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Goodbye Jesus

My Tongue Is Sore From All The Biting.


L.B.

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4 hours ago, Cat987 said:

 

The sad thing is... we were ALL indigenous peoples with indigenous native cultures that were specifically relevant to us. And Christianity blew in and just tore it down. I mean it's hundreds and thousands of years of naturally evolving traditions and belief systems destroyed. And although they are "nicer" about it (i.e. not murdering and maiming), they're still destroying native cultures all over the world. I wonder if the people converting from their native faiths to Christianity now, have any idea what they are giving up and losing?

 

 

Missions minded groups have switched from forced conversions to "carrot" conversions.  Oh, you don't have any clean water to drink?  You don't have a home anymore?  Your children are starving?  Well, come let us teach you about our god and jesus and sin and such and we will give you those things.  And while we are at it, we'll take your precious children who you struggle to provide for, put school uniforms on them, and indoctrinate them so they become good little adult Christians (I'm talking to you, Compassion Int.!).    

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11 minutes ago, Daffodil said:

 

Missions minded groups have switched from forced conversions to "carrot" conversions.  Oh, you don't have any clean water to drink?  You don't have a home anymore?  Your children are starving?  Well, come let us teach you about our god and jesus and sin and such and we will give you those things.  And while we are at it, we'll take your precious children who you struggle to provide for, put school uniforms on them, and indoctrinate them so they become good little adult Christians (I'm talking to you, Compassion Int.!).    

 

Yes, that disgusts me. You have to really dig into charities before you donate to them if you don't want this crap being done. In a way this is its own brand of unwarranted violence. If you have plans to help someone and you have the means to help someone and other people have donated money so that you can help someone but you are holding their help hostage unless they allow you to do this conversion song and dance, that's still evil. It might not be as visually gross and dramatic like chopping off somebody's head or burning them alive, but these people are smart enough now to know that shit won't fly with the public.

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1 hour ago, TruthSeeker0 said:

Yes, that is a very good point. And one of the reasons I'm become a bit more curious about my heritage and background, but alas I can't figure out a thing really about possible "pagan" roots or beliefs. And family is the last place I could ask questions, because they largely ignore the "unbelievers", both living and dead.

 

Have you thought about doing the DNA testing?  I am really curious about that, but haven't done it because it makes me a little nervous about a corporation having that data on me.  Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I really would be curious to know.  We have traced one side of the family back to the 1700s and they are French and English.  The other side is at least partly English, but my maternal great-grandfather was adopted, so we don't even have a surname we can trace for him.

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6 minutes ago, Daffodil said:

 

Have you thought about doing the DNA testing?  I am really curious about that, but haven't done it because it makes me a little nervous about a corporation having that data on me.  Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I really would be curious to know.  We have traced one side of the family back to the 1700s and they are French and English.  The other side is at least partly English, but my maternal great-grandfather was adopted, so we don't even have a surname we can trace for him.

 

Ha! I feel the same way. Fortunately another member of my family (close enough to give me a bird's eye view) did the test, so I do have some information. Sometimes also family names help. I've learned a lot from that as well.

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30 minutes ago, Daffodil said:

 

Have you thought about doing the DNA testing?  I am really curious about that, but haven't done it because it makes me a little nervous about a corporation having that data on me.  Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I really would be curious to know.  We have traced one side of the family back to the 1700s and they are French and English.  The other side is at least partly English, but my maternal great-grandfather was adopted, so we don't even have a surname we can trace for him.

There's a whole genealogical volume written about my mother's side of the family that I need to get my hands on, but I have some suspicions about my dad's side of the family so a DNA test actually wouldn't be a bad idea.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 9/11/2018 at 12:50 PM, TruthSeeker0 said:

I used to be one of those Christians who didn't bother to think about indigenous peoples and forced conversion at all. Somehow, when you're an xtian, and particularly a fundie, everything becomes justified as "saving souls" or "it was god's will". But what actually helped clue me in and start thinking about this was the overt racism in the church towards native people. And getting an education. That was when I became aware of what you call ignorant arrogance in the church. I think this is probably a common path in deconversion, first people critique things like hypocrisy and arrogance and behaviour that seems wrong, and then they start digging more deeply into the beliefs and doctrine as a result of that.

In the later 80s I attended a Southern Baptist church in Savannah, GA, as a guest. Most of the congregation was white. I was with my husband and my beautiful East Indian friend. (I am brown-skinned too) After the service, Brother Bubba Baptist, donning a lavender blazer, came over to us to "welcome" us. After asking us where we were from, he said that he had always been partial to dark skinned people (in foreign far-flung lands where he had been a missionary). Talk about making me feel like a piece of chicken! "What part of the chicken would you like, Brother?" "Oh, I'll have the drumstick - I've always been partial to dark meat!" Christians say the darndest things!

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14 minutes ago, JenniferG said:

In the later 80s I attended a Southern Baptist church in Savannah, GA, as a guest. Most of the congregation was white. I was with my husband and my beautiful East Indian friend. (I am brown-skinned too) After the service, Brother Bubba Baptist, donning a lavender blazer, came over to us to "welcome" us. After asking us where we were from, he said that he had always been partial to dark skinned people (in foreign far-flung lands where he had been a missionary). Talk about making me feel like a piece of chicken! "What part of the chicken would you like, Brother?" "Oh, I'll have the drumstick - I've always been partial to dark meat!" Christians say the darndest things!

That is so patronizing and condescending. I noticed that attitude towards missionary work in my ex church. What pisses me off most about the attitude of a great many white people in the developed world is that they think their life style is superior. So called third world countries may be economically disadvantaged but who are we to conclude they are socially and culturally disadvantaged as well.

