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Goodbye Jesus

Recurring fears


Kat34

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I don’t know if anyone can help but I’m in a very confused place at the moment... for a few years now I’ve felt there are intellectual and moral difficulties with Christianity being true and with it being untrue. 

 

I was brought up by a mum who was a born again Christian and a dad who thought being a Christian was about a certain kind of behaviour and when asked if he was one said he “hoped so”. My mum explained the difference to me and I prayed every night he would become a Christian; I was terrified of him going to hell. He did become one a couple of years before he died when I was 12. 

 

I started to lose interest in Christianity until age 15 I suddenly (I can remember the moment) developed an intense fear about the concept of eternity and then about the end times, second coming and hell. I renewed my commitment to Jesus based on these fears and worried constantly about the eternal fate of others. Despite lots of desperate praying at this time and subsequently, I never felt God for myself.

 

Over the next few years I went through phases of being more and less interested in Christianity. I’d manage to forget my fears for months at a time and then they’d return. In my early 20s I read A Severe Mercy, which I found incredibly moving and hoped was the start of a path back to God. A little later I read The Evangelical Universalist and The Inescapable Love of God, which I felt began to address some of the problems I’d always had with the concept of original sin and hell. I had continued to have a huge fear of the second coming and for the eternal destiny of my then partner; these last two books gave me some hope. 

 

In the last few years I began to doubt for the first time the truth of Christianity at all, based on increasing life experience and understanding of other fields and helped by a friend who’d been a Christian firebrand at university but who had lost his faith. The consequences of this new way of thinking were a huge sense of freedom and peace and the ability to look at “controversial” issues (homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism etc.) in a new way. They were also a markedly increased awareness of my own mortality (now that people might not live forever) and of health anxiety and a fear of dying young and a loss of the sense that ultimately all will be put right, of the many atrocities that have taken place over the ages being addressed. I’ve always believed if punishment is to have any purpose it must be rehabilitative rather than vengeful and books like The Inescapable Love of God had fitted in my with feeling that people needed to be brought to an understanding of the impact their wrong actions had on others (rather than being physically or mentally tortured forever). If there was no God, people like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc. would never face any kind of accountability for the suffering they had inflicted on millions. The source of morality was also gone - if there was no God, why did I care about such things?

 

While I have continued to lean towards the idea that Christianity isn’t true, those questions remain. However what disturbs me most is the lingering fear that it could still be true after all. I get moments of terror now and again thinking about the second coming happening and hell being real. Having my second baby a week ago has triggered existential questions and fear; after my first baby I only feared what could happen in this world but now I’m constantly worrying that hell is real and if it is my children could end up there. This is the most horrific thought imaginable and I keep fixating on it and feeling fear, rather than being able to enjoy my new baby. 

 

I’ve read through the other threads on fear of hell and I empathise with a comment someone made about it almost being hardwired into our brains in childhood. I just don’t know how to find peace because ultimately, however unjust and awful we think hell sounds, we cannot know for certain what the truth is about what happens when we die. I just want to be free of this fear.

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17 hours ago, Kat34 said:

I’ve read through the other threads on fear of hell and I empathise with a comment someone made about it almost being hardwired into our brains in childhood. I just don’t know how to find peace because ultimately, however unjust and awful we think hell sounds, we cannot know for certain what the truth is about what happens when we die. I just want to be free of this fear.

 

It's completely made up. We know this. It's hard to take that in until you get to the point of knowing it for yourself. Because until you know it, it can seem as if maybe there's really something to it - like Santa or anything else that we know is made up, but which we'd like to pretend might be real. How do we know this? Because of the evidence of the concept evolving over time showing that it was gradually being made up as it went along.

 

I technically (in a philosophical sense of the rules of logic) don't have absolute knowledge that Santa doesn't exist and won't come down the chimney on Christmas Eve. I have to bow out to technical philosophical rules and admit a lack of total and complete knowledge. But so what? Does that make Santa any more real?

