God, Gay and Existential Dread

[Casualfanboy16]

Hello. I'm new to this website and I'm getting used to navigating it so hopefully this is the right place haha. This may be really long, but hopefully I can clearly and concisely write this.

 

So to start off, my experience with Christianity pretty much began at birth. Was born and raised in the faith from day one. Throughout elementary school I was the typical Christian child that was kinda just blindly following the faith without question. I believed it wholeheartedly. I sung the songs, read the verses (or the ones that I could remember reading. There's a lot lol), prayed all the prayers. I was fully into it.

 

Around middle school however, something changed. I don't know exactly what happened, but it's like all the koolaid I've been drinking finally ran dry. I began reading the Bible less and less because the shift from elementary to middle school was enough to cause me immense stress and anxiety, and the workload seemed to increase, so I prioritized getting homework done and studying for tests over the Bible, even in Bible class. The school years went by and I wasn't as invested in the Bible by that point, besides Revelation, which I will get into later in greater detail because that is also relevant.

 

Anyway, around that time I was beginning to go through that magical time in every teen's life where they start to explore their identity and figure themselves out. I was never interested in girls, although one could argue in elementary school I was deemed a "ladies man" by my parents and relatives because I would call girls cute and stuff, but I don't really count that because I had a juvenile understanding of love and thought love was just going up to someone and being like "you're cute" or "I love you." or whatever.

 

My middle school years (7-8th grade) were where I began to notice I didn't really have that attraction to girls that every guy was supposed to have. Also, this was around the time I began to dip my toes into 18+ content. I noticed a certain pattern with my viewing habits-- I never once looked at straight porn. Not even remotely curious about the opposite sex in any way, shape, or form. I was coming to realize I was only into men. I was gay.

 

As soon as the realization sank in, I pushed my feelings down for quite some time. However, pushing things down only works for so long. I eventually told two of my closest friends at the time, and luckily they were very supportive and didn't mind at all. I was at least partially free. I still had a whole different animal to beat: my parents. My parents were of the Conservative Christian type. And, as you could imagine, their views about LGBT people were... less than favorable.

 

It was typical homophobic bullshit. They believed marriage was to be between one man and one woman and anything outside of that "wasn't natural" or "wasn't of God's plan for marriage." They also misgender trans people frequently, my father even calling them "mentally ill" and such. There's also the whole "They stole the rainbow from God" stuff, but anyway, you get the idea.

 

As a result of what they said, what others have said, and what the Bible itself says about gay people, I had internalized homophobia up the wazoo. This, coupled with my anxiety, low self-esteem and a whole slew of other stressors- both related and unrelated to the issue- made my life a living hell. I hated myself. And eventually I grew desperate as the last thread of faith I was desperately holding onto began coming undone. I frantically searched and searched for Bible verses that would affirm my sexuality and make me feel content, despite me knowing full well exactly what the Christian God thought of me.

 

I was an abomination. A sick, twisted perversion of God's holy definition of marriage. And yet I still held on. I was frantically flipping through the Bible for answers, not just to why I was made this way, but other general questions I had. I was becoming dissatisfied with the lack of clear answers I was getting. I obsessively read Bible verses over and over, hoping to find the light again in these confusing and dark times. I prayed desperate prayers, wanting God to save me from my "sinful ways". I distinctly remember praying and pleading for God to kill me before I became an adult so I could make the cutoff and get into the pearly gates (I don't know why, but I assumed 18 was the limit because by that point you're considered a legal adult, so I thought God operated that way too and I desperately wanted to be his child and not reach 18 at any cost). I wasn't fully suicidal though. I still had the drive to live, but living didn't feel good either.

 

I'll skip ahead a huge bit, but forward to the beginning of this year after years of anguish, guilt, self-hatred and general suffering, I finally came out to my parents, which didn't go horrible and was a huuuuuuuuge relief, but still not in my favor. I never got kicked out like I feared, but I was meant with overwhelming disapproval from everyone in my family. They made it clear I was still loved, but they didn't approve of my "gay lifestyle". They also said some rather hurtful and insensitive things to me. I wasn't prepared though for what was to come in the next two months following this.

