Introduction - Borgus

[borgus]

Hello,

 

<Warning: contains mention of abuse>

 

I am joining this community because I am finding out that Christianity just isn't for me, and am interested in everyone else's journey. I was basically a liberal Christian until my teenage years, then became Evangelical, then married a Pentecostal. After some years of marriage we both left the church. My wife was never very attached to it - it was mostly a social thing or about self-improvement. For me, it was basically insurance against going to hell, and to see family again when I die. After my wife stopped going I reverted back to liberal Christianity. The problem that really made me decide against going to church or giving money to the church is working in process automation and software engineering.

 

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One of my clients in a previous workplace was a specialty insurance company. I once had to go through hundreds of thousands of Excel cell records of abuse cases brought by religious institutions as part of the sexual abuse policies. We were basically trying to figure out what the process was to the claims so we can automate the parts that made sense - that way the limited underwriters in the company would be able to not hate their jobs just a little bit more (contrary to common perception, most automation is actually to help make existing staff stick around by removing headaches, or to allow the existing staff load to do more work, since it's impossible to find people).

 

I also needed to replicate reporting, and one of the things that the business keeps track of is what types of churches are more expensive than the others to insure, similar to all other businesses and risks. You can't discriminate, but you can see if the business will expect an ROI for writing a policy. What I really ended up finding out is abuse is fairly common throughout all Christian churches - some churches have higher claims because they are more centralized, i.e. they don't have as many abusive priests, but because congregations are larger they have a much higher claim hit because of the larger number impacted.

 

The only outliers were non-denomination/fundie/baptist in that abuse was much more common. What I thought was a "safe" church denomination I was a part of I realized had similar issues - just less well-publicized. Seeing horrible abuses in Excel cells as the company decided what to do with each case. They were short snippets, and it was just a bit hard to read through some of these, and realize if I took my young child to church, I would be intentionally exposing them to a statistically significant probability of this happening to them. I did not want to take that risk as a parent.

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The hardest part I struggle with is hadephobia. It's hard for me to just accept my agnosticism/atheism/ignosticism. I think Bart Ehrman helped with my questions on the resurrection - i.e. how did the story likely really play out (vs. what was written decades later). The other thing is Epicurus and philosophy as well as Marcus Aurelius with fear of death. I hate being home on Sunday because my mind wanders. Luckily, CBT helps with coping, and I think enough of a "routine" outside of thinking of religion will help over time. Journaling helps too (mostly focused on gratitude, philosophy [Epicureanism/Stoicism/Cyrenaicism/Peripatetic]). I understand the objections to hell and the Christian conception of it so that would not be helpful - I am more interested in the rituals, practices, and habits that helped you move past hadephobia or fear of hell. 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Welcome, borgus.  We are happy to assimilate you.  I know several of our members have experienced that same fear of hell and will be able to offer better help on it than I can.  I never experienced it myself; and can therefore only offer theoretical suggestions.  I do know that the more you study the origins of the hell concept, and the origins of the christian religion, the more that fear will diminish, along with other residual fears, guilt, and shame.

[midniterider]

Resistance is futile. 

[Casualfanboy16]

Heya there, borgus! Unfortunately, I don't have anything useful on helping you with your fear of Hell; as I myself am going through more rapture-centric fears more than anything. I'm sure others around here will be able to help you out with that though!

 

Hope you enjoy hanging around here at Ex-C! The people here are pretty cool and have been helpful and supportive in my deconstruction/deconversion journey I'm currently on, as well as helping me through the myriad of other things that Christianity cursed me with! Looking forward to seeing you around!!

 

-Casual

[◊ Weezer ◊]

WELCOME!  That was a very interesting way to get a look inside part of what goes on within Christianity.  I was one of those therapists that worked with the victims of that abuse.  I saw some very sad cases, and the really sad part was how the church blamed the victim in some cases, and protected the priests and ministers.  It made you think perhaps there was more abuse going on than was being reported.  And it seemed the more authoritarian, male oriented the church was, the worse the abuse.

 

HELL!!  What a hell of a subject!  It gave me many sleepless nights, and I believe contributed to depression later in life----until my logical brain began figuring out how illogical it, our church doctrine, and finally the Bible are.  Regarding hell, one of the first things I thought of was, If I am dead, and are then a spirit, not flesh, how can fire hurt me? 

 

It is not well written, but if you are interested, my testimony is in the TESTIMONIAL forums, named "TRUTH: A GRADUAL AWAKENING".  It is step by step story of my early mental conditioning, questioning, then studying the bible in a different manner, then studying the history of religion, and then the conclusions.  Let me know by Personal Message if you wold like an updated version with added religious history.  And there are many other testimonies there, as well as in the INTRODUCTIONS.

 

Later, Jim 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

15 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I do know that the more you study the origins of the hell concept, and the origins of the christian religion, the more that fear will diminish, along with other residual fears, guilt, and shame

 

19 hours ago, borgus said:

I am more interested in the rituals, practices, and habits that helped you move past hadephobia or fear of hell. 

 

Welcome Borgus!! 

 

I'm just going to piggy back off what RNP said here and suggest if you like Bart Ehrman  a good book that would help you is his book: "Heaven and Hell, ahistory of the afterlife". He shows how hell was an evolution in ancient times and the early church borrowed from other religions to create the myth. You can see it all reflected in the bible. How in the old testament it was just the grave (dying), later it was place of darkness and separation from God, then they began thinking punishment should be included for evil sinners. 

 

It is a very interesting read and will probably help you shake some of those fears. 

 

Best Regards,

Dark Bishop

[pantheory]

Welcome Borgus,

 

Here we have the full gamut of believers, non-believers, agnostics, and atheists like myself. Very few of us are atheist haters. As for me I don't mind religion; I view it as something often needed for uneducated, non-thinkers. All of us were Christians at one time or another. As a believer or partial believer you can still comment in any category of this forum as long as one is not preaching religion. This is what the debate forums are usually used for.

 

best of luck; hope you like it here and decide to stick around.

 

Cheers!

 

 

[◊ Krowb ◊]

If it helps make things easier you can always go the more deistic route.  I sat in that camp for a couple of years as I worked my through the various possibilities and the support for each position.

 

It's most definitely not an "either or" proposition.

[borgus]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts, wishes, encouragement, and ideas! Much appreciated.

[Casualfanboy16]

1 minute ago, borgus said:

Thanks everyone for the thoughts, wishes, encouragement, and ideas! Much appreciated.

You're welcome, dude! See you in the forums!!