garrisonjj Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Has anyone noticed an immediate change for the better or worse when finally deciding to leave religion or even to ease into atheism? I am struggling with these issues now. While thrilled one moment to leave religion and all the impending baggage of guilt,,,,,,I still maintain concern over "god's wrath" or him coming into my life to punish me.I know this is contradictory,,,,,but leaving a Catholic brainwash for over 40 years is not easy? Any advice into my world of further developing my pursuit of making religion totally irrelevant? Thank you, gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 What helped me was doing research into other religions that I had previously felt were forbidden to research and realizing it was all just a myth. Reading up on Paganism helped immensely. I don't consider myself an atheist, because I don't think you can prove it either way, but I don't think that religion is anything other than myth and superstition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japedo Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 I have to second what advice Amethyst gave. In researching other religions, you will see that Christianity is not unique, no way inspirational or even rational. I also don't fall into the atheism category, but pure logic and reason alone dictates that the buybull is Bullshit. If a god was loving, he would be loving and just to all his creation regardless of ideology. There is no fairness in the bible for non-believers, weather it be a brother stealing a birthright, or god killing children to make a statement, Victims aren't treated very well, instead excuses are made for egregious crimes committed against them. I think fearing wraths of gods has been passed down since the days of Egypt and Greek gods. Once you realize your fear of wrath and hell/Hades/underworld is no different then ancients you'll slowly see how much hell is a tool to control the masses. Deprogramming 40 years of indoctrination is not by any means easy. Fear is the hardest part to unlearn, I'm still working on it myself. I wish you much success and luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Daring to do things that you'd consider "sinful" or "blasphemous" or just taboo in general, and finding out that the world doesn't in fact end when you do them, and that your life really isn't going to fall apart, and that in fact you might actually end up learning something cool in the process -- all of that is a very powerful and useful thing. Dare to give biblegod the finger. Start small, work your way to bigger things. Go over to CF, poke the fundies, watch them scurry around like little panicked ants. Dare to work on Sunday. Dare to say out loud that god is a smeghead. Dare to say out loud "The Bible is bullshit!" Dare anything. Then see what happens. I can pretty much guarantee you that your life is going to stay the same regardless of what you believe religionwise. Good shit will happen, bad shit will happen, just like it always has. Just take a little time and you'll lose that fear eventually. Don't worry about the contradictory thing either - indoctrination can take awhile to unravel. One of the reasons why it took awhile for me to move from being simply skeptical to being full-blown agnatheist (new term!) is being haunted by that fear of the sky daddy waiting to pounce. That whole "Big Daddy is Watching You" thing gets pounded into believers bigtime, as does the whole thing about hell and retribution and generally getting cosmic cement shoes if you don't Behave Properly; and old habits die hard. But they do die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Daring to do things that you'd consider "sinful" or "blasphemous" or just taboo in general, and finding out that the world doesn't in fact end when you do them, and that your life really isn't going to fall apart, and that in fact you might actually end up learning something cool in the process -- all of that is a very powerful and useful thing. Good point. Even just doing something as simple as listening to music you wouldn't have otherwise listened to or reading a book you previously thought was forbidden can help to lessen that fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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