I don't know where I fit in

[Bobo]

Hi, I'm new and I am pandora's husband. Here's my story---

 

My mother took me to church practically every week when I was younger. She was a devout Baptist. My father, a more academic type who didn't have much interest in religion, stayed home. (Side note: My parents are generally nice people, but I have no idea how they ended up together.)

 

When I was four, I "accepted Christ" after coming home from Vacation Bible School. My mom said she tried to slow me down and make sure I understood what I was doing, but she said I absolutely did. I guess I was a precocious little kid.

 

For the most part, I willingly went to church for many years after that, even though we stopped being Baptists. I always rolled my eyes at the Baptist Church because the average age was about 90, and the church was so out of touch with modern culture and my day-to-day public school life.

 

But, when I was in high school, we discovered the independent Christian Church...specifically a suburban megachurch. It was hip. It was trendy. It was dripping with money that the members would much rather spend on a SECOND GYM than on the poor. As a semi-typical high school student, I fell victim to the cool factor and the throngs of people my age. I listened very closely and took the messages to heart at school, which made me a little confrontational and radical about my faith.

 

Going to college didn't help. There I found Campus Crusade for Christ, which became my default social outlet since these people felt it was their duty to reach out to lonely freshmen in dorms.

 

The truly hard-core Crusade students also went to church every Sunday to one of three or four places in the area. I went to one of them and there learned about an upcoming Billy Graham Crusade. They said they needed counselors, and I thought it sounded like something I should do.

 

Little did I know what was going to happen in this whole process. One of my Crusade friends (from a sister college in the city) attended the final training session with me. He ran into a couple of girls he knew from his church. The blonde one actually had a crush on him, but (1) now we know he leans more toward men and (2) it came up that she would be attending my college in the near future. The blonde one was pandora. That's right. I met my wife at a training session for the Billy Graham Crusade.

 

After she started college, she took up an interest in religion courses. Our college was a secular liberal arts university and most certainly NOT a Bible college. She started telling me some disturbing things she had been learning in her classes. I prayed for her soul frequently. :-)

 

Complicating the situation further was my pursuit of a biology degree. Now I had learned plenty about evolution before, but it all seemed to be put to rest by those creation science books. Those books don't hold water once you get to collegiate biology...and I in fact learned how important evolution is to understanding so many things about how life works.

 

So I was at a crossroads. I decided I needed to reconcile my faith with science instead of rejecting one or the other. It was time for an adjustment, so I entered the mainline churches (mostly the Disciples of Christ, PCUSA and the UMC). I thought this would satisfy my need for balance, but it didn't work for long.

 

About a year ago, I finally faced up to the elephant in the room: the historical Jesus problem. I had been avoiding it for a long time. For many years as an evangelical, I said that the uniqueness of Christianity was in its historicity and its reliance on a single event: the resurrection of Jesus. That event seems far less likely now that I have learned more about it.

 

So, I stand at another crossroads. I don't know where I fit in, and I'm not really sure what I believe about anything. I've tried visiting a Unitarian Universalist congregation, but I was offended by the lack of emphasis on God. I tried visiting a Friends meeting, but something about it seemed unsettling. I'm riddled with all kinds of guilt about abandoning my faith, and my mother has openly said I'm bound for hell. My wife says my fear of hell prevents me from being intellectually honest with myself. I can't disagree with her. It terrifies me.

 

I wouldn't call myself an ex-Christian yet, but I need some sort of label. :-) What does everyone think I should do?

 

Generally, I'm somewhere between theism and deism. I guess I believe in the miraculous, but it's probably more subtle than the Bible would have us believe. In other words, God uses nature to intervene instead of breaking its laws. I think God is vaguely personal. I've never gotten explicit messages, just a rare calming effect (psychological?).

 

The community of religion is important to me because it forces me to evaluate my character and guilts me into doing good things I would otherwise be too lazy to do. I've rarely found close friends in religious circles (save my wife), but maybe I just enjoy belonging to something bigger than myself.

