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Goodbye Jesus

unhappy former Christian


Jane

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1 hour ago, midniterider said:

 

Jane: So maybe despite being a believer for many years, I was never really "saved" as other Christians are.

 

 

Being "saved" is a frame of mind.  A concept.  A feeling.  A superstitious belief that has been pounded into our  brains so long that it has become a "truth".  And until people are willing to look at the big picture of religions, gods, and how they came to be, you are wasting your time arguing about it.  HA!  My opinion, for what ever it is worth.

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5 hours ago, midniterider said:

I dont really see much in your attitude about life that is different from anyone elses. Except your willingness to express some things. 

 

Really, I wouldn't want the population of Africa to die of Ebola, but I'm not actively doing anything to help prevent it. I give the 'Will work for food' guy a dollar now and then but not very often. Some of the homeless are indeed batshit crazy and dont WANT a home anyway. 

 

Jane: So maybe despite being a believer for many years, I was never really "saved" as other Christians are.

 

That idea is being discussed in a thread in the Lion's Den subforum. If you were a believer for many years, and salvation is a real thing, but you weren't saved then that's on God. He dropped the  ball. If he exists. You can only give so much then the other half needs to give back. Imo, since you were a believer for many years you were just as 'saved' as any other still-believing Christian was saved. 

 

Christianity is in the business of shaming people. So lift yourself up and realize the good person you are...without Christianity. 

 

Thanks!   I don't know how to "like" a post on here btw...       I don't think I am a really "good" person ( which is highly subjective to start) but I am not a terrible person either.   Like I said, I am fairly selfish ( and admit it) but I generally don't do anything wrong to people either.  And you are right, Christianity tries to put a guilt trip on people.   

When I think about it, I would rather have a friend help me out in some way because they LIKE me and want me as a friend, then only out of Christian guilt, or at best "because they are supposed to" .   This is one problem with some Christian friends. You never really know if they like you, or just want to preach to you, or it makes them feel like they will get brownie points with god for doing something nice for someone.   I am thinking the ones that will still be friends if I tell them I no longer believe are going to be the real friends.   

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4 hours ago, Weezer said:

Before you judge the homeless, the Muslims, the fundies, the immigrants, or anyone else, remember that "except for the chance of birth, there goes me." (My quotes)   I worked professionally with the homeless and mentally ill for several years and found a hugh % are mentally ill, or were conditioned early in life that it is their lot in life.  Very few are simply milking the system.  Native americans have a saying, "don't judge a man until you walk a mile in their shoes."   Changing the "status quo" in life is only possible when people are willing to look at all sides of issues, and not many are willing to do that with all issues.  It is easier to "pigeon hole" issues and people, and leave them there.  I have to remind myself of that every day! 

 

 

I read some of the link you sent me.  Not done yet, very long!   YOu had a hard childhood.  That sucks.  I think it must be even harder for you to stop being a guilt tripped Christian than for me.  Not that I ever felt much guilt to start since I didn't think I did all that much wrong imo.    

As for "judging" others that I find lacking,  why not?  Isn't this still your guilt trip talking?   If I am no longer bound by "love your neighbor" or  worse, "love your enemy"  , why can't I dislike those people?  There is no good reason to like them, or do anything for them. It won't gain me anything .   It does gain me something to NOT give any time, money or thought to them.  I can keep those things for better things in my life that benefit myself and my family and animals.   I hope you understand what I am trying to say.  You also, are now free to dislike whoever you wish to dislike !  You are no longer required to be "nice' to people you don't like, or go out of your way to help anyone you could care less about.    I think you my friend need to learn to be a little more selfish and a little less concern with being "moral"  .  I wish you luck, I think you are probably having a harder time with all this than I am.   You had a lifetime of fundamentalist Christianity , I only maybe 1\4 of my life so far or less.   Plus I was probably not ever ": all in" like some.   I always had this thought in the back of my head:  if the Christian God is real and I am trying to be a good Christian, I SHOULD get some brownie points from this god!  I was expecting my life to have less problems than those that were not Christian. I was expecting my prayers to be answered and I was expecting rewards for my good actions.  None of that happened and it almost seemed the opposite. My life did NOT improve the more religious I got, it got worse.  Now I realize all that is magical thinking.  There is NOTHING anyone on this planet can do to get more "good luck" , " good Karma" , good vibes whatever than anyone else.  It's arbitrary and up to nature and chance.   I HATE that very much, I very much want there to be some sort of magic, ANY kind of magic, but so far I haven't found any.   

