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Goodbye Jesus

Scared to be an athiest


SarahJaneSmith

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11 minutes ago, florduh said:

When I finally left Christianity behind, I was left with an important lesson; always use critical thinking and never believe anything without evidence. Many people would rather just believe one fantastic tale or other than to ever know if there's any factual basis for it. I don't understand that, but I guess to each his own.

I somewhat second this , don't trust others to give you truth . Find out the truth yourself. I for example tried to do magick spells and they actually worked for me. Your experience may be different but like that song in the movie zootopia says try everything.

https://youtu.be/c6rP-YP4c5I

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1 hour ago, LeiaBryant said:

I somewhat second this , don't trust others to give you truth . Find out the truth yourself. I for example tried to do magick spells and they actually worked for me.

What kind of spells? How did they work? 

1 hour ago, LeiaBryant said:

Your experience may be different but like that song in the movie zootopia says try everything.

https://youtu.be/c6rP-YP4c5I

 

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41 minutes ago, TruthSeeker0 said:

What kind of spells? How did they work? 

 

My spells are usually a type of candle magick.  There are a lot of kinds of it.  Here some info about it:  https://youtu.be/dh5BkcH_3Bg

I recommend this YouTube channel for beginner witches. EDIT: my spells are primarily fire elemental but I have results with representional candle magick too.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/13/2020 at 10:03 AM, TABA said:

SJS, I wonder if you’re aware that the concept of Hell as most Christians know it today did not exist in the Old Testament.   It evolved as Christianity emerged and only reached its final form with the publication of Dante’s “Inferno” in the Middle Ages.  Here’s a new video from the great Bart Ehrman on the topics of Heaven and Hell:

 

 

I second this. Remember when Jesus got the Pharisees and Sadducees to arguing by bringing up life after death? (It's in Acts 23.) The Sadducees didn't believe that people could go to Heaven because it was unscriptural. By extension, there being no mention of it in the Hebrew Bible (aka the Old Testament), they didn't believe in Hell at all. Somewhere along the way, probably when the Persians ruled the world, the common Jewish people picked up the idea of eternal reward and punishment, so most people in New Testament times just assumed it to be real.

 

Knowing that it was just a belief that the Jews picked up from another nation makes it a lot easier to ignore.

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@TABA & @Lerk, thanks for the info! I’ve been thinking of attempting to wade through the old testament to see what it’s like for me as a non-theist. For my whole life I’ve known the “right” theological answers but they were from extra-biblical sources - commentaries, pastors, (believing) bible scholars, etc. Reading it without any outside opinions may be enough for me to completely give up heaven & hell. 
 

That leads me to another question. For those of you who don’t believe in an afterlife, did you grieve the loss? Over the last few weeks I’ve accepted the reason I’ve held onto the concepts of heaven & hell so tightly is because I can’t fathom not existing after death!
 

As my spiritual beliefs dissipate, though, I feel profoundly sad at the thought of death being the end end, rather than a new beginning. But no, I have no desire or need to go in search of any other belief system that requires faith for belief in lieu of evidence it’s true.

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Have found this. It’s been helpful. I’ve also ordered Ehrman’s book on heaven & hell. Part of my fear (today. Maybe it will change tomorrow, haha) is not existing. For some reason living forever - even in hell - is comprehensible to me but the thought of just not existing takes my breath away. 

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24 minutes ago, SarahJaneSmith said:

 

 For some reason living forever - even in hell - is comprehensible to me but the thought of just not existing takes my breath away. 

 

 

Having experienced general anesthesia for a surgical procedure (or rather, NOT experienced it!), the idea of not existing is easier to grasp and to accept.  For that thirty minute period, I experienced nothing whatsoever: no dreams, no sense of time passing.  It was quite different from sleep.  If something had gone wrong and I had died while I was "under", it would have been just an infinite extension of the same nothingness - except that my heart would have stopped and my body would have started to decompose - but that would have been somebody else's problem, haha!  Although I can't expect my eventual death to be as peaceful initially, everything would likewise fade to black.