 

No, it doesn't. It just represents a philosophical technicality. I can still rest easy knowing to the extent that knowledge is available that (1) human beings gradually made up the Santa myth and that (2) probability rests on the conclusion that Santa isn't real and that human beings making something up hasn't accidentally corresponded to something that is actually real, by chance. 

 

Hell is no different than Santa Claus. People literally made it up. It used to be made up as a cold place, away from god. Then it was later shifted to a hot place. As a member recently pointed out, only souls would be going to hell and souls aren't physical objects that would burn in the first place. The myth is completely, through and through, full of holes, as we'd expect of a man made concept made up by diverse people through diverse time periods. 

 

The most glaring aspect is the social control aspect. This is clearly an evolving myth which focuses on the punishment side of a rewards and punishment people herding effort. We live in a transitional time where the remnants of this bronze age mythology are letting up, but still exist along side of the wave of the future of society moving beyond these bronze age myths. And you are right now standing one foot on either side of this social transition. My advice to you is take your other foot off of the bronze age myth. 

 

Join the rest of us who are concerned with living a moral life without the need or want to be led around by blind leaders offering rewards and punishments. We don't need them to live a good and descent life. You have that ability within yourself. People like I'm describing don't live in fear of hell, even though just like you, they once lived that way in their past. They have transcended that mentality altogether and put it behind them. I wish you luck in beating this problem and becoming immune to that kind of fear driven life and world view. 

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Reaffirming myself with literature and sites like this one has helped me when I had my doubts.  A lifetime of brainwashing and practice generally just go away automatically.  If it helps, Hell was a New Testament creation; the Jews believed in Sheol, or the grave where everyone went when they died.  Only later did the concepts of a Heaven develop and punishment for the guilty assigned.  In the Old Testament, the rewards for Godly behavior were manifest and physical: money, children, respect, etc.  The punishments for unrighteous behavior were similarly addressed.  The rewards of the afterlife came later, when Christianity courted beggars and the poor, who most likely wouldn't see the benefits of faith in their lifetimes.

 

I'm not as scholarly as some of the other posters here, and they can probably help you better, but just like most other things, affirmation and reaffirmation will help in the now.  Also, while your vulnerable, try to stay away from apologetics and such.  Remember, walk before you run.  Besides, if CHristianity were as easy as it was supposedly meant to be, why have apologetics at all?  Who needs to justify God?  If they have to work as hard as they do to keep you in the herd, shouldn't that be suspicious?  Couple that with the number of denominations available who condemn everyone who doesn't think like them and you realize it's just a power trip and a social club.

 

Anyway, I wish you the best and I'll close with this.  We may not really know what happens when we die, but taking the word of a book whose only reference is itself is certainly incorrect.  Besides, what about all the other religions?  They're all just as valid.  I firmly believe that religion is mostly a matter of geography.  If we were in the Middle East, we'd all probably be Ex-Muslims instead of Ex-Christians.  Ex-Hindus?  Ex-Buddhists?  Ex-Animists?  It's all the same.

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Thank you so much both of you for your replies. I don’t have anyone I can talk about this with so I’m glad to have found this space. Can either of you recommend any reading around the development of the concept of hell? I remember that G K Chesterton described the existence of stories about gods becoming men in pre New Testament cultures “good dreams” that kind of paved the way or prepared people for what Jesus would do. So it seems Christians can find ways of explaining why their holy book finds parallels in previous mythologies. 

 

Joshpantera, I’m still learning how to use the site and not sure how to quote just part of a response but thinking about your comments about it not being possible to burn the soul, I guess many Christians see the fire as a metaphor and believe hell is mental/ soul anguish rather than physical flames. I also remember reading a particularly disturbing passage of a book that argued that the bodies of the damned as well as the saved would also be resurrected, so that they could be physically punished in hell. 

 

I feel like if I can confidently see Christianity as wholly false then my fear of hell will naturally go. It is just so, so hard for me to let go of something that has had such a hold over me in the past and of a fear that has been so pervasive. The thing is Christianity doesn’t seem attractive to me, I cannot identify with it because I have  such deep seated problems with so many of the fundamentals and yet I fear it still COULD be true even though I don’t want it to be. I’m envious of you guys having managed to banish the doubts and fears!

