kellyb Posted May 3, 2006 Share Posted May 3, 2006 I spent a lot of time begging god to give me more faith to not question things "beyond my comprehension". I spent a lot of time meditating on verses like "My ways are not your ways." I put a lot of effort into making it all make sense and many a dark night of the soul I spent "fending off the devil" who was demanding that I "submit to the logic of man"...after all, you can only have one master, right? Yes, it was stressful. That's actually an understatement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Emerson Posted May 3, 2006 Share Posted May 3, 2006 Mike D I had a similar experience. I believed in god, still do just not xtian god. Anyway having faith was stressful because I was always worried I wasn't pleasing xtian god and felt a lot of guilt. It was just a crazy mind game as well! I was getting saved again and again and going to altar calls every weekend. I never really felt "saved" and I never felt that it made much of a difference anyway. I just got so sick of it, and now I have my sanity. I was always worried or stressed out about being saved and going to hell. Now I don't think about being damned, I rarely think about that. I can live peacefully now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonwhatever Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 Having faith is what ruined my life. From the time I was 19, I was being a total and complete slave for God. I estranged family and friends trying to keep Jesus's Saying that "he who loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." I forsook money, for "labor not for the meat which perisheth, etc." I forsook college, my future, prayed hours a day every day, fasted much, lived in misery, etc. I truly wish very much that I had never received The Holy Spirit. It was a burden that I simply was not able to live up to....despite what Jesus Says, His burden is not easy and His yoke is not light. It's actually extremely griveous and miserable. It's a constant trial. The Lord "chose" me before I was able to ever put my feet on the ground and to figure myself out and see what I wanted out of life. But then, if you ever turn back into the world, you are damned....you have counted The Blood of The Lord an unholy thing, etc. That's nonsense...I never lived in the world to begin with. My life has been ruined because of The Lord...I wish He had left me alone to begin with. The people who are blessed are those who were never saved, were never indoctrinated into that baggage, who can live their lives with an optimism of the future and pursue their own interests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 Jason, you were sucked into a terrible cult and you are a fine yet sad example of what truly taking Xianity seriously can do to a person. Finish the job and ditch Xianity altogether; you see now that the alleged words of Jeezus are a lie and living up to that horrible cult is utterly miserable. Finish the job and see it for the lie it is. Quit still trying to convince yourself that Jeezus exists, quit using the condemnations of Xianity to beat yourself to soothe your self-hatred, and finish the job. You owe it to yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorena Rodriguez Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 As stressful as it gets! Well, you never know when god would want to test you, as he did with Job. So when things were going well, I kept on wondering when the bad stuff would come, because god wanted to make sure I wasn't getting proud. When things were going bad, I was always afraid that god was testing my long-suffering. He wanted to know, I thought, if I would blasfeme his name. All that crap about Jesus giving me peace never happened. Never. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted May 8, 2006 Author Share Posted May 8, 2006 The people who are blessed are those who were never saved, were never indoctrinated into that baggage, who can live their lives with an optimism of the future and pursue their own interests. This is what I find so cultish about Christianity. Well not even just Christianity, because all major religions do the same thing..... if you question "the truth" and reject it (because you don't think it was ever the truth in the first place), then you are threatened with damnation. And if you've never heard "the truth" you are sitting pretty, nothing to worry about. This is retarded, what's the point of damning people just because they heard something and questioned the validity of it? Does religion really teach that ignorance is a virtue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 It wasn't my faith that was stressful. It was: 1. Other people who had expectations of what a Christian is supposed to be and not being that ideal, then knowing that you are considered less of a person. 2. Life decisions that I made because of my belief system that I am still living with the reprocussions. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyb Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 The people who are blessed are those who were never saved, were never indoctrinated into that baggage, who can live their lives with an optimism of the future and pursue their own interests. This is what I find so cultish about Christianity. Well not even just Christianity, because all major religions do the same thing..... if you question "the truth" and reject it (because you don't think it was ever the truth in the first place), then you are threatened with damnation. And if you've never heard "the truth" you are sitting pretty, nothing to worry about. This is retarded, what's the point of damning people just because they heard something and questioned the validity of it? Does religion really teach that ignorance is a virtue? Yes. Religion teaches that logic might do you in, but faith will always see you through. Faith>logic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evelyn Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 I'll chime in and say my experience was similar to lots of posters here, that "having faith" was indeed very stressful, that I had doubts all of the time and got "saved" several times while I was an xian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 Faith sucks ass. It sure stressed me out. Trying to believe in something that there really wasn't any proof of was hard. It wouldn't even have had to have been absolute undeniable proof, either, just enough to say "hey, this is probably true." Plus it was hard to try to figure out exactly what to believe in, especially when I kept getting so many different kinds of input on what god was like and what he wanted and how I was supposed to live my life... there's so many denominations, how the hell does anybody figure out which one is the one that's going to provide the Right Path to God for real? I mean what if I picked the wrong one, had faith in the wrong thing, said the wrong magic words at the wrong time, etc. etc. etc... Probably the worst part about faith was being told by others that I didn't have enough, directly or indirectly. Faith was supposed to be this thing that I had in abundance, just buckets full of it, the kind that would make mountains out of mustard seeds, and all that crap. I had some, but sometimes I doubted - eventually doubted my way right out of the meme. Faith was just one more of those ways that provided other people an excuse to judge me, when I didn't have it. My favorite is hearing Xians say now that my lack of faith was somehow my fault. I suspect it really isn't, but we get that line a lot because Xians just can't find any fault with their own deity. No, of course it isn't that their deity is vague and ephemeral and never really provides a good reason to believe in him, never mind that his followers never offer any good reasons either, never mind that few people are willing to admit that faith is just make-believe... no, of course it has to be a non-believer's fault that they don't believe. Eh, what the fuck ever. I prefer reality where possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyous1 Posted May 10, 2006 Share Posted May 10, 2006 Not at all, faith in Jesus was the source of all peace and contentment... except when it wasn't, and then I knew God must be punishing me for some sin. So I would conduct a diligent examination of conscience, confess my sins, and receive absolution. Then all peace and contentment would return... except when it didn't, and then I knew God must be testing my faith. So I would endure whatever crummy situation I found myself in, forgiving everyone who was treating me badly, especially fellow christians and clergy, making personal sacrifices for God, praying for world peace and that God's will be done in all things. Oh, and I would remember to thank God for blessing me with trials that would strengthen my soul. Then I could find rest in the Lord... except when I couldn't, even after years of prayer and fasting and faith. The fire of my faith slowly died, and my heart grew colder and colder. Until a new fire started, a fire of anger that blazed the way to liberty. On second thought, yeah, it was pretty stressful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyb Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 Not at all, faith in Jesus was the source of all peace and contentment... except when it wasn't, and then I knew God must be punishing me for some sin. So I would conduct a diligent examination of conscience, confess my sins, and receive absolution. Then all peace and contentment would return... except when it didn't, and then I knew God must be testing my faith. So I would endure whatever crummy situation I found myself in, forgiving everyone who was treating me badly, especially fellow christians and clergy, making personal sacrifices for God, praying for world peace and that God's will be done in all things. Oh, and I would remember to thank God for blessing me with trials that would strengthen my soul. Then I could find rest in the Lord... except when I couldn't, even after years of prayer and fasting and faith. The fire of my faith slowly died, and my heart grew colder and colder. Until a new fire started, a fire of anger that blazed the way to liberty. On second thought, yeah, it was pretty stressful. Well put. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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