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@TABA, thanks for your response. Interesting you bring up anesthesia. That’s been what I’ve tried to make death seem like now. Over time I’m sure I will become more at ease with my new beliefs, er, non beliefs.

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You'll be dead a lot longer than you're alive.  You'll get used to it.

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Just now, TheRedneckProfessor said:

You'll be dead a lot longer than you're alive.  You'll get used to it.

I disagree. I think you get reincarnated.

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I believe when we die we get to enjoy the beer fountains and strippers. Why not make up the best story you can? 

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6 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

You'll be dead a lot longer than you're alive.  You'll get used to it.

🤣🤣🤣

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On 4/1/2020 at 3:16 AM, SarahJaneSmith said:

As my spiritual beliefs dissipate, though, I feel profoundly sad at the thought of death being the end end, rather than a new beginning.

Well the irony is that you feel sad now about something that you will not feel sad about when you cease to exist. What it felt like before you were born is what it will feel like after you die. If you think about it deeply, the ability to live forever would eventually become intolerable and would completely remove any zest for life. Heaven would eventually become hell if there was no risk of death for millions and billions and trillions of years. An eternity of risk-free existance cannot even be fathomed by the human mind. Taoists believe (as I understand it anyway) that life cannot exist without death in the same way that light cannot exist without dark, or cold without hot, etc. One of my favorite philosophers (Alan Watts) points out that "nothingness" or empty space is just as important as the things that come into being in the same way that an empty vessel allows for something to fill it. So I like to think that death is what allows life to exist. We can certainly see how this works in nature. The death of plants and animals is what keeps other plants and animals alive. Why should it be any different for humans? My hope is that in the process of dying one day, the details of how it all works will somehow become apparent to me -even if only for a split second-  before I completely dissipate.

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On 4/4/2020 at 6:58 AM, freshstart said:

Well the irony is that you feel sad now about something that you will not feel sad about when you cease to exist. What it felt like before you were born is what it will feel like after you die. If you think about it deeply, the ability to live forever would eventually become intolerable and would completely remove any zest for life. Heaven would eventually become hell if there was no risk of death for millions and billions and trillions of years. An eternity of risk-free existance cannot even be fathomed by the human mind. Taoists believe (as I understand it anyway) that life cannot exist without death in the same way that light cannot exist without dark, or cold without hot, etc. One of my favorite philosophers (Alan Watts) points out that "nothingness" or empty space is just as important as the things that come into being in the same way that an empty vessel allows for something to fill it. So I like to think that death is what allows life to exist. We can certainly see how this works in nature. The death of plants and animals is what keeps other plants and animals alive. Why should it be any different for humans? My hope is that in the process of dying one day, the details of how it all works will somehow become apparent to me -even if only for a split second-  before I completely dissipate.

       I disagree. At least for the version of heaven I was taught. A never ending journey unto God, getting closer and closer and more and more. And I would be positively DELIGHTED for a risk free life. I HATE risk. For me, risk of suffering destroys or dampens most of my zest for life. A life free of suffering sounds magnificent. I believed that, in Heaven, all creation would feed solely or principaly from God himself, and would be ever expanding. So no boredom, no suffering. We would not even have the organs that would allow suffering to exist or smth like that. All round ever growing pure bliss. That sounds wonderful! 

       By the way, really get the fear of hell thing. I also posted about it. It kind of exhausted my mental and physical wellbeing. Especially as it is regarded in the Orthodox world, in many places, as a very good thing. Terrror of getting to hell as it makes you do the right - right according to the church - thing. One known ancient preacher said in a book that it is good to extinguish the fire of sexual impulse with the thought of the eternal fire of Hell. So basically whenever you think about sex, think about the fact the consequence will be eternal suffering and that will end it. On a purely psychological level, that kind of works, by the way. It is hard to maintain an erection when you are scared shittless. In general. :)) Probably not always, but anyway. It still affects me. Matt Dillahaunty said something funny, that christianity invents the disease and that proclaims to give you the cure. You may stop believing in the cure, but somehow stopping believing in the disease is harder. I also read that humans generally react much more intense and viscerally to the prospect of danger than to the prospect of pleasure, and stays stronger. So, if you think a rock is a cake, you will walk normally to it and inspect it. If you think it is a coiled up snake, you are going to run and stop to think only 40 metres away. It is something built in. If the rock turns out to be a cake, there is no problem in walking towards it and inspecting it. If it is a snake, you could die, so it is a safer bet to run. We could call it the thought action pattern of the danger part of the body, the firefighter side of the brain.