 

Any recommendations?

[Guest JP1283]

Hey Bobo, and welcome to ExC! Leaving "the fold" is a hard thing to do, as almost everyone here can attest to. I myself am still dealing with God-related issues, but everyone here has been (and still is) very supportive. I'm not that great at offering advice, but there are plenty of members on here that you can to if you wish. Enjoy your stay here at ExC, whatever path you choose.

 

JP

[Caretaker]

Of course, I think people are capable of making moral decisions independantly of belief in a supernatural power. My Number One Rule of looking for information is to NOT look to one and only one source for it.

[Eccles1:2]

Hello Bobo, welcome aboard. Three things for you:

 

1. Don't panic! That's always the first thing.

 

2. The second thing: ask yourself what's holding you back? Does it boil down to guilt and/or fear? Then try and view yourself objectively, as someone else might see you, and ask yourself the same questions about God again, leaving out the guilt and fear. This will bring you closer to an answer.

 

3. The third thing is what finally pushed me over the edge into ExChristianity. It's a talk given by Douglas Adams at Magdalene College Cambridge called Is There An Artificial God? It happened while I was reading the paragraph about the Balinese rice harvest. I actually felt the remains of my christianity go, like a nice dump after a period of constipation. Give it a try. Should the link fail, you can read it in his biography (Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams by MJ Simpson).

 

I wish you all the very best for your journey.

[lalli]

It sounds to me like you're trapped by fear. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong; I'm making an educated guess based on your one post after all.)

 

It's extremely difficult to think clearly and honestly about your beliefs when fear and guilt have your mind prisoner. I can empathise with that, as I grew up in a Baptist church and switched to a student-geared evangelical church when I moved away for college, so I had the hell doctrine well and truly drummed into me.

 

Now, there are many variants on the hell doctrine amongst Christians, the most common being: the unsaved go to a place of eternal torment; the unsaved go to a place of eternal seperation from God; the unsaved simply cease to exist.

I'll proceed on the assumption that you believe in the first and most terrifying variant, as I used to. (I'm basing this on the fact that we were both raised Baptist, but I might be wrong).

 

"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters."

This oft-quoted verse neatly divides the universe into black and white, good and evil, saved and damned. Combined with the doctrine that the unsaved spend their afterlife in eternal pain, it provides a convenient, fear-fuelled incentive for those who are questioning their beliefs to stay put on Jesus' side and toe the line.

 

Now, there are many Christians who believe as they do out of a genuine love for Jesus. It's not fear that drives them away from the 'dark' side, it's love that pulls them towards the 'light' side. However, many people like you who have lost that pull towards Jesus are nevertheless kept in limbo, bound by the fear of falling away into punishment.

 

This fear can be eventually overcome, but it is especially difficult if it was drummed into you from an early age. It takes time and patience, but I think it's worth it. After all, if Jesus really is the son of God and the saviour of the world, would he really want you to believe in him just because you're scared of the alternative? And if Jesus isn't the son of God, isn't the saviour of the world, then isn't it a huge waste of your life and spirituality to cling to him just out of fear?

 

Here's a few articles to help you free yourself of the chains of fear:

http://www.losingmyreligion.com/essays/abo...vangelists.html # Belief in eternal torment for the unsaved leads to some interesting conclusions.

http://www.losingmyreligion.com/essays/hell.html # Eternal punishment is unjust no matter how you interpret it.

 

The website I got those essays from has a lot of good essays challenging evangelical/fundamentalist Christian beliefs; I found it very helpful for my deconversion.

 

Good luck, and stick around!

[Reach]

So, I stand at another crossroads. I don't know where I fit in, and I'm not really sure what I believe about anything.[...]

 

I wouldn't call myself an ex-Christian yet, but I need some sort of label. :-) What does everyone think I should do?

 

Generally, I'm somewhere between theism and deism.[...]

