job knew God was just even if he appears unjust. God told Job that he doesn't know how it's like to be in charge of the world. Since God is omniscent, he knows that what he does is for the greater good. She explained that things that bothered me like ordering the killing of children was morally right because the children deserved it and God was omniscent enough to know it would turn out for worse if the Canaanite children were to live.

 

I explained to her that I'm not the only one who morally disagrees with hell. She explained that these people are liers and know in their heart that hell is justice. Those people are just denying God's existance and goodness to justify evil and cruelty to humankind. They only feign compassion. She thought atheists were full of nothing but hate. It was wrong for me to empathize with them.

 

I feel like an awful and despicable person for not feeling affection for someone who I'm told is always morally right. My mom's rhetoric is enough to make me feel worthless. What should I do about her words? She seems to know how to emotionally manipulate me enough to force me back into Christianity.

 

Whoa, whoa. Hold up. First off, your Mom sounds VERY, VERY, uh passionate about religion, like she sounds like a fundamentalist. Even my mom isn't that much of a fundamentalist and she's pretty passionate about God. First off, God is NOT being rejected like you. He isn't IN society with tourrettes or autism, he doesn't interact personally with other people. And she has no proof that a Christian would treat someone better than an atheist would based on what they are born with. I mean, there are mean Christian and atheists and nice Christians and atheists. 

 

Also, her way of justifying that it was okay to kill those kids is pretty much how my Baptist churches justified it, too.  Even if she justified (which I'm sure others will point out, she didn't really succeed in that area-- because why were the kids ever allowed to be born in the first place if God found killing them off at a young age to be better? Why not just cause the women to miscarry them??). But even IF she justified it in your mind, it still doesn't confirm that the Bible is even true. And it has so many discrepancies with history. 

 

If YOU want to believe it, you are welcome to (that is not sarcasm, by the way. Realized it might sound like). I just don't want you feeling worthless because you have legitimate questions. If it's in the best interest for you health to simply go along with your mom (I'm unaware of your age of when you plan to move out) so as not to stress out or being drawn into these type of arguments, you could consider that, too. I mean, some people are really just too... invested into the religion and cling wildly to it.  To her, she has this belief that you will be on happy family living in a heavenly neighborhood for eternity and you are pretty much ruining her fantasy. Not how she sees it, but that's the gist of it. 

 

Please, please, though, don't feel worthless or despicable. Despicable people are generally the ones who make others feel worthless. 

[megasamurai]

Fundamentalism comes with being an Assembly of God preacher's grandkid. To tell the truth, the arguments for Christianity have some holes as to things that are completely indefensible (God's misogyny, condonation of slavery and beating of slaves, scapegoating the children of sinners for the sins of the people who actually committed the sin), I told her that I found some of God's actions indefensible and nothing could change my mind. She responded that I was prideful and purposefully ignoring all the good things that God did. I told her that I did acknowledge all the healing Jesus did. I just found that his evil actions of sending people to hell outweighed the good. I knew that the Bible said that the majority of humanity would go to hell. I felt that the well being of the many outweighed the well being of the elite few.

 

My mom rebutalled with the fact that those in hell are deserving it. The needs of the worthy outweigh the needs of the unworthy. She used "you're ignoring the good" on me again. She explained that since Jesus healed people and let the Romans kill him in a brutal way to save me, he must be good and everything he does is for the greater good. Even if he did some evil things, no one has to right to a negative opinion of him sense his good is substantial enough to overshadow any perceived flaws.

 

In essance, she made my disbelief in the Bible out of moral opposition look like an awful thing. I used to not have any doubts about the evil and fictional nature about the character portrayed by the Bible. My mother's rhetoric was that emotionally provacative with her delivery and charisma. I felt despicable for believing that God was fictitious and evil. I actually tried to pray to have my sensitivity to non-believers being damned removed, but the prayer had no effect. I care about people more than right and wrong. I physically cannot love God more than the people he supposedly harms. That is my fatal character flaw. I don't want to put myself under stress by trying to find affection for an invisible being. I find Christianity a burden, but I don't know if my mom's right or not. 

[kolaida]

I wouldn't say that's your fatal character flaw and it is it, it's a good flaw to have. Also, it seems like your mom is just cherry picking the Bible and she is only choosing to acknowledge the positives and ignore the bad. 

 

It's really up to you to determine if your mom is right or not. Our parents tend to have more influence on us than others because they are our parents. You just have to do research and come to your own conclusion.  

 

It's not as if having faith in something is a terrible thing; just with Christianity, it teaches to push, push, push it on other people. and really stumps growth in individuals. 

 

I understand the arguments your mother is making as I used to tell myself those things when I believed, but at the end of the day, it's up to you-- not me, your mom, or anybody else in your life on online life to decide what you believe. 

 

Also, as a note, your mom seems really far gone into religion. It doesn't sound like her mind would be changed or that her opinion will waver. Unfortunately, it looks like you'll have to deal with some kind of burden either way you choose to deal with this.

[Lerk]

In essance, she made my disbelief in the Bible out of moral opposition look like an awful thing. I used to not have any doubts about the evil and fictional nature about the character portrayed by the Bible. My mother's rhetoric was that emotionally provacative with her delivery and charisma. I felt despicable for believing that God was fictitious and evil. I actually tried to pray to have my sensitivity to non-believers being damned removed, but the prayer had no effect. I care about people more than right and wrong. I physically cannot love God more than the people he supposedly harms. That is my fatal character flaw. I don't want to put myself under stress by trying to find affection for an invisible being. I find Christianity a burden, but I don't know if my mom's right or not. 