Reality bites, life sucks and then you die. That is ALL There is.   Sad but true! I have to learn to accept that.  

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6 hours ago, Weezer said:

 

Being "saved" is a frame of mind.  A concept.  A feeling.  A superstitious belief that has been pounded into our  brains so long that it has become a "truth".  

 

Since Jesus doesn't send any certificates or other evidence of salvation, I would agree.

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2 hours ago, Jane said:

 

 

I read some of the link you sent me.  Not done yet, very long!   YOu had a hard childhood.  That sucks.  I think it must be even harder for you to stop being a guilt tripped Christian than for me.  Not that I ever felt much guilt to start since I didn't think I did all that much wrong imo.    

As for "judging" others that I find lacking,  why not?  Isn't this still your guilt trip talking?   If I am no longer bound by "love your neighbor" or  worse, "love your enemy"  , why can't I dislike those people?  There is no good reason to like them, or do anything for them. It won't gain me anything .   It does gain me something to NOT give any time, money or thought to them.  I can keep those things for better things in my life that benefit myself and my family and animals.   I hope you understand what I am trying to say.  You also, are now free to dislike whoever you wish to dislike !  You are no longer required to be "nice' to people you don't like, or go out of your way to help anyone you could care less about.    I think you my friend need to learn to be a little more selfish and a little less concern with being "moral"  .  I wish you luck, I think you are probably having a harder time with all this than I am.   You had a lifetime of fundamentalist Christianity , I only maybe 1\4 of my life so far or less.   Plus I was probably not ever ": all in" like some.   I always had this thought in the back of my head:  if the Christian God is real and I am trying to be a good Christian, I SHOULD get some brownie points from this god!  I was expecting my life to have less problems than those that were not Christian. I was expecting my prayers to be answered and I was expecting rewards for my good actions.  None of that happened and it almost seemed the opposite. My life did NOT improve the more religious I got, it got worse.  Now I realize all that is magical thinking.  There is NOTHING anyone on this planet can do to get more "good luck" , " good Karma" , good vibes whatever than anyone else.  It's arbitrary and up to nature and chance.   I HATE that very much, I very much want there to be some sort of magic, ANY kind of magic, but so far I haven't found any.   

Reality bites, life sucks and then you die. That is ALL There is.   Sad but true! I have to learn to accept that.  

 

 

I believe I can see why you are unhappy, at least in part.

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What kind of livestock you raising, Jane?

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Jane, you need to finish reading my story.  Overall my childhood was not hard.  We occasionally had some Hell fire and brimstone preachers, but my family wasn't like that. My father was an angry, guilt ridden man, but my mother and her father (my grandfather and mentor, more so than my father) had fairly healthy views of Christianity.  Well, HA!  at least as healthy as they can be.  The preachers were the ones that scared me. 

 

And if you finish my story/testimony, I think you will also see where I am coming from with my "philosophy" on judging others.  I believe my views are humanitarian, and are based on over 50 years of study.  I am a retired behavioral and social scientist, and in later years have studied world religions.  If you boil down most major religions to their common core,  and look at what social and behavioral scientist say is good for the wellbeing of mankind, they have came up with very similar ideas.  Basically the golden rule, or love your neighbor as yourself, and honesty.  Respect for self and others.  At least that is what I have decided at 78 years of age, and plan on holding onto unless something comes along to change my mind.

 

No, I don't think I need to be more selfish.  Self centered/ selfishness is at the core of human problems.  We need to have a "we" attitude.  Not a "me" attitude.  And I have to work on that every day.

 

Finish my Testimony.  I think a lot of these issues are addressed there.

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10 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

What kind of livestock you raising, Jane?

 

goats and sheep

why? 

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10 hours ago, Weezer said:

Jane, you need to finish reading my story.  Overall my childhood was not hard.  We occasionally had some Hell fire and brimstone preachers, but my family wasn't like that. My father was an angry, guilt ridden man, but my mother and her father (my grandfather and mentor, more so than my father) had fairly healthy views of Christianity.  Well, HA!  at least as healthy as they can be.  The preachers were the ones that scared me. 