 

The community of religion is important to me because it forces me to evaluate my character and guilts me into doing good things I would otherwise be too lazy to do. I've rarely found close friends in religious circles (save my wife), but maybe I just enjoy belonging to something bigger than myself.

 

Any recommendations?

Bobo, I'd say offhand, but seriously, you probably fit in right where you are. You have the rest of your life to uncover and discover what you believe. The Greeks have a great expression. I think it goes like this: Tha deixei. It will show itself. In the long run, isn't it more dangerous to adhere to illusions than to face what the facts are? As for myself, I believe next to nothing. I doubt almost everything, including the little I believe. I've learned to embrace my doubts and not knowing and I've learned to be comfortable with my lack of knowledge. That has helped me to fit in where I am, on several different levels.

 

I think you might want to offload your desire for a label. To know yourself, an emerging, growing, maturing and evolving being is hard work and does not require the attachment of any labels. Besides, you might have to change them regularly, so why bother with one at all? It's a little bit like trying to define the shape of water which will always travel the path of least resistance and so its shape changes constantly in response to its inherent nature and external conditions. You don't need a label for the shape or the location you are in at the moment.

 

I would say that from Christianity, keep what is good for you, what is healthy and that which produces good fruit, as you mentioned, the conviction of doing the good thing that laziness might have forestalled or prevented. You already know that he who stops evaluating his character has ceased to grow. Stay in school?

 

Welcome to Ex-C, Bobo. We're glad to have you here.

Reach

 

P.S. Eccles, I loved Douglas Adams' Speech. Thanks for sharing that with us here. I'm sure our new member will find it quite relevant.

[pandora]

Hey guys! Thanks for being so nice to my husband... I think he'll take a lot of what you say to heart. You know how it is when you are married, sometimes the advice and observations of the other spouse don't mean so much somehow unless others objective to the situation echo the same sentiments. I completely agree what all of you have said, it's pretty amazing really!

[♦ nivek ♦]

Heya bobo...

 

I slid out of religion, crept away from it, just walked away from my messes and ties.

Been a lotta years, and I still find things that flip deeply embedded switches and make me think *gowhD_thotz*...

 

Am ExC's "Mongo".. As in no one's idea of the "brain trust" contained in my crainium..

However in my trials and tribualtions with religion and its injuries to those I've known can say with a reasonable amount of knowledge of some things that work..

 

"Don't Panic!!" is probably the best place to start.. Next thing I'd advise is to seriously let thing shake out. Sun will set tonight, will rise tomorrow, even if you are gonna bust a gut with the things that have you thinking hard..

 

Shit happens.. Try not to step in it when it plops right down in front of you..

 

Sounds like you've got a good lady partner, someone to share life with. You don't have to fight the conundrum of she is/he isn't or variation of bein' "yoked unequally".

 

Learn, read, question, fight for your right to leave the comfort of the paddock,

Kick every ass you have to that would try and keep you *in*.

 

Feel welcome here. No one will *ever* rip into you for asking an honest question, or seeking answers.

 

Best place to spend on.ass, on.line time..

 

n, ExC's Mongo

[Reach]

Hey guys! Thanks for being so nice to my husband... I think he'll take a lot of what you say to heart.    You know how it is when you are married, sometimes the advice and observations of the other spouse don't mean so much somehow unless others objective to the situation echo the same sentiments. 

Pandora, I'm sure you're familiar with this.

 

Mark 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

 

I apologize for not having yet been able to make time to respond to you on your thread, but after all the great input you've gotten on that, what more can a girl do but say, Welcome! That's so cool that you and your husband are here, together!

 

Oh yeah, and once in awhile we remember to say, grab some fresh coffee or your choice of beverage and help yourself to some of our Cappuccino Brownies.

 

Reach

[pandora]

Pandora, I'm sure you're familiar with this.

 

Mark 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.   