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@Kat34

 

1. You likely will have no sensation of anything after you pass and, if you do, you'll be in spirit or soul form, so no pain. No burning.

2. The concept of Hell has mutated even after it began to appear sometime well after the first version of the Bible came to be. (Which was written by men, not deities) 

3. Fear is the best motivator - hence the implementation of Hell and the focus on it by many churches. 

4. You've been fed the mind-control BS for years so it will take some time to get completely over the fear of Hell. In my case it was about a year after my deconversion. 

 

Hang in there and relax. Time will remove your fear and soon you'll look back and wonder what you were ever worried about. I know that's hard to imagine right now but, in time, the fear fades. 

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3 hours ago, Kat34 said:

I feel like if I can confidently see Christianity as wholly false then my fear of hell will naturally go.

 

There you are. Just look for the tangible, independently verifiable evidence — evidence of the validity of Christianity from outside Christianity itself. There is none. If it was as big a deal as the practitioners say, there would be plenty of independent evidence.

 

As Mark Twain once wrote, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

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Here’s another way to think about this. I didn’t originate this; it’s been around on the net:

 

Christianity says that there is a being who exists everywhere, is all powerful (but does not use his/it’s power to prevent war, or horrific birth defects, or to keep children from starving to death), and knows everything (which means he knows how to solve the world’s problems but doesn’t do it).

 

He/it sent himself to earth and then killed himself in order to avenge himself for a curse he put on us because one of our distant ancestors and a rib woman ate fruit off a magical tree after being told to do it by a talking snake.

 

Now do Christians believe this because it makes sense or because someone else convinced them that bad things would happen to them if they didn’t?

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1 hour ago, older said:

Here’s another way to think about this. I didn’t originate this; it’s been around on the net:

 

Christianity says that there is a being who exists everywhere, is all powerful (but does not use his/it’s power to prevent war, or horrific birth defects, or to keep children from starving to death), and knows everything (which means he knows how to solve the world’s problems but doesn’t do it).

 

He/it sent himself to earth and then killed himself in order to avenge himself for a curse he put on us because one of our distant ancestors and a rib woman ate fruit off a magical tree after being told to do it by a talking snake.

 

Now do Christians believe this because it makes sense or because someone else convinced them that bad things would happen to them if they didn’t?

In the case of my mother, she is genuinely moved by the Christian story and that God could reach out to us in love when we are so undeserving. The trouble is, feeling like that necessitates accepting that we are wretched, whereas if we are born into a state of sin and rebellion, I can’t see why we are personally responsible for that or why the onus is on us to change that. 

 

I’ve managed in the past to put fears/ beliefs in Hell aside; I think it’s the fact I  have children now that has triggered it all again because any chance of it being true and affecting them is terrifying. 

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15 hours ago, Kat34 said:

Thank you so much both of you for your replies. I don’t have anyone I can talk about this with so I’m glad to have found this space. Can either of you recommend any reading around the development of the concept of hell? I remember that G K Chesterton described the existence of stories about gods becoming men in pre New Testament cultures “good dreams” that kind of paved the way or prepared people for what Jesus would do. So it seems Christians can find ways of explaining why their holy book finds parallels in previous mythologies. 

 

Watch this clip we often pass around about the evolution of Satan in the Bible: 

 

 

This short video outlines several factors in shinning the spot light on the details to which Satan and Hell are man made. The step by step processes that went into these joined concepts. Here's a summary of hell going through mythological stages and finally entering the bible: 

 

 

15 hours ago, Kat34 said:

Joshpantera, I’m still learning how to use the site and not sure how to quote just part of a response but thinking about your comments about it not being possible to burn the soul, I guess many Christians see the fire as a metaphor and believe hell is mental/ soul anguish rather than physical flames. I also remember reading a particularly disturbing passage of a book that argued that the bodies of the damned as well as the saved would also be resurrected, so that they could be physically punished in hell. 