 

And if you finish my story/testimony, I think you will also see where I am coming from with my "philosophy" on judging others.  I believe my views are humanitarian, and are based on over 50 years of study.  I am a retired behavioral and social scientist, and in later years have studied world religions.  If you boil down most major religions to their common core,  and look at what social and behavioral scientist say is good for the wellbeing of mankind, they have came up with very similar ideas.  Basically the golden rule, or love your neighbor as yourself, and honesty.  Respect for self and others.  At least that is what I have decided at 78 years of age, and plan on holding onto unless something comes along to change my mind.

 

No, I don't think I need to be more selfish.  Self centered/ selfishness is at the core of human problems.  We need to have a "we" attitude.  Not a "me" attitude.  And I have to work on that every day.

 

Finish my Testimony.  I think a lot of these issues are addressed there.

 

I read the rest of your story, and now I understand why you are so concerned about people like the homeless. It's been your life's work sounds like.  So that's ok, to each his own.  I don't really like people all that much. (well, except my friends and some relatives ).   I don't mind being generous and compassionate to some people, but I expect something back at some point.  I am not a floor mat for anyone, and nobody gets to take advantage of me.   There is nothing to be gained by giving a homeless person a $  for example.   

Humanity to me is sort of like viruses, they spread endlessly like no other species, kill everything in the process and nothing short of the asteroid destroying the planet is going to wipe out humanity.  I am not a humanist.  I think the world would be much better off if only about 5% or so of the current population would exist, preferably intelligent people from modern societies, and not third world shitholes.   I realize this is probably the total opposite of what you think but that;s ok.   I don't hold it against you.  

The more I am writing my honest thoughts on here, I am realizing I was never a good Christians.  I was probably only thinking what's in it for me, and then when I realized there was nothing in it for me, I became disillusioned.  I know this sounds crazy but it's probably what happened.  It is really amazing what the human mind can do to itself.  If you want to believe something very much, it's not all that hard to convince yourself, even if it has no basis in reality.  I think that's what happened to me when I became a Christian.  I wonder how many other religions I will go through until I give up and accept reality as it is.  Not ready to give up totally yet. 

 

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1 hour ago, Jane said:

 

goats and sheep

why? 

I raised goats, sheep, and various poultry for years.  Boers and Barbados Black Bellies.  I'm down to about 2 dozen rabbits right now.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jane said:

I am not a humanist.  I think the world would be much better off if only about 5% or so of the current population would exist

 

I find myself with that attitude a lot lately. Way too damn many humans, and the industrial processes we have for feeding ourselves and making endless shit to buy (especially plastics and plant/insect poisons) are trashing the planet. Humans are just other animals on the planet. Some are wonderful beings worth helping, others are like cancer or predators in society and we'd be far better off without them. Just an observation, not a full philosophy.

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I relate to some of this.  I think it's important to remember that Christianity has a pretty grim perspective of the human condition and fatalistic view of civilization.  I was raised in it and have remained in its shadow long into my adult life.  My ability to orient and relate in the world has been compromised by this upbringing, and I have compassion for anyone dealing with the same thing.  Sociopathy isn't the answer, but it can be hard to see how anything matters until you've gotten some distance and matured in your own post-religious identity.  After years of being broken down by manipulation and dogma, selfishness is not a simple thing to relearn how to healthily accept and balance.

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we have some Kikos,  Kiko Boer mixes , a few milk goats and some Katahdins, also have chickens, but we didn't raise them, just got them at the Rural King as chicks

 

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1 hour ago, Jane said:

we have some Kikos,  Kiko Boer mixes , a few milk goats and some Katahdins, also have chickens, but we didn't raise them, just got them at the Rural King as chicks

 

I wouldn't mind getting another milk goat or two.  I like the Toggenburgs.  But i dont think I'll ever deal with sheep anymore.

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we have a Lamancha that gives a gallon a day, and a Nubian, that give about half.  I don't know what to do with all this milk while I am not able to do things 

 

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On 8/1/2019 at 3:23 PM, Jane said:

I  am a political conservative. I voted for Trump, I believe 2A must be protected at all cost, I hate the illegals especially since I came here legally and did everything legally,  I don't like criminals, ghetto trash and terrorists.   Am I still welcome here?  

( other issues I am quite liberal on, like health care, animal rights and women's rights )  

People are complex but we still like our all encompassing labels, don't we? Conservatives think I'm a Liberal when I recognize asylum seekers as separate from illegals but Liberals think I must be a Conservative when they find out I have guns. I'm with you on health care, animal rights and women's rights but I can't square that with support for Trump. Keep thinking, keep evolving!