 

My parents went through the stages of grief, as if I had died(and are still sort of going through, although we steer clear of the topic for the most part). They didn't eat or sleep for the longest time. They were exhausted, drained and miserable. I on the other hand, was deeply resentful and still kind of am. I waited years... YEARS. I expected a negative reaction, but not like this. Are you kidding me?? I suffered in silence for years. I waited and waited for the "right time" and it never came. I finally revealed the truth and this is how the God of the universe repays me?? My parents were in shambles because of me. I couldn't control what their reaction would be, but holy crap. They grieved, cried, said things like "I wish you told me you were going to stay single." and "Our family is broken." and all this other stuff that has been hurtful to my already nonexistent self-esteem. It's already bad enough being in this Conservative Christian hellscape of a small town and now I don't feel like anything will ever be the same again. That was when I finally let go of the thread and plummeted into the dark abyss of uncertainty. My faith has been completely killed. My belief in God has finally been destroyed. And I have no idea where to go from here. All that Christian education went to waste and I don't know much about evolution and I'm ashamed to admit I'm not as scientifically literate as others here. I'm a small fish in a vast deep ocean and I need guidance. I don't know where to begin. I don't know much about evolution, which we briefly covered, but not enough for me to get it. Im a slow learner, my anxiety and my perfectionist tendencies that led me to focus on grades didn't help either because I didn't really absorb information I was being made to study in a variety of subjects, especially science because our teacher at the time made science kind of hell with the amount of notes we had to write down and my anxiety got so bad that I broke down sobbing whenever I counted how many pages of notes I filled and had to look at, so I mainly focused on memorizing rather than learning.

 

Another thing that made my faith crumble was the book of Revelation. I was fascinated with that book in middle school. Maybe I'm weird, but I kinda imagined what it would be like to see it all go down lmao. I kinda treated it like a zombie apocalypse kinda thing. I had a very edgy middle schooler mind, I admit. I was fascinated by the mark of the beast, the scroll that tasted like honey or whatever and all the things Revelation that felt like it came out of a weird acid trip or something.

 

When my faith took the pitfall, Revelation was still pretty fresh in my mind. Most of the other verses were kinda forgotten as time went on, but Revelation still remained somewhat. This is where my anxiety really began to set in. Amidst all the chaos my sexuality was causing, the rapture fears began forming in my head. I realized that if the trumpet were to sound, I would be left behind to fend for myself as God unleashed his wrath upon the world and the remaining inhabitants within it. I became paralyzed by fear, which I don't really bring up much even today. I was paranoid of being left behind while the Christians enjoyed their everlasting paradise. I was afraid of losing my family and Christian friends (despite my family's opposition to my gayness) and was fearful of being left alone to rot, starve and have all the horrible events Revelation played out happen to me. Even to this day, I still get scared that one day I'll wake up or get home from work and they'll be gone without a trace. Even when I'm trying to console myself and call this irrational and crazy, the scars still remain.

 

And God, if you're real after all and reading this, I hope you're happy. I hope you're fucking ecstatic. You put me on this predestined path. You knew this would happen to me, and yet all the Bible verses I frantically turned to in an effort to cure myself of my homosexuality and extreme doubts wasn't enough for you? All that praying and pleading for your mercy and forgiveness, and yet you stayed silent?? I believed in you. I trusted you. Now I'm here. I hope you're happy. I don't really believe in you anymore, but even if you do exist... I don't know if I could ever trust you. Abraham and Isaac, Noah's Ark, Revelation, THE ENTIRE FREAKING BOOK?! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE YOU'RE MERCIFUL AND JUST AND NOT SCREWED IN THE HEAD?!?! "MY WAYS AREN'T YOUR WAYS" BUT YOU MAKE YOUR RELIGION A FUCKING GUESSING GAME. ALL THESE OTHER RELIGIONS EXIST WITH SO MANY SIMILARITIES AND I'M SUPPOSED TO THINK CHRISTIANITY IS THE TRUE RELIGION??? GET REAL.

 

I apologize for that last bit being angrier sounding, just getting some of it out lol. Anyways, I hope I did well enough with my little spiel here. If you guys have any resources (books, YouTube videos, articles, you name it) on deconstructing Christianity, accepting your sexuality and getting over anxiety and all that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Thank you for reading. I hope to learn lots from here.

