mick Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 Don't get me wrong. I think the whole thing is rediculous now. It's harder to be a liberal Christian than to just be fundy. However, I am finiding that I need to read deprogramming, atheististic, rational, free-thinking stuff, proofs against the Bible, etc on a regular basis to not start feeling like I am amking a mistake and following the Devil. Anyone know what I mean? When I read these things I'm fine. It's like the opposite of having a Christian devotional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loren Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 Anyone know what I mean? When I read these things I'm fine. It's like the opposite of having a Christian devotional. I know exactly what you mean. We know exactly what you mean. When I made my final decision and burned my Bible, I had a ... long enough... period of guilt and fear during which I had to keep reminding myself of the chains of logic, etc, which I'd used to work my way out of the death cult. Every time it happened, it served to make me more angry furious over the depth and deliberateness of the mind programming and increasingly sympathetic and forgiving toward the other victims who are still under it. It got better over time, bit by bit. At this point, it's all fury and no guilt. It gets better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 I definitely feel ya, mick. I read books obsessively for a while... now I read about a book a month. I don't feel any guilt anymore... it's more just FMOI. I do feel that if I stop reading and investigated that I will be susceptible to converting back, though. I don't think that feeling will ever go away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Gods Fail Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 I understand that feeling, but eventually you lose it. At least I did. It's like Santa Claus - do you worry you might slip back into believing he's real? Of course, with biblegod there's a lot more to consider than just missing out on presents, but the principle's the same. I think it's impossible for me now to believe again - I just can't accept the basic tenets of the faith anymore. Judaism was a cultural identity, a mythology designed to solidify a people into a single tribe. Xtianity was a mutant strain that grew from it when it was combined with paganism. It started from untruths, both Judaic and pagan. If you start from lies, can you wind up with the truth? Keep reading, keep thinking, keep seeking the truth. You'll get there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artur Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 The mind is a creature of habit. Its chemicals will dribble along the same old trails until the new trails are etched deeper and steeper. After a decade plus, I still dream in sermons from time to time. Time, just give it time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandrian Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 When I was a Christian, I was a taught a very dualistic view of the world- that the everything is a battle between God and Satan. As a Christian you are always hearing things about the bad secular humanists and how they are all out to get you poor persecuted Christians.. You can see an example of this in the media, with Christians always talking about a war of some sort, being it a "Culture War", a "War on Christmas", or a "War on Marriage". Well, now that I am one of those nasty secular humanists, i'll sometimes slip into thinking of myself now as on the "Other Side" of the culture war. I have to try to stop myself from continuing to think in such a dualistic manner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godless Wonder Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 When I was a Christian, I was a taught a very dualistic view of the world- that the everything is a battle between God and Satan. As a Christian you are always hearing things about the bad secular humanists and how they are all out to get you poor persecuted Christians.. You can see an example of this in the media, with Christians always talking about a war of some sort, being it a "Culture War", a "War on Christmas", or a "War on Marriage". Well, now that I am one of those nasty secular humanists, i'll sometimes slip into thinking of myself now as on the "Other Side" of the culture war. I have to try to stop myself from continuing to think in such a dualistic manner. Well, when "they" are thinking in those dualistic terms, denying that fact, and trying to think in non-dualistic terms doesn't make the "battle" any less dualistic. Faith vs. Reason is a very dualistic sort of battle. Faith is believing to a degree of certainty which exceeds that warranted by the available evidence, and as such, it is a deliberate rejection of rational thought. Any rational person deliberately rejects the notion that believing something to a degree of certainty which exceeds that warranted by the available evidence -- i.e. having faith -- is a good idea. So it very much is a dualistic battle. Faith and nonsense versus reason and sense. There is no room at all for faith here. Faith is the opposite of a virtue, and is always always wrong, if your aim is to arrive at the truth, and you have some knowledge of epistemology and know what it means to claim that something is thought to be "true." Faith is to be eradicated if truth is valued. Period. That's not dogma, that's just a conclusion an honest person cannot escape making if they are really seeking the truth, and to know only that which can be known and not mistake wild guesses for truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyb Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 I am right there with ya'. I get a strange glee out of reading the skeptic's bible ,where everything is explained exactly the way it's written, like "Hosea beholds God's loins, again"... without the "there's really a much deeper meaning we can see in this, now" interpretation, (or lack thereof) we were conditioned to imagine before. I also am driven to actively seek out atheist material daily...just like a devotional... Only difference is, now I'm allowing myself to think ALL the time. Of course unbrainwashing yourself is a process! Of course we feel a need to feed our critical thinking skills! We've had them locked in a closet for so long...giving them the proverbial inch without a mile... I'm ok with that. If logic ever does dictate that I reconvert to christianity (fat chance, you know?) then so be it. I feel like my logic is all I have. It got me out of christianity, so I trust it to keep on doin' it's job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandrian Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Well, when "they" are thinking in those dualistic terms, denying that fact, and trying to think in non-dualistic terms doesn't make the "battle" any less dualistic. Faith vs. Reason is a very dualistic sort of battle. Faith is believing to a degree of certainty which exceeds that warranted by the available evidence, and as such, it is a deliberate rejection of rational thought. Any rational person deliberately rejects the notion that believing something to a degree of certainty which exceeds that warranted by the available evidence -- i.e. having faith -- is a good idea. So it very much is a dualistic battle. Faith and nonsense versus reason and sense. There is no room at all for faith here. Faith is the opposite of a virtue, and is always always wrong, if your aim is to arrive at the truth, and you have some knowledge of epistemology and know what it means to claim that something is thought to be "true." Faith is to be eradicated if truth is valued. Period. That's not dogma, that's just a conclusion an honest person cannot escape making if they are really seeking the truth, and to know only that which can be known and not mistake wild guesses for truth. Not nessecarily, we all have at least *some* degree of faith in our life. We have faith that our senses are giving us at least somewhat accurate information about the world. Otherwise, how would we refute the Solipsists? You can't, after all, prove in any sense that the outside world is real. That said, there is alot more to life then faith vs. reason, there are plenty of other issues out there. Faith isn't even always a negative influence; while it does cause some people to scream about how God gets his jollies watching gay people get tortured, it leads other people to go out and volunteer in soup kitchens. Faith vs. Reason isn't one defining conflict of the world which defines everything else. Whereas, for the Christian, God vs. Satan (And they view us as being on the side of Satan) is the central conflict in the world defining and all of life's events. Life is a bit more complicated for us secular folk in that regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caretaker Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Perhaps it is just another case of old habits dying hard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narcissist Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Reading is good. I found that when I read the books the christians specifically told me not to read (like Darwin, Dawkins, Spong, etc.) they helped greatly to remove the doubts and fears I had. Give it time too, and your brain will develop new and better thinking habits. (And if not already, you might even start to enjoy masturbating again!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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