     I also recommend cult related books. Search a term like phobia indoctrination. Steve Hassan, Alexandra Stein, Jon Atack, International Cultic Studies Association, Daniel Shaw, Rachel bernstein, etc. 

     On the subject of Hell, the books of Illaria Ramelli and David Bentley Hart on universal salvation are worth the read. One is a renowned historian, the other a philosopher. Both with decades of work and academic credentials. That does not mean they are 100 percent right, but seem like people who really investigated this issue. I thought and continue to think that a God that IS all knowing - and the the existence of prophecy as a concept presumes omniscience, that creates beings fully knowing some of them, angels and humans alike, will suffer eternal consciencious torment abhorrent. And even IF I did not, that also means that we cannot do anything about it. God knew you and me will go to Hell, and still chose to create us. And if that was the decision of an allpowerful being, we are screwed no matter what we do. Free will, even IF, and that is an IF I do not agree with, exists, has nothing to do with this. I am talking about God's decision to create you BEFORE you even existed, so BEFORE you could make any choice. So in that moment, this God supposedly freely created you, in full knowledge you will go to Hell. You and million possibly billion other beings. That means 1. he has the power so therefore 2. he is to blame, ultimately. I repeat, many christians think that an all powerful, all knowing being created beings with the full knowledge trillions will suffer eternal conscious torment. I cannot ascribe the last usual descriptor of this God, all-loving or omnibenevolent. And, to add to the irony, in eternity, there will two kindgoms - the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Devil. So in that worldview, the devil partially wins. He gets his own part of eternally ruling billions of people. A sort of co-regent with God himself. Also, on the side, this means our creator cannot find the means and wisdom to convince us to choose him. As such, that means he is not all powerful or all knowing. So, in that view, we are left with a being that is actually NOT all powerful, NOT all knowing and NOT all benevolent. Like, you guessed, most if not all the gods in the ancient greek and middle eastern world. Like them, he has sex - or some kind of divine intercourse with human women and produces demigods. Like them he can get angry. Like them, he expects and demands submission and worship. So a being, with great power, who is emotionally unstable and capricious, sexually active and demands devotion. Hmm, not at all like many, probably most, tribal chieftain of that age, and unfornatunately, this age. So the model of that God seems like a psychological imprint of warrior tribe boss. This model can be found in many other species, especialy social mammals, but not only. And as time goes by, this chieftain gets more powerful, with more servants and a bigger hierachy of messengers and workmen. Just like when a tribal warrior chiefatin become a king and then emperor, his power getting bigger and bigger, requiring more and more servants, specialized workmen, etc. So you see, thatimage of God seems like a symbolical history of the actual human social history. Like the symbolic represantions you have in your dreams about actual, current reality - the reason dreams are valuable in many types of psychotherapy as they can point to many actual, emotional truths hitherto unrecognised.  I kind drifted about here, but maybe this drift will help someone. :) It did help me to write it and about it.

       

 

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@Myrkhoos, thank you for your reply. You’ve given me a lot to think about. It’s incredible to me how similar the biblical stories are to other mythologies and yet how I never admitted it when I was still a believer. I would’ve said the myths stole from the bible! 🤦‍♀️ 

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7 hours ago, SarahJaneSmith said:

 

 I would’ve said the myths stole from the bible! 🤦‍♀️ 

 

That's what I thought until started studying the history of religion.