 

Sincerely, Your gay little agnostic gremlin, Casualfanboy16. (Casual for short)

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

@Casualfanboy16

 

First of all. Welcome to ExC again. 2nd, there is nothing wrong with you. And I'm sorry your parents have responded this way. I could definitely see my parents doing the same if I had been Gay. Unfortunately I see some similarities between your story and Ex-Mrs. Bishops reaction to my bisexuality son and our lesbian daughter. Not to that extent tho. I want you to know that you have a home here full of information to help you on your journey. I think a very good book for you to read if you have the funds is Bart Ehrmans "Armageddon". He covers revelations in this book and he usually does a wonderful job of explaining things. It is one of the books I'm reading now. But if you can't get the book right now. He has a YouTube channel and a podcast called "Misquoting Jesus" Many of his videos are free to access and he expounds a wealth of information. He has devoted his life to studying the Bible from a historical standpoint. I will attach a video that will hopefully help you at the end of this reply. 

 

1 hour ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

THE ENTIRE FREAKING BOOK?! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE YOU'RE MERCIFUL AND JUST AND NOT SCREWED IN THE HEAD?!?! "MY WAYS AREN'T YOUR WAYS" BUT YOU MAKE YOUR RELIGION A FUCKING GUESSING GAME. ALL THESE OTHER RELIGIONS EXIST WITH SO MANY SIMILARITIES AND I'M SUPPOSED TO THINK CHRISTIANITY IS THE TRUE RELIGION??? GET REAL.

 

Don't worry, and don't apologize for this outburst. We were all there at one point. And had similar posts telling God how we felt. If he did exist he is a fucking piece of shit ass hat. But he doesn't exist and hopefully we can point you in the right direction so your mind can be set at ease with that knowledge as well. 

 

1 hour ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

My parents went through the stages of grief, as if I had died(and are still sort of going through, although we steer clear of the topic for the most part). They didn't eat or sleep for the longest time. They were exhausted, drained and miserable.

 

Unfortunately this is something out of your control. This is their problem not your problem. You have done nothing wrong. A d they are going to have to find a way to accept you for who you are. When you introduce and future love interests your probably going to have trouble then as well. It isn't easy being different but to be yourself is the only way to truly live. You have to live your life. And you have to put you first. This is one of the issues I've recently recognized with the Bible. Its teachings strip away our individuality, telling us we aren't good enough for God. So we have to believe in Jesus and be like him. NO! FUCK THAT!!  This is a toxic form of brainwashing. 

 

1 hour ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

I admit. I was fascinated by the mark of the beas

Interesting enough, the mark of the beast actually spelled NERO in Greek numerals. Revelation was written about him and the era of his time as ruler of the Roman Empire. It was written, probably because of his persecution of Christians. 

 

I can tell you that when you really start scrutinizing the biblical account, looking into the facts of what has been discovered through the sciences, scholarly work, and archeological information the bible falls apart. Most of the Bible cannot be reconciled with all the facts you will discover. Like half of the epistles of Paul being forgeries, or parts of the gospels being added later in history, or that there is almost no evidence of the Exodus. 

 

It is all shocking at first. But when the initial shock is over peace follows. You won't have to worry about Hell or your sexuality. 

 

Best regards,

Dark Bishop

 

https://youtu.be/9zVt6PTan8g

 

This is the link to Barts video I promised. His studies have been very influential in my studies after deconversion. Everyone here already knows he's my favorite biblical scholar you will see me talk a lot about him. 

[older]

Welcome, Casual. We're here for you. The fact that you are here and have told your story shows that you have the strength to overcome this.

 

Here are couple of quotes that have been helpful to me; perhaps they'll be of some help for you. The first has been called the Serenity Prayer, but since gods are the problem we can just leave out that part and look at the important part:

 

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

 

And one more, from Arthur Ashe:

 

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

 

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

"Reading" people was part of my profession, and I believe your story is one of the most honest and insightful stories we have seen.  You bravely laid it on the table.  If you have been reading here, you likely know you are among friends, and we will stand by you.  Your honesty and courage will not only bring you through, but will likely lead to a peace you haven't had since childhood.  You were very lucky to have had good nurturing as a child that gave you a good basic sense of self.  You have what it takes to rise above the fear mungering.