 

You can quote the whole post, or isolate parts by highlighting as if to copy and paste, at which point an icon will appear that says: Quote Selection. You can quote individual words or sentences and paragraphs that way without having to quote an entire post. When you click on the Quote Selection icon that appears, it will automatically transfer the quote down to the new post you're drafting. 

 

Many christians see hell as metaphor, take it literally, and many don't believe in a physical hell at all and argue that it's unbiblical. That all goes into the consideration of how obviously man made it actually is. There's no consensus, there's no uniform way of taking any of it. This is the stuff of old Saint Nick, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc., etc. Made up as people went along, added to and subtracted from, mixed and matched with diverse and often unrelated cultures, and what it's thought of today, is largely due to extra biblical works like Paradise Lost as mentioned in the first video. 

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6 hours ago, Kat34 said:

The thing is Christianity doesn’t seem attractive to me, I cannot identify with it because I have  such deep seated problems with so many of the fundamentals and yet I fear it still COULD be true even though I don’t want it to be. I’m envious of you guys having managed to banish the doubts and fears!

 

Just keep in mind, I may sound firm about all this, but I'm also closing in on around 30 years out of my church and theistic beliefs. You don't get this sort of confidence over night in most cases. It comes from launching personal studying and even years and years of interacting with christians online or abroad arguing these points. Just look at it a process like taking up a new hobby and dive in. Go through the natural emotional roller coasters that go along with it and let people know when or where you feel like you want help with something. I'd say start by reading all you can about the evolution of the concept of hell from secular oriented academics. You already know the christian claims, start contrasting them with academic reading on the matter. 

 

If you think you've found something in favor of christianity, just play devil's advocate and try and make the argument and see what happens when experienced ex christians respond to whatever you think may work out in favor of christianity. That's one sure way to quickly learn where these arguments will go and who will come out on top, the christian or the ex christian? 

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Kat34, in regards to the fear, anxiety, worry, etc., learning the histories of hell, satan, Mithras, and other religions can help reinforce your knowledge, but you might then find other means of dealing with those problems equally helpful. Research RTS, Religious Trauma Syndrome. Modern psychiatry is becoming aware of the damage that the conditioning of these fears from childhood can cause. It truly is identical to dealing with cult indoctrination. Even when your mind is firmly aware of the alternatives and the truth of Christianity's terrible influence, the emotions, just like with PTSD, can be triggered by any perceived links. Since we live in a Christian culture, those links are everywhere. You can't shut them out, you can only learn to deal with them to the best of your ability. A good councilor would probably help immensely, but then in that field, you'll find that there are many Christian councilors. Those would not be able to fully grasp what you're trying to deal with and could try to steer you back to the 'right' path, making things worse for you in the long run. If you could find a reasonable atheist, agnostic or even Jewish councilor, you could find someone to relate to and who could help you. Don't be afraid to interview your proposed councilors either. Remember, you are hiring that person to help you, you are the boss, they are your employee.

 

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1 hour ago, Kat34 said:

and that God could reach out to us in love

 

Here's something that was in another thread on this board:

 

Dan Barker: “I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.”

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Sorry everyone, I’m using the website on my phone so finding it really tricky to highlight selected parts of responses! 

 

Noahccount I’ve had a look at RTS and it sounds really interesting. I’d love to be able to access a professional but unfortunately I’m not in a position to be able to currently. I totally recognise giving birth last week as having triggered my fear; I had a few wobbles during pregnancy but hadn’t thought about any of this stuff much for a long time before that.  

 

Joshpantera thanks so much for the clips and older for sharing the quote. The last part resonates. There should be no fear in love. I would only be a Christian out of fear. That can’t be right. Others manage to to do it out of love though and don’t experience that fear, I don’t know how. 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Kat34 said:

There should be no fear in love. I would only be a Christian out of fear. That can’t be right. Others manage to to do it out of love though and don’t experience that fear, I don’t know how. 

 

I think for many people, fear is used to draw them in. But once they're in, the fear disappears and they start loving God and loving their faith. Of course, that doesn't make it any less of a hideous scare tactic. If a God needs to use fear to get people to follow him, is he really worth worshipping? 