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12 hours ago, SarahJaneSmith said:

@Myrkhoos, thank you for your reply. You’ve given me a lot to think about. It’s incredible to me how similar the biblical stories are to other mythologies and yet how I never admitted it when I was still a believer. I would’ve said the myths stole from the bible! 🤦‍♀️ 

I hope that helps. I do not think that necesarily some stole from another, but like, let us say, the story of the flood. Floods, especially in those desert areas, if they happened, must of left an imprint on the collective. So you would naturally come across many flood stories. Plus, to say something more psychoanalytical, technically birth is like a flood, and in the womb we live in water so maybe it is an unconsious memory of those times told in these stories. Psychology of mythmaking is fascinating although a very speculative field :)

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I recently saw a scientific article that said some now believe the earth was completely covered with water at one time in the evolutionary process.  But that would have been eons before the  humans we are familiar with were on earth.  The origin of these myths are interesting topics. 

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On 4/1/2020 at 2:16 AM, SarahJaneSmith said:

That leads me to another question. For those of you who don’t believe in an afterlife, did you grieve the loss? Over the last few weeks I’ve accepted the reason I’ve held onto the concepts of heaven & hell so tightly is because I can’t fathom not existing after death!
 

As my spiritual beliefs dissipate, though, I feel profoundly sad at the thought of death being the end end, rather than a new beginning. But no, I have no desire or need to go in search of any other belief system that requires faith for belief in lieu of evidence it’s true.

 

I did not, but even when I was a believer the afterlife idea was more "mental assent" than "vividly imagined" to me. I never thought about seeing my grandparents again. I never imagined what Heaven might be like, or worried about winding up in Hell. I definitely believed those places were real, but I guess I'm not the type of person who can really put my mind in a state where places I'm not at seem real. Even life as I'm passing through it seems more like the pages of a book sometimes. (Of course, if you have a vivid imagination, that statement doesn't mean to you what it does to me!)

 

So I was fortunate in that I never felt any loss. And a lot of Christians are terrified that they'll wind up in Hell because they weren't good enough, so I'm glad I never had that fear, either.

 

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  • 4 months later...
On 3/13/2020 at 2:21 AM, SarahJaneSmith said:

My cousin recommended reading anything by Bart Ehrman so I picked up “How Jesus Became Gos” and am slowly reading it. 

 

Welcome to ExC!! 🙂

 

I dont consider myself atheist. I prefer the term nontheiest. I know I dont believe in the bible or christianity, or any other man made religion. But I dont rule out all possibilities of there being something else other than what we can see. 

 

Ehrman is a good author. Reading some of his books really opened my eyes. Knowledge is power and will help you shake that fear of hell. Ehrman will help you understand why there are so many contradictions in the bible. I once applauded Paul for writing so much of the new testament. When I deconverted I read ehrmans forgeries and counter forgeries.  In that I learned that church leaders were writing false epistles in the name of Paul. Literally falsifying scripture to support their own doctrinal beliefs. Once you start seeing all the fallacies the bible has to offer, all the corruption it took to developed it, the promises that are obviously never kept, and even the politics that ended up creating whole books in the bible. Then it gets a lot easier to shake biblical beliefs all together. 

 

DB

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/13/2020 at 5:21 PM, SarahJaneSmith said:

A couple years ago I left the fundamentalist church I was attending. For a time after leaving I labeled myself as progressive christian but after a while that wasn’t satisfactory. It was me clinging desperately to whatever shred of “I am a christian” I had left. When I study the bible I come away of the opinion that either fundamentalism is the “right” way or I need to reject the bible outright. So now I’m scared of going to a hell I don’t fully believe exists but that scares me anyway and I’m becoming a huge fan of various atheists who are all on their way to hell like I am. 
 

My best friend still believes I’m a devout christian. My circumstances are such that me not attending church is completely understandable to her but I think about the future when my circumstances change and I could attend Sunday services if I wanted to. 
 

The further I get from fundamentalism the more absurd the bible seems, especially the old testament. The more I learn about evolution the more absurd the old testament becomes. 
 

I still struggle with “what if it’s true after all,” even though at this point I’ve lost any faith I had so a “what if” can’t bring it back so why even bother wasting time on the “what if’s,” because even if it is true, without faith I’m bound for hell anyway. 
 

My cousin recommended reading anything by Bart Ehrman so I picked up “How Jesus Became Gos” and am slowly reading it. 

When Christian's insist that evolution is impossible, I refer them to this.

 

Ecclesiastes 1:4

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 3What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? 4One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. 5The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. 6The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. 7All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

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