Sometimes I think the point would go across if people of color started giving these kinds of outlandish sarcastic statements to whites. Something like "I have always been partial to white people, they have done so much to ensure that African nations be able to benefit from their natural resources." The sad thing about the statement is that many people would take it as a compliment. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/5/2018 at 8:15 PM, JenniferG said:

 

It's horrible to imprison a child's mind like that. I'm still traumatized by PTSD earworms of those inane Sunday School songs that randomly pop up when I'm minding my own business:

"The B I B L E, yes that's the book for me

I love to hear the stories of the B I B L E"

 

My heart was black as sin

Until the Savior came in

His precious blood I know

Has washed me white as snow

For in his book I'm to-oh-old

The streets are paved with go-oh-old

A wonderful, wonderful day

He took my sins away

 

Also, there was one I learned in South Africa as a child:

"The most precious book is the Bible

The most precious book is the Bible

If you read it every day

You'll always be safe (on your way)

Yes, the most precious book is the Bible.

(This is translated from Afrikaans - so that it doesn't quite rhyme well in prose)

 

P.S. How much more beautiful would my mind have been if I had memorized Shakespeare,  and the works and thoughts of other great writers and minds than the archaic crap I was forced to do.

We had to memorize The Lord's Prayer and a few Psalms in the public school when Religion was included in the curriculum. Thank goodness I didn't learn science till High School although they taught neither Creationism nor Evolution - just a splattering of chemistry and the usual High School experiments of the day.

 

I'm so glad I can contribute scientific thought to my grandchildren when they talk about god. (Their parents are nominal Catholic believers.)

 

Hi!! I am Afrikaner on my dad's side. I lived in S.A. for three years as a little girl.

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On 9/11/2018 at 8:23 PM, VerbosityCat said:

 

Do you have any idea at all about where your ancestors came from? There's likely to be a mix of some sort, in which case you can explore and see which if any mythology appeals to you. Unless you have a strong Celtic background (which of course leads to the celtic myths/gods/etc.) or have more Greek roots, if your ancestors came from Europe, there is a pretty high likelihood that they at one point followed the germanic/norse gods and customs. That spread out over a pretty wide area of northern Europe, not just scandinavia. The reason many people use the norse god names is because the germanic and norse gods are the same gods with different names but the mythology was better preserved by the norse (in Iceland.) Also it's important to realize just how much has been preserved. Like almost all the Christmas traditions for example are really pagan traditions. And a lot of them come from the norse/germanic Yule celebration. Technically Christmas overtook Saturnalia, but as it "spread", everybody pretty much had their own winter solstice celebrations. Much of what came to America in the form of Christmas customs comes to us from Yule. (I mean we even have the yule log, and the word "yuletide" in many christmas carols.)

 

Needless to say my holiday celebrations around the winter solstice haven't changed much. I celebrate with my family as always and just leave out all the Jesus parts, which leaves me with all the pagan/yule parts.

 

Most of the secular holidays we culturally celebrate are pretty pagan in nature. For me it wasn't so much about trying to reconstruct exactly what my ancestors believed or did, but seeing what remained that could be salvaged and what worked and fit naturally for me. I guess to me much of what people consider "secular" society strikes me as way more pagan than "secular" because secular implies something isn't sacred. Well it isn't sacred to Christians but there are a lot of things labeled "secular" that are plenty sacred to other people and that includes the spiritual atheist category.

 

Over time I've come to feel that the "needfor religion" so many people seem to have is a need for connection to something and some sort of "practice" or ritual or routine. I don't really think it's about "what you believe" at all. I think some people like having a sort of background assurance that "everything will be okay" (if they are inclined toward believing in something beyond this life) but for the practical matter of living I think people just want to feel connected to something.

I just want to feel like I have some sort of connection to those who came before me and I like to think they would be happy to know even centuries later that Christianity is losing its death grip on their descendants and that many are seeking to reconnect with something older.

 

There is something that really bugs me about the idea that my ancestors all were converted or died in vain clinging to their way with nobody to preserve traditions or customs or myths and pass them on. To me it's important to know that it is "continuing on" in some way (stories/myths/customs) I don't think it so much matters what people "believe about" their ancestral gods or customs or whatever. I just want to know that Christianity didn't totally beat us. That it didn't put out that flame and that we can still carry it on in our own way going forward.

We need to talk!!!! I am having almost identical thoughts to this lately!

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It's really awful to hear that @L.B.. Kids are evolutionarily fine-tuned to do and say anything to get their parents' approval. It's a matter of survival for them. Kids perform actions conveying beliefs but I don't think they really are thinking about them the way adults think they're thinking about them. 

 

I suppose you can try to influence them to develop critical thinking and education, and hope that leads them to the light later in their life. There is a danger though that a psychological tug-of-war between their parents would put them under a lot of stress (I've listened to childhood stories of people who have had parents who competed to try to get them into their individual religions). I think a child really needs unconditional parental love - or whatever is closest to that that a human is able to give. Xian love tends to be disingenuous and transactional, and over time the kids might eventually come to realize they could never feel security or fulfillment from it. If in that moment they realize that your acceptance is not like that maybe they'll see the wisdom of your ways.  I think the best you can do is treat your kids with love and affection, and perhaps merely point out the possibilities of other belief systems. They are individuals after all and if you don't respect that they will viciously rebel in the adolescent stage (which may happen anyway). 

 

As a person who has struggled with a sense of parental rejection for much of his life I want to say that whatever your kids end up believing please treat them with acceptance and tell them you're proud of them.

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  • 2 months later...

Indoctrination of children into mindless cults like xtianity should be considered child abuse. 

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