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Does anyone actually think, but what if I die and meet God? Or are you all just totally convinced of his non existence? Does it bother you to have lost your explanation of morality and the idea of there being justice one day and all the terrible things that have happened in the world being addressed (even though we might find the nature of some of that justice questionable)? 

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38 minutes ago, Kat34 said:

Does anyone actually think, but what if I die and meet God? Or are you all just totally convinced of his non existence? 

 

I still fear hell. Just last night I was lying in bed nearly freaking out wondering if I was wrong (how typical is it that these thoughts come when you're trying to sleep?). But I'm still finding my feet in terms of my beliefs. I imagine that with study and time, those fears will disappear. At least I hope so.

 

42 minutes ago, Kat34 said:

Does it bother you to have lost your explanation of morality and the idea of there being justice one day and all the terrible things that have happened in the world being addressed 

 

There is no justice in Christianity. Picture, for example, the Nazis and the millions of Jews who died at their hands. They all get the same punishment. They all go to hell, according to Christianity. That's not justice. And those Jews would have no sense of justice either because they're suffering just the same as their killers. 

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All I can add is that it's a cult based on fear and little else. Indoctrination, or brainwashing, grabs and holds victims hostage. There is no reason to believe anything they have told you because they can present no evidence, and they can't even agree among themselves on lots of it. You are a product of where you happened to be born and to whom you were born. What would you believe had you been born to Mormon parents? Scientologists? Imagine being born into a Hindu family in India or maybe a Buddhist family in Japan. What would you believe then?

 

And not all Christians believe in Hell. The very concept doesn't even fit with the internal logic (such as it is) of the religion. There is no evidence, none, and though it may be difficult to overcome the brainwashing it is something you must do. Don't worry, you'll work through it and step into the light sooner than you think.

 

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I hope I'm understanding you. If not, please let me know. I'm assuming by "explanation of morality" you mean "because God says so in the bible". God says a lot of things in the bible that any level-headed person would say is unquestionably immoral. I never needed "god" to explain morality to me. Morality is learned through living life and making mistakes. You, whether you are aware of it or not, are engaging in projection. It is you who believes that god is the only explanation for your morality. I got news for you, my friend. If your god really exists, you are much more moral and just than he. You may not think so because religion in general, Christianity included, dehumanizes us, dismantles our self-esteem, takes all the good in us and puts it in an imaginary god and threatens us to comply. That's not the way I want to live my life. Do you?

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Shaolin, sort of - I was meaning that Christianity offers an explanation for us having a clear sense of right and wrong, similar to what C S Lewis argued. When I began having doubts about Christianity, I struggled with alternative explanations for where our common moral values came from. 

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Welcome, Kat34. Our moral values have clearly evolved over time to better address the general needs of society. Compare the bigoted, misogynistic wrath of the OT YHWH with the usually gracious, non-judgmental Jesus of the NT. The same changes are easily observed in civilized societies over the last 100, 50, or 20 years. How would a #metoo movement have been received 100 years ago? We don't get our morals from Yahweh or Jesus. We build better values everyday.

 

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12 hours ago, Kat34 said:

I would only be a Christian out of fear. That can’t be right.

 

Kat, I think you are in much better shape than you think you are. 

 

7 hours ago, Kat34 said:

Does anyone actually think, but what if I die and meet God?

 

In the highly unlikely event that there is a god, and it is a good god, it will look at what kind of person you were and what kind of life you lived. If you have done your best to be a good person, to help others, and to help make this world a better place, that should be good enough. If it isn't good enough, then then you probably don't want to be with such a god.

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I’m interested to know from the people here, was it a fundamentalist form of Christianity that you ultimately rejected? That seems to be the common thread of most of what I’m reading elsewhere and I wondered whether there is the same level of deconversion amongst liberal Christians or whether that poses fewer difficulties for its followers. 