 

I wasn't gay, but thought I was going to hell because I couldn't stop the lustful cravings for females I was not married to.  

 

My childhood and early church experience is similar to yours, so I think my testimony (in this same forum) may be helpful to you.  It is a fairly long summary of the process I went through in the "leaving the fold" process, and the aftereffects.  It is called "Personal story; TRUTH: A GRADUAL AWAKENING" and is on the 2nd page of this testimonial section. 

 

I look forward to seeing you here in the future. 

[Casualfanboy16]

@DarkBishop Hi. Just wanted to say thank you for replying to my post. I actually remember seeing a snippet of something Bart Ehrman related in Genetically Modified Skeptic's YouTube channel recently, so I'll be sure to check out his stuff later. Also thank you for the book recommendation even if I can't exactly buy it now because Christian parents lmao.

 

As for my sexuality, I'm still trying to break free of the toxic shame and self-hatred cycle that I spent so long in. I want to be better so I'm not all screwed up when I finally date someone. I still have fears of me being hatecrimed, even by non-religious people because the area I live in is really conservative and even people that aren't into the Bible have some views on homosexuality and lgbt issues in general that are misinformed, bigoted and rooted in ignorance. I'm definitely going to move to somewhere more accepting, but it always feels like city areas have a higher gay population and I'm not a city person like at all lol. But yeah I wish I could learn to love myself more. I am starting journaling so maybe that'll clear my head.

 

As for all the Revelation stuff, I still have a morbid fascination with it, but like man sometimes I feel like I need a break from theological discussions and Bible stuff, but I also crave knowledge to help break the cycle. I swear to God if I hear "x event was predicted in the Bible and that means the end times are coming" or some other variation I will lose my mind . Literally that shit wasn't good. Even with anxiety meds I still get worried about the end times. I could discuss more with you maybe. That'd be cool. Help tear apart my fears because as much as I hate to admit it, I haven't exactly read the Bible in a number of years and need a refresher. I am hesitant at this point in my life though because of my current circumstances and the fact reading the Bible literally makes me feel imminent dread at the moment and I hate reading it because of all the hell I put myself through by obsessively going over verses to cure myself and I need a break, but I also need to read it because I also crave knowledge and I need to dissect this book because even with my limited knowledge I still see it's full of crap lol.

[Casualfanboy16]

@older Hii!! Thank you for your reply! The quotes are very much appreciated! I'm very happy with this place so far. Everyone's been so nice here! 

[Casualfanboy16]

@Weezer Hello. Thanks for replying to my ex-testimony (extimony???). I actually did (and still kind of do) struggle with the whole "lustful cravings" thing you're talking about. I often feel ashamed and guilty for having completely normal, human thoughts. This has been an experience I noticed in a number of ex-Christian posts all across the internet. I still feel guilty for even looking at gay porn in my teen years (I'm 20 now). I kinda skipped over some details about that, including the time I got a virus from a porn site and panicked so hard I told my parents (which I guess technically was me coming out in a way, but they more so were concerned about the porn rather than the gay part. I don't remember if I  actually specified if it was gay or not lol). There was also my first (Christian) therapist and the dreaded "Covenant Eyes" app that made me develop severe privacy issues. That's a whole different can of worms for another day.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

18 minutes ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

As for all the Revelation stuff, I still have a morbid fascination with it, but like man sometimes I feel like I need a break from theological discussions and Bible stuff, but I also crave knowledge to help break the cycle.

For now just watch the videos Bart has. Let him disect some stuff for you. He has spent his life doing it. Right now you need more to draw from than your current biblical knowledge. I'm a former minister and when I deconverted I could only draw from my own knowledge as well. I had to learn from someone else. Then the dots started connecting. There are so many things people just don't know about the bible until they leave the faith and begin to learn about the bible from secular sources outside the bible. 

 

The bible is a book filled with historical fiction. It all sounds like it is a history book. But it isn't. There are facts thrown in here and there for believability. But in the end it just doesn't hold up against facts. For instance. I've preached in the past and said I didn't believe in evolution because they still haven't found the missing link. Well, that isn't true. After deconverting I looked it up. They have found many fossils that show the history of our own evolution. Primitive homosapiens, Neanderthals, homoerectus just to name a few. 