 

1) If the gospels are to be believed at all, Jesus said to love your enemies, so the idea that you shouldn't love nonbelievers comes from choosing only the parts of the Bible that go along with what a person already believes which, in this case, means that verse has to be ignored.

 

2) There's really no point in talking to your mother about this. If I understand you right, you're normally off at college and just home for the summer. It's hardly worth the stress to have these discussions with your mother for three months. You might consider just going along with her, and avoiding the conversation as much as you possibly can.

 

3) You need to be studying about where the Bible came from (not through apologetic literature, but through Biblical Criticism websites and books). There are actually people who believe Jesus was the son of god who are experts in this field, who know where the religion came from and who explain it. People don't have to be atheists to know that the Bible is the result of a developed religion and not of a god making sure every word is exactly what he wants.

 

4) Along with (3), find out what changed "between the testaments" (after Malachi and before Matthew). This was not really a silent period as we were taught. The Jews were still writing. It was at this time that they picked up the ideas of eternal punishment and eternal reward. Once you know these things, you will be a lot less likely to suffer from the feeling and fear that Jehovah is real.

 

The reason you never felt like you loved god, the reason you couldn't choose to, has a lot to do with the fact that you couldn't perceive such a being in any tangible, or even intangible, way. There's no such being, and you were unable to fool yourself into believing there was. Learn where the idea of god came from so that you can finally be confident in the truth, rather than having emotional persuasion drawing you back into a lie.

[megasamurai]

I've been able to avoid any conversations this week. I haven't been pressured to go back to church. I know the Bible has it's shares of goofiness and unbelievablity, but the stories of the supernatural scare me. All the stories about angels, demons, people who have gone to heaven and hell, and numerous other things have scared the crap out of me. I don't know how to feel love for a God that puts so much fear and pressure into my life.

[True]

If God were to exist, he would not be worthy of love.

If God were to exist, he created Sin, Satan, and Evil. 

Knowing what these things would do to humanity.

 

He created these things KNOWING what would happen.

Telling his believers that they are worthless. Making them feel worthless (As you do now).

 

The bible does this to your mind, it warps your definition of love, compassion, and truth sending you into a spiral of emotional agony. 

Like training a circus elephant to believe the little rope holding it's huge body to a pole is too strong to break.

When they are small, the rope is too strong. The influence is too great.

When they grow up, they are unaware of how strong they've become, and do not test the rope. 

 

Do not fear hell. Think beyond hell.

If it were real, why would you be going?

Your sin would be honest love. 

Your sin would be honesty. 

 

You honestly could not find love for God.

How wrong would it be to torture you for eternity for that? 

Wouldn't you be going to hell anyways? Fake love for a God who knows everything wouldn't pass anyhow. 

 

Last of all.

What makes a flame? Do some research on fire. 

Tell me how you are to suffer if you are leaving your atoms behind? 

If there were an afterlife. 

[impickle]

If God were to exist, he would not be worthy of love.

If God were to exist, he created Sin, Satan, and Evil. 

Knowing what these things would do to humanity.

 

He created these things KNOWING what would happen.

Telling his believers that they are worthless. Making them feel worthless (As you do now).

 

The bible does this to your mind, it warps your definition of love, compassion, and truth sending you into a spiral of emotional agony. 

Like training a circus elephant to believe the little rope holding it's huge body to a pole is too strong to break.

When they are small, the rope is too strong. The influence is too great.

When they grow up, they are unaware of how strong they've become, and do not test the rope. 

 

Do not fear hell. Think beyond hell.

If it were real, why would you be going?

Your sin would be honest love. 

Your sin would be honesty. 

 

You honestly could not find love for God.

How wrong would it be to torture you for eternity for that? 

Wouldn't you be going to hell anyways? Fake love for a God who knows everything wouldn't pass anyhow. 

 

Last of all.

What makes a flame? Do some research on fire. 

Tell me how you are to suffer if you are leaving your atoms behind? 

If there were an afterlife.

 

 

 

Whoa that was brilliant. You said it perfectly. Thanks for that!

[megasamurai]

It used to be so obvious to me that something was wrong with Christianity. It hurt that people I loved would be set on fire. I am told my opposition to hell is merely opposition to justice. I used to believe that right and wrong were for practical reasons, that it was there to reduce the suffering in this world. I thought there were only two rules, "Causing suffering is evil, alleviating suffering is good. Causing suffering is only justified when it's the only way to prevent an even greater amount of suffering". I was heavily influenced by Jeremy Bentham's philosophy. There was no way that Christianity could be good by my philosophy. I thought morality was based only on the concrete suffering of the world, not on abstract principles.

 

For God to be good, morality would have to be based on abstract principles above the well being of mankind. What I cannot gather is how is God hurting people who've hurt him good? According to Christianity, punishments are not for utilitarian goals such as preventing bad people from harming others, deterring them from doing evil, or motivating evil people to reform. Punishment is done exclusively for what Christians call "justice" or a state of equilibrium  where "suffering caused by sinner=suffering done to sinner by God". As Exodus puts it "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound, burn for burn". What I don't know is why is this state of equilibrium good. Why is "wound for wound" a good thing?  Since Biblical philosophy automatically only increases the suffering of the world, it's obvious that Christian morality is based on abstract principles rather than the well being of mankind. The question is: why should I put abstract principles above concrete suffering of mankind? What is the benifit of putting abstract ideas above people?