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37 minutes ago, Kat34 said:

I’m interested to know from the people here, was it a fundamentalist form of Christianity that you ultimately rejected? That seems to be the common thread of most of what I’m reading elsewhere and I wondered whether there is the same level of deconversion amongst liberal Christians or whether that poses fewer difficulties for its followers. 

I came out of a fundamentalist sect but they did not have any of the abhorrent practices found in so many such groups. In fact the pastor was well educated and a good man. The congregation was full of sincere, well meaning people. As I delved further into the Bible, at Moody in particular, I came to realize there was really no basis for a religion based on that book. Since all of Christianity, from the liberal lukewarm believers to the batshit crazy cults, is based on the writings in the Bible, I dismiss all flavors of it. People leave the religion for many reasons from the mundane (the women in my church gossip and I think the pastor is having an affair) to political pressure from the pulpit (to actively work against gay rights, just for example). Those who stay away from the cult do so for the right reasons, that is, they realize there is no evidence that the Bible is true or even has any internal logic to it. They realize prayer does not work. They realize that "faith" is nothing more than believing something you know damn well ain't true. They realize it is a fear based cult regardless of the window dressing.

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Kat, I was a Christian for 40+ years. I wasn't a 'good' Christian because I asked questions about the New Testament about issues that didn't make sense to me. I got what I later called "Christian answers" that either reworded my questions into something else easier to answer or used what were actually idiotic parables, or else they told me to pray about it. My problems had started off with the glaring differences between what Jesus said and what Paul said. I got into the Old Testament and found a load of more questions. It wasn't until about 10 to 15 years ago I figured since no Christian would or could give satisfactory answers I'd ask the folks that had studied the bible the longest, the Jews. I got my spiritual socks knocked off!! I got my OT vs NT questions answered and then some, and the answers were ones that totally made sense, they were logical and made sense. Later still, I found a couple of Jewish Rabbis that knew the NT as well as anyone. They gave me the answers I had known all along, I was too scared of violating Jesus' commandments to fully admit I knew those answers! Several of Jesus' commandments are not found in the OT, not even hinted at!

For example; Jesus said, supposedly, there is only one way to salvation, one Rabbi told me to take a back woods barbarian from Borneo for example. If that barbarian does not know God, he obviously can't fear God. If that barbarian knows that its wrong to treat others bad, such as stealing from them, lying to or about them, killing them or any other such bad stuff, that barbarian is much higher spiritually than the greatest Rabbis who ever lived. Why? Because that barbarian treats his neighbors as he would like to be treated simply because he respects his neighbors. The difference between the observant Jew and others, is the observant Jew is bound to the mitzvah, observance of their requirements for their 'completeness'. The Jew is saddled with more responsibility than anyone else and it does them no good what so ever! Who would want to be a Jew? That is the reason that you don't find Jews proselytizing! Once you learn what Judaism is in totality, I'll repeat, who would want to be a Jew?? According to the Jews, if you're a good person just for the sake of others, you are among the best of the best that will meet God. Christianity on the other hand, if you don't kneel to Jesus ... or to Paul, whichever you think is the greater authority in the NT, you're going to burn for eternity.

That's the reason I call myself a Noahccount. A Noahchide is one that only has to abide by the 7 moral laws of Noah's time. I don't have 613 laws that I have to pick and choose from like the Jews do!

When I stand in front of God and He asks me why I dipped that little girl's hair in the inkwell at school because He doesn't like that, I can look back at Him and say ... but I liked it!!!

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The most effective method to banish all this fear that it might be true for me was completely debunking the bible as the ultimate word. Educate yourself on who wrote the bible, how it reflected the times it was written in. How completely human of a book this is. The god of the bible is only a reflection of us humans.

Some authors are Dan Barker, Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, and if you want a psychological perspective on indoctrination and fear and understanding how it has impacted you, Marlene Winell (Leaving the Fold). You'll get to a better place when you consciously make an effort to understand how it impacted you, and how you can combat it. Winell discusses control mechanisms, many of which are invisible to former believers. It can take a long time, this process, so have patience. But freedom will come, and I say this as a former fundamentalist who was truly among the wackiest versions of fundyism.

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