 

Just be the sponge you know you are and absorb all the information you can. But you may want to make sure your parents don't see this too. They may try to restrict access. It is an age old tactic. If information is the problem for belief. Destroy the information. 

 

DB

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

8 minutes ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

I'm 20 now

Well in that case I guess you won't be needing to worry about parental restrictions. I thought you may be 16. 

 

DB

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Perhaps this will help.  In the years since retirement I have done a lot of research on the history of christianity, the bible, and religions in general.  My overall findings?  God, Jesus, the creation, the flood, etc. are nothing new.   It is mostly a rehashing of older religions and myths from history.  Biblical writers borrowed older stories and modified them.  

 

At this time I would not recommend reading the bible, but if you really want to do so, maybe keeping what I say here in mind, will let you see it in  different light.  It was not "inspired" or written by God.  It was compiled from human writings, with those chosing the writings arguing over which ones should be included.  They had to guess at who wrote most of the writings, and they inserted stuff that was not originally there.  And the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant bibles do not contain all of the same books.  

 

The only thing I "held onto" from the bible was the statement from Jesus to love neighbor as self.  That is valid, evidence proven ideology for living.  And there are some other "truths" scattered through the overall fear based crap.

[Casualfanboy16]

@DarkBishop Yeah lol my username is a bit misleading. I just refuse to change it because Casualfanboy20 doesn't sound right to me.

 

I'm still dependent on my parents as I still live here with them. I'm gonna move out at some point, but as of right now I'm still trying to figure things out because I'm a bit lost on what to do with my life and just I don't feel confident enough in myself for a variety of reasons: perfectionism literally destroying my love for certain hobbies, my kinda laziness I developed throughout my teen years due to aforementioned issues screwing with my self-confidence in my ability to do things, etc. There's also the fact that I have agenesis of the corpus callosum, which affects people differently, but I guess one thing I noticed is learning certain things seems to take longer. Oh there's also anxiety and fear of failure lol can't forget about that.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

10 minutes ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

There's also the fact that I have agenesis of the corpus callosum,

Ah, I'm somewhat familiar with that. My sons have a half sister by there mother with that. Her hemispheres are completely separated. 

 

DB

[Casualfanboy16]

11 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Perhaps this will help.  In the years since retirement I have done a lot of research on the history of christianity, the bible, and religions in general.  My overall findings?  God, Jesus, the creation, the flood, etc. are nothing new.   It is mostly a rehashing of older religions and myths from history.  Biblical writers borrowed older stories and modified them.  

 

At this time I would not recommend reading the bible, but if you really want to do so, maybe keeping what I say here in mind, will let you see it in  different light.  It was not "inspired" or written by God.  It was compiled from human writings, with those chosing the writings arguing over which ones should be included.  They had to guess at who wrote most of the writings, and they inserted stuff that was not originally there.  And the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant bibles do not contain all of the same books.  

 

The only thing I "held onto" from the bible was the statement from Jesus to love neighbor as self.  That is valid, evidence proven ideology for living.  And there are some other "truths" scattered through the overall fear based crap.

Yeah, I already kinda figured the Bible was manmade and stuff like that. I mean at lot of it doesn't add up, even with just a bit of logic it seems to crumble so easily. Even without that in mind, stories like Abraham and Isaac are like rather disturbing to me. I mean there's lots of disturbing things, but this one comes to mind because God literally went "It's just a prank, bro" moments before Abraham was about to sacrifice his own son because God wanted him to. Like I remember seeing a post being like "If God told me to kill my son, then maybe I'd be like this isn't the God for me" and I couldn't agree more because like there's this, Noah's Ark, all these other things where God does all these fucked up things to have people prove their devotion to him (Gross. Fucking gross and sick and abusive and inhumane) and it's so utterly ridiculous and downright disturbing that Christians don't seem to have problems with God doing it because even if it's a violation of his own commandments, (thou shall not kill) it's always "his ways aren't your ways" and stuff, but like nah I ain't following that. Bye

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Here's a YouTube channel I recently discovered.  This guy is an ex-fundamentalist and he had a similar experience growing up as I had.  I haven't gone through all of the videos yet, only a dozen or so; but all the ones I saw were really good.  It's not the scholarly, intellectual Bart Erhman type stuff, though; just a regular guy trying to make sense of his own deconversion and maybe help some others along the way.

