Strangest versions of Christianity

[Wertbag]

I've talked to Christians with some very fringe ideas and while I've never experienced snake handling or talking in tongues, there are some equally strange ones out there.

 

The first one that comes to mind is the guy who thought God was dead.  Jesus dying on the cross removed God's ability to do anything to the world but opened the way to heaven.  So, the bible is correct up to Jesus leaving, then since that point it's been a completely natural world.  It was quite a clever answer to divine hiddenness or the problem of evil, He simply isn't around to care.

 

Another more recent one was meeting two different people online who were bible denying Christians.  I had never heard of a Christian who didn't follow God's word, but these two were of the opinion that the bible was a man-made work, and nothing in it should be considered real.  I asked the obvious question "How can you follow Jesus if you know nothing about him, what he said, what he did or even that the resurrection happened?".  They said it was all inspired stories to bring you closer to God, telling you how He wants things to be.  This is the ultimate cherry picking.  The bible is so full of violence and bad advice that we should ignore all of it, but just go with the spirit of the idea.

 

There are sects in both India and Japan who say Jesus survived the crucifixion, travelling to their countries and living out his life amongst those people.  They believe the bible is correct up to the story of the crucifixion, then it's intentionally wrong to avoid the authorities from hunting down the man who survived execution.  Both countries have tombs that are claimed to be Jesus's, but of course no one has ever been allowed access, so the claims cannot be verified.  Even if one was correct, both cannot be.

 

One I haven't met but reading up on the Shaker sect was quite amusing.  Similar to the Amish in their dislike of modern technology, they are a purity cult foremost.  They have a self-defeating idea that sex is impure in any form, even in marriage, so everyone should be celibate for life.  With very few converts coming in and zero birth rate, they managed to almost wipe themselves out.  At their height they had ~20 villages with ~4000 members, but now are reduced to a single village and while numbers are not confirmed it maybe that there are only two or three self-declared shakers left.

Their name comes from the often-violent shaking that they experienced in church services, as when the holy spirit enters them, they have a kind of seizure.

[older]

Interesting observations, Wert, but as I think about this, the whole program is full of strange ideas. As others have written, the religion is based on the idea that there is some god up there who 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. So I'd say every last one of them is nuts.

 

Someone on another post here recently mentioned the BITE model of cult mind control. Here's a short article about it, and after reading it, it looks to me like the entire spectrum of Christianity fits the description.

https://www.alittlebithuman.com/the-bite-model-of-cult-mind-control-explained/

[nontheistpilgrim]

In new charismatic churches I experienced people falling down (Benny Hinn and many others), laying on the floor barking like a dog and crowing like a cockerel, uncontrollable (?!) laughing, screaming and crying their eyes out. And lots more. They almost forgot how to speak and sing in tongues. It was considered quite 'normal' following what was called the Toronto Blessing. Weird and quite scary to be there. Don't know if it carries on these days.

 

[Orbit]

Cargo cults are pretty strange syncretisms, if you've ever looked into that. The most well-known is the cult of John Frum.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I experienced the shaking that gave the Shakers (and Quakers) their names. It was in a large Pentecostal church in England where my wife and I had gone to hear an American missionary named David Hogan. We had seen videos of him preaching to the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry about 28 years ago, and he spoke about his failures to see any miracles despite feeling the power of God. He related a long story talking about the first time he prayed for a dead boy and God started his heart after several hours. So we were keen to hear him in person and get his permission to distribute his preaching. In the service at the church we were all praying and lifting our hands, and involuntarily my hands began to tremble and shake. I felt a power zip up and down through my body and focus in my abdomen while my limbs kept shaking. My mind was clear and I recall thinking "This is why the Shakers were called shakers". I took it as a sign that God was really present and that the man's preaching was honest. The oddest part for me was that my wife described the same sensation and trembling and focus in her abdomen before I said anything about it. So something happened to us, but in retrospect (especially after catching the preaching lying about miracles during one of his famous long stories) now that I deconverted, I don't know what to make of the experience. 

 

We experienced the same sort of feeling a few times in prayer meetings in various places. I've had people call it mass hypnotism, or group energy. I really don't know. But it also happened when I was alone a couple of times. As far as I know, no miracles or other special things happened as a result. There were a few times where I heard a clear voice speak to me. Once was fairly early in my belief, long before I went Pentecostal, and asked God about marrying a particular woman. "No." I was flabbergasted because I'd never actually had an answer before. I said, please don't be angry but I'd like to ask that again. Should I marr... "NO!" Ok, enough said. It's off. 

 

The other time was during fasting and praying about a female friend who was involved with a guy that was acting suspiciously. Turns out he was in a protection program of some kind, but I didn't know that at the time. I wondered about her parents being so ok with her "camping" with this guy, went and sat down in the Sunday service and heard "She is at his house right now in bed with him". Ooof! It was true. I talked with her about it. 

 

The last time was just before a service with the missionary preacher, we were waiting in the foyer and a lady was acting oddly. She was a clown as a hobby that she used to preach to kids. I found her annoying as heck and was ready to unload on her when the voice said "Don't be mean to her." The effect on me was like turning off an old TV where the screen goes down to a dot and then vanishes. 

 

Anyway, hope I didn't derail your post. Sometimes odd stuff does happen that has little to no rational explanation, but again in retrospect as a deconverted believer, I don't know what to make of the incidents. 

 

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

28 minutes ago, Fuego said:

 

Anyway, hope I didn't derail your post. Sometimes odd stuff does happen that has little to no rational explanation, but again in retrospect as a deconverted believer, I don't know what to make of the incidents. 

 

Forgive us Wertbag for derailing your post.   Whether it is church or religion related or not, there are some strange things that happen and can't be expalined with our present knowledge.  After 40 years of deconversion and not believing in "spirits", I have had a couple of experiences that were unexplainable.  And neither were religious related, or happened in emotionally charged situations.  It has caused me to consider that perhaps there is some form of "energy" (or whatever you want to call it) that exists that we don't understand.

[Wertbag]

I saw a fascinating talk with a schizophrenic patient where they asked him what hallucinations he had experienced. He spoke of insects crawling out of a wall, a persons head floating off, hearing voices arguing in his head and holding a conversation with someone who wasn't there. The events seemed absolutely real at the time but he accepted that they were not, but it left him unable to know what was real. 

We take for granted that our senses are feeding us valid information and that our brain is interpreting that data correctly, but that self belief is sometimes misplaced. 

 

My grandma suffered 14 strokes before dying from them. Her mind was severely damaged, and while she could still talk she was convinced she was back in time. Her sister died 20 years before her, but she was remembering the bus she had to catch. When she met my daughter she thought it was her long dead sisters baby, who she met over 60 years prior. 

 

I'm not saying anyone here has anything of the same vein but personally I've seen enough mental disruption to make me doubt my own perception before I'd trust my brain. I don't think we understand how brains work, and we have many examples of brains changing from hypnosis, strokes, illness, physical damage or even just stress, dehydration or drugs. The test of reality has to be confirmation from other people agreeing that you are experiencing the same world. If you can't get third party confirmation then the event in question is unfalsifiable, so how can you ever know the truth of it?