Hmmm... I like the idea of being a prophet. Does that mean I get to roam the streets in a toga, eat locusts and honey, and preach the end of the world? Hmm... on second thought, I should preach the end of Christianity. LOL I wonder how people would take that.... I have an emblem on my car that is of a Christian fish being butt fucked by an evolution fish with legs. Tee hee... I am evil. There are many ways to interpret that, in fact, I originally got it as a kind of "evolution and Christianity can get along" type of thing.... but so many people read it as "evolution will overtake Christianity" that I kept it once I deconverted. LOL

[spamandham]

I wouldn't call myself an ex-Christian yet, but I need some sort of label. :-) What does everyone think I should do?

 

I have a label for you - "six to nine months from full deconversion". When you embraced reason over faith in the quest for evidence of the historical Jesus, you administered a likely death blow to faith.

 

Think about it. The only thing that's actually stopping you at this point is emotion. But people can learn to handle emotion given enough time to face it - six to nine months. Maybe less, maybe more. But you have already eaten from the tree of knowledge and can not return to your prior state of innocence/ignorance. If you try, you will be tormented with purpetual cognitive dissonance.

 

Welcome aboard!

[Loren]

About a year ago, I finally faced up to the elephant in the room: the historical Jesus problem. I had been avoiding it for a long time. For many years as an evangelical, I said that the uniqueness of Christianity was in its historicity and its reliance on a single event: the resurrection of Jesus. That event seems far less likely now that I have learned more about it.

That certainly is a big one, isn't it? But that's just one of the big ones. There are several of them.

 

Welcome, Bobo!

 

So, I stand at another crossroads. I don't know where I fit in, and I'm not really sure what I believe about anything.

Another question you could ask yourself might be, "Do I really need to 'believe in' anything in particular?"

 

May I suggest here that you do some internet research on what orthodox Rabbis say about the need for belief in religion? That particular criterion, the one that belief in the truth of Christianity is requisite for being saved is a concoction of Christianity. It doesn't have much part in Judaism, which Christianity claims as its foundation. Seeing what Rabbis say about belief may get your mind working along some different directions than (I presume) they have been.

 

Here is a great place to start: Jews For Judaism (This site is a cogent and eye-opening response to that deceitful Jews For Jesus movement. They have lots of great information.)

 

I wouldn't call myself an ex-Christian yet, but I need some sort of label.

Why do you feel that you need a label? I've found that labels can often be useful, but are still inherently misleading. A label tends to focus the mind of the person seeing the label to only include what is encompassed by the label. A label kind of automatically reduces the person it's stuck on to "just" the label.

 

I used to be more label oriented. Now I'm more event oriented. I used to ask, "What should I call this?" Now I ask, "What's really going on here?"

 

I've found it to be a more useful approach.

 

The community of religion is important to me because it forces me to evaluate my character and guilts me into doing good things I would otherwise be too lazy to do.

Yet (assuming that Christianity really is just smoke and mirrors) you were clearly able to accomplish whatever you've done for self-improvement under your own power. The church may have provided some additional incentive, but the damned Pastor never came and did your work for you. The congregation never came and did your work for you. Jesus never came and did your work for you. God never came and did your work for you.

 

Wherever the incentive may have come from, the progress you've made has clearly been a result of your decisions, your actions and accomplished under your own power.

 

Any recommendations?

Yes; keep thinking. Study.

 

For your thinking enjoyment, here is a link to the archived articles page on this site.

 

Dave's archived articles.

 

 

Again, welcome to our little community, Bobo! Please feel free to jump into any of the discussions.

 

 

Loren

[Ro-bear]

You seem to have your head screwed on pretty well, Bobo. You'll probably settle on a reasonable worldview on your own anyway, but your mention of the Hell problem moves me to comment. This is my major beef with Christianity. Why are so many people willing to follow a deity that would consign the majority of humanity to such a place. No omnibenevolent being would ever do such a thing. Even deeply flawed ol' Ro-bear in a bad mood wouldn't do such a thing. I might let the air out of your tires, though; I once did this to a roommate who ate my mom's banana pudding. Served the bastard right.