 

https://youtube.com/@BeliefItOrNot

[pantheory]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:36 PM, Casualfanboy16 said:

@DarkBishop Yeah lol my username is a bit misleading. I just refuse to change it because Casualfanboy20 doesn't sound right to me.

 

I'm still dependent on my parents as I still live here with them. I'm gonna move out at some point, but as of right now I'm still trying to figure things out because I'm a bit lost on what to do with my life and just I don't feel confident enough in myself for a variety of reasons: perfectionism literally destroying my love for certain hobbies, my kinda laziness I developed throughout my teen years due to aforementioned issues screwing with my self-confidence in my ability to do things, etc. There's also the fact that I have agenesis of the corpus callosum, which affects people differently, but I guess one thing I noticed is learning certain things seems to take longer. Oh there's also anxiety and fear of failure lol can't forget about that.

 

Yeah, you seem like a good person. You will figure out your own way in life. That is what most everybody here has done. Religion breeds followers IMO. But If one is too independent that also doesn't work very well either, because one's potential to get a lot accomplished works better with like-minded people. I think you have made a good choice in coming here to this site since most of us here are a lot older and have a pretty good insight into the things you are, and will be facing, and therefore can offer some good and interesting advice.

 

Welcome here and plan on listening, learning, and offering your own ideas, your own way.

 

Good luck and best wishes.

[Casualfanboy16]

5 minutes ago, pantheory said:

 

Yeah, you seem like a good person. You will figure out your own way in life. That is what most everybody here has done. Religion breeds followers IMO. But If one is too independent that also doesn't work very well either, because one's potential to get a lot accomplished works better with like-minded people. I think you have made a good choice in coming here to this site since most of us here are a lot older and have a pretty good insight into the things you are, and will be facing, and therefore can offer some good and interesting advice.

 

Welcome here and plan on listening, learning, and offering your own ideas, your own way.

 

Good luck and best wishes.

 

Thanks for the wonderful message! I'm really glad I joined. Not regretting it one bit. I still have a long journey ahead to reach a full deconversion; along with rebuilding self-confidence, self-esteem and just my sense of self as a whole because I spent my teenage years wasting a lot of time not doing that because perfectionism and extreme fear of making mistakes, so I have a lot of catching up to do. At least most people here have more life experience than me so I can come here for advice and valuable insights, so that's a huge plus. Joining here has definitely been a positive thing already. I feel like I'm moving forward, even if it's just a little at a time. I feel like I can start walking and living and breathing again instead of being frozen in place and get out of my comfort zone. I still haven't been able to pick up a Bible yet because of the past traumas I subjected myself to over and over to try and "fix myself", but I'm hoping soon I can get back into it from the perspective of someone outside the faith just peeking in at it rather than feeling like reading it out of fear of eternal suffering.

[pantheory]

4 minutes ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

 

Thanks for the wonderful message! I'm really glad I joined. Not regretting it one bit. I still have a long journey ahead to reach a full deconversion; along with rebuilding self-confidence, self-esteem and just my sense of self as a whole because I spent my teenage years wasting a lot of time not doing that because perfectionism and extreme fear of making mistakes, so I have a lot of catching up to do. At least most people here have more life experience than me so I can come here for advice and valuable insights, so that's a huge plus. Joining here has definitely been a positive thing already. I feel like I'm moving forward, even if it's just a little at a time. I feel like I can start walking and living and breathing again instead of being frozen in place and get out of my comfort zone. I still haven't been able to pick up a Bible yet because of the past traumas I subjected myself to over and over to try and "fix myself", but I'm hoping soon I can get back into it from the perspective of someone outside the faith just peeking in at it rather than feeling like reading it out of fear of eternal suffering.