 

 

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Best wishes with your farming.

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On 7/31/2019 at 7:35 PM, Jane said:

The pray for me, and tell me to pray harder to get my faith back, and I don't want to make them feel bad. 

Welcome to X-Xian, @Jane! Let's be clear about the fact that you don't (and you never have) *made* them feel bad. They are responsible for their feelings, and their choice to believe in a nightmare reality where you can go to hell for not believing in exactly the right thing... that is their failing.

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On 8/4/2019 at 8:10 PM, florduh said:

People are complex but we still like our all encompassing labels, don't we? Conservatives think I'm a Liberal when I recognize asylum seekers as separate from illegals but Liberals think I must be a Conservative when they find out I have guns. I'm with you on health care, animal rights and women's rights but I can't square that with support for Trump. Keep thinking, keep evolving!

 

 

 

I don't agree with everything on either party, but the sad thing is we have a 2 party system here and you have to just kind of pick what you think is the lesser evil.  When I tell my conservative friends for example I am for single payer health insurance like they have in Europe ( I lived there and despite what people here believe it works just fine there) , they call me a leftist communist liberal,  at the same time when I tell my liberal friends that I believe 2 A must be protected at all cost, I am called a right wing fascist nut.  Oh well.  Everyone has their reasons to believe what  they do and prioritize.  I tell you one thing, sometimes I do regret moving to the US.  There are way too many problems here.  Sometimes I wished I could move to Switzerland....

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1 hour ago, DestinyTurtle said:

Welcome to X-Xian, @Jane! Let's be clear about the fact that you don't (and you never have) *made* them feel bad. They are responsible for their feelings, and their choice to believe in a nightmare reality where you can go to hell for not believing in exactly the right thing... that is their failing.

 

Now that you put it that way, you are right.  It IS their problem.  But they really do believe it.  It's weird how your own mind can play tricks on you!  I USED to believe it, but now thinking back, I do wonder how that could have been.  It appears that if you repeat a lie to yourself enough, it becomes a reality. Scary that....

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Jane, I'm so sorry to hear you've been feeling this way and dealing with all this. It sucks.

 

In all honesty, what helped me the most was considering how unpleasant heaven sounded to me. We are taught to fear hell, but there was a small part of me that NEVER connected with the concept of heaven. Even in all my fervent attempts to be "all in" as a Christian, and I was, there was always this part of me that hated never-f***ing-ending church and like being all about the lord constantly and stuff. It already sucks to think about, I could barely make it to lunch most Sundays, though I repented and trusted god was "sanctifying me." 

 

I mean this, life is what you make of it. You don't have to reject the spiritual just because you have rejected bible-god's bullshit. Christians have fooled people into thinking that it's either THIS or THAT. But you can be whatever the hell you want and you can believe whatever you want to believe. When you realize that your loved ones can truly be lost, you love them more. When you realize time is NOT never-ending it becomes more precious. When something can be lost, you fight to protect it. You appreciate what's around you "like the eyes of a child" and you realize that heaven was here all along and you were putting yourself through hell. 

 

It might bring you comfort to watch youtube videos of near death experiences, there are so many accounts of "peace", "calm", "no longer a fear of death."

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/31/2019 at 10:21 PM, Jane said:

I am not sure I am enjoying not being a Christian anymore. It did make me happy to believe it while I did. I wished my faith was still there, but my logical reasoning mind just won't let it.  I want to get to where you are now, where I can be happy about no longer having faith.  I don't know how to get to that.

I vacillated numerous times on my Christian beliefs, and I think for me, the appeal to returning was always that it seemed like a nice coherent system, an engaging activity, and something that could help me develop as a person, even if it might be imperfect. What kept repelling me was repeatedly being exposed to certain animosities and conflicts, which seemed so at odds with the notion of "oneness in Christ". My returns kept getting shorter and shorter. So really for me it was social pain that finally taught me the hard lesson that the Christian faith is just no help at all. So in my case, I am happy to leave behind a sea of animosity! (I was involved in aspects that involve a lot of work, and there were too many personality conflicts.)

 

My plan is to replace religion with an expanded music hobby, and to study some religious philosophy each day, adopting some sort of meditation practice. Eventually I will try to find a low-key non-obligatory group of people to visit with upon occasion. And when I think of returning I will just remember all the times I was kicked around, and how that is at odds with the oneness in Christ that is supposed to be the abiding philosophy. 

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