 

I have a couple of "cool" Bibles. One is called a folio bible. It was printed in 1640 and is very large, the size that some preachers have in front of them. It's in fair condition and written in old English. Another one is from the early 1800's. It is a German bible and belonged to my Great Grandmother.  She personally wrote in it at age 12. Interesting. For me the Bible is interesting concerning how people use to think, and the ways some people still think two thousand years later -- generally regressive. 

[Casualfanboy16]

5 minutes ago, pantheory said:

For me the Bible is interesting concerning how people use to think, and the ways some people still think two thousand years later -- generally regressive. 

I can agree with that. I do find some things of the Bible interesting. I had a hyperfixation on the rapture in middle school because I needed inspiration for my edgy stories I used to write lmao. It is interesting too looking back to see how it was back then. Still not willing to pick it up again just yet because the Bible has been a source of hurt for a while and I need to recover before I read through it cover to cover.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

On 7/7/2023 at 7:53 PM, Casualfanboy16 said:

 

I was an abomination. A sick, twisted perversion of God's holy definition of marriage. And yet I still held on. I was frantically flipping through the Bible for answers, not just to why I was made this way, but other general questions I had.

 

 

I may give you more than you were asking for, but here it is. After years of reflection along these lines I came to these conclusions by looking at the big picture of the possible thinking of primitive humans, which could have become assumed "truths", and passed down to future generations.  HA! And also looking at the thinking of modern profit minded humans. When trying to understand why anything happen as they do with humans, look at the factors of power and profit.

 

With some primitive people, strength and survival came from having the largest tribe.  People power. That required having the most kids.  Same sex couples don't have kids.  Abortion eliminates kids.  Birth control prevents having kids.  These things reduce the tribes chance of survival.  And the power to survive is top priority.   That becomes part of their religion, gets programmed into human minds and passed down to future generations.  

 

Today people power for survival isn't as vitally important with the technology we have.  But.   We need money to pay for technology for "survival" (national defense).  We need people to pay taxes to have money for the technology.  And in the process huge corporations owned by powerful, wealthy people are making HUGE profits, which allows them to stay wealthy and powerful.   Chaos and war are very profitable for them, which is a side issue we don't have room for here, and not the focus of this forum.

 

But outside national defense we need jobs to earn money for a living, by selling/providing goods and services to people.  No people to sell stuff to, No jobs.  So over the long haul, we need more people to keep the present system going.  But if you are greedy, and addicted to profit (and power), and looking at the long haul, one way to maintain profit, and power, is to demand that people have more children!   And somewhere down the line all this got wrapped into our religion.  

 

So, Hey, it ain't you that's the problem.  It's the primitive (and later greedy) thinking.

 

This line of thinking can lead into another discussion about how, over the VERY LONG HAUL, this demand for more children could eventually, overpopulate the earth.  But this is not the time or place for that.  

[Casualfanboy16]

Taking a nostalgia trip for a post that happened nearly two months ago. God, seeing how I initially was when I first joined here is so weird. I mean, I still have a long ways to go, but it's like wow. Look at me go. I'm getting somewhere here. I have my bad days, but I'm actually really happy looking back at this. Mindfulness helps a lot. I should come back here every once in a while when I get further along with deconversion stuff and other things. Just a self-congratulatory type thing. I mean I don't know exactly how much I changed since then, but even the smallest of change is good. It's something, at least.

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

On 7/7/2023 at 8:01 PM, DarkBishop said:

that there is almost no evidence of the Exodus.

I haven't heard this before. Elaborate? 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

8 hours ago, moxieflux66 said:

I haven't heard this before. Elaborate? 

 

YouTube currently has some good video talks by historians like Bart Ehrman and Joel Baden about actual history and how the Bible compares with it. I'm not a huge fan of the host of MythVision, but the people he interviews are solid scholars.

 

Interview with Dr Bart Ehrman about Moses and Exodus

 

Interview with Dr Joel Baden about Canaanites Israelites and Exodus not happening

 

 

 

 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

10 hours ago, moxieflux66 said:

I haven't heard this before. Elaborate? 

No problem, in 2013 in the magazine "Reform Jedaism" an article was published talking about the complete lack of Archeological evidence of Jewish Slavery in Egypt, of the exodus, the 40 years wandering in the desert, or the biblical conquest of isreal. You can read it yourself here. I just gave them my name and my spam email address. 

 

https://issuu.com/reformjudaism/docs/rj_spr2013?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=reformjudaism.org

 

This next article was a rebuttal to the first and contends that it was a much smaller group of isrealites that were enslaved. This was one of the articles I read when my deconversion was triggered. I found it while searching for evidence of the exodus. For .e this is just a Jewish apologetic teaching. Because without Moses what is Judaism? The Bible gives specific locations in several instances where these people traveled. And either way. If it wasn't the whole nation of isreal that fled Egypt then the whole old testament is a false hood. What about Joseph and his coat of many colors? Sold into slavery by his brothers? Rose to power? And gave his whole family sanctuary in Egypt during the famine. This story was the whole nation of isreal. Tall the brothers were there in Egypt. If it wasn't the whole nation and only a small sect of jews. Then the whole story is still a lie. 

 

https://reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fiction

 

There have also been documentaries made on the subject that are newer. There is absolutely no record of any of the plagues or isrealite slaves in Egypt. The only one thing they could say in defense of the absence of evidence was that had Egypt been embarrassed so bad by the isrealites they would have erased it from their history. But since they wrote in Hieroglyphics on walls to record their history. They would have chiseled away the Hieroglyphics. There is also no evidence of that happening either. 

 

Like I said. This is what triggered my deconversion. I was a preacher and I knew that if the Exodus wasn't true, and Moses didn't write the first five books of the Bible, that it was all a lie. It is in these earliest writings that Christians find prophecies for Jesus. It's here that we see Adam's sin in the garden of Eden. And without that we don't even need Jesus. 

 

Have fun reading lol  

 

Dark Bishop

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

11 minutes ago, DarkBishop said:

No problem, in 2013 in the magazine "Reform Jedaism" an article was published talking about the complete lack of Archeological evidence of Jewish Slavery in Egypt, of the exodus, the 40 years wandering in the desert, or the biblical conquest of isreal. You can read it yourself here. I just gave them my name and my spam email address. 

 

https://issuu.com/reformjudaism/docs/rj_spr2013?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=reformjudaism.org

 

This next article was a rebuttal to the first and contends that it was a much smaller group of isrealites that were enslaved. This was one of the articles I read when my deconversion was triggered. I found it while searching for evidence of the exodus. For .e this is just a Jewish apologetic teaching. Because without Moses what is Judaism? The Bible gives specific locations in several instances where these people traveled. And either way. If it wasn't the whole nation of isreal that fled Egypt then the whole old testament is a false hood. What about Joseph and his coat of many colors? Sold into slavery by his brothers? Rose to power? And gave his whole family sanctuary in Egypt during the famine. This story was the whole nation of isreal. Tall the brothers were there in Egypt. If it wasn't the whole nation and only a small sect of jews. Then the whole story is still a lie. 

 

https://reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fiction

 

There have also been documentaries made on the subject that are newer. There is absolutely no record of any of the plagues or isrealite slaves in Egypt. The only one thing they could say in defense of the absence of evidence was that had Egypt been embarrassed so bad by the isrealites they would have erased it from their history. But since they wrote in Hieroglyphics on walls to record their history. They would have chiseled away the Hieroglyphics. There is also no evidence of that happening either. 

 

Like I said. This is what triggered my deconversion. I was a preacher and I knew that if the Exodus wasn't true, and Moses didn't write the first five books of the Bible, that it was all a lie. It is in these earliest writings that Christians find prophecies for Jesus. It's here that we see Adam's sin in the garden of Eden. And without that we don't even need Jesus. 

 

Have fun reading lol  

 

Dark Bishop

HOLY SHIT! That's a lot to digest before breakfast! Thank you. I can easily see how that could trigger you. Wow. Consider me mind blown! 

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

1 hour ago, Fuego said:

 

YouTube currently has some good video talks by historians like Bart Ehrman and Joel Baden about actual history and how the Bible compares with it. I'm not a huge fan of the host of MythVision, but the people he interviews are solid scholars.

 

Interview with Dr Bart Ehrman about Moses and Exodus

 

Interview with Dr Joel Baden about Canaanites Israelites and Exodus not happening

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Moxie here. I look forward to reading more of your writing. And when I have digested other things I will DEFINITELY look into this.