Oh dear, I seem to have digressed. Anyhoo, Hell led me to say to Biblegod, "You ain't real, are ya?" Had to take the silence as a yes. If there is a god, he is either nice or, more likely, indifferent. Not the hateful, petty, cruel type. So don't worry about it; you aren't going to Hell. Nobody is.

 

But just in case, be kind to animals and recycle.

[Mike D]

Bobo,

 

I understand what you are going through with the hell thing, that was a big hurdle for me after being a Christian for 30+ years and having it drilled into my head from a very early age. I was terrified of it as a kid and it carried over into adulthood.

 

I guess what finally brought me to overcome the fear of hell was not because there's no proof that it exists (which there isn't by the way), but just the mere reasonableness of the concept (or lack thereof). Is it reasonable to torture and burn alive billions of people simply because they found Christianity a bit hard to believe or because they were born in a country where Christianity isn't taught as "Truth"? What about even the reasonableness of Christianity itself? Is the God written about in the OT reasonable and does he appear to be of superior intelligence to humans as he would necessarily have to be? Are virgin births reasonable? Is it reasonable that an eternal, sexless, non-physical spiritual being would have a physical male offspring, a "son"? Is it reasonable for God to be his own son and father at the same time (my father is my son is my father is my son is my father)? Is it reasonable for a God (if he exists) to expect us to believe what is not reasonable, and then "punish" us if we don't? Wasn't it God who supposedly gave me the ability to reason so I can filter out what isn't reasonable, in the first place?

 

Anyway I guess what I am saying here is that my sense of reasonableness is stronger then my fear of hell, and it won out. And if for some reason I am wrong and the Christian god does exist, then he knows this. He knows that I don't believe not because I intend to defy him, or rebel against him, or I hate Jesus, or some other emotional reason..... he knows that I don't find those stories likely for the same reason I don't find likely stories of alien abductions or Elvis sightings or the Virgin Mary putting herself on grilled cheese sandwiches or any other wild story......I have no evidence (either personal or otherwise) to compel me to believe they are likely, much less even possible.

 

So good luck, it's a slow process but I think eventually the fear will subside and one day you will look back and wonder what you were ever so afraid of!

[Guest marktaylor]

Hey Bobo!

 

I'm Mark, and also a new guy (but a smelly "old" atheist).

The Big YoYo said it himself "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." Everytime I think of this I imagine Beavis pulling his

shirt over his head and screaming, " Are you threatening me!"

Make a choice. And every time you start feeling "mushy", there are a lot more examples as quoted that will straighten you out.

 

You're a smart person, you've read the book, (it ain't perfect)

and you have the education to resolve these "doubts".

 

One more quote. " But I will forwarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him... Luke 12:5 This guy is angry. (and making more threats) He kills himself, blames us for it and condemns nearly all of us. (according to Paul/Saul)

 

The bible was written by different people for a different time. The reason a lot of it doesn't make sense is because it can't. And its salvagable content isn't worth the centuries of misery that evil men have gleaned from its pages. Religion is a cloak that has become so old, parasite infested and motley, it is useless to a reasonable person.

This rag must be discarded for a more sensible garment. (I'm gettin out of here while I can!)

[Lorena Rodriguez]

Bobo,

 

You may or may not be ready for the Unity School of Christianity (Unity Church). I highly recommend it. People are really nice at my local church. I do not believe everything they believe, but I like them. I go whenever I feel like it--about once a month. The book Discover the Power Within You was written by a Unity guy. Interesting, mind buggling book.

 

I went to Science of Mind church and I liked their beliefs. But I think you should try Unity first. After a while, you can try Science of Mind. The writings of Ernest Holmes, the founder, are really good. His most famous book, The Science of Mind, is available on line.

 

I call myself an agnostic panentheistic. That is, I know there is a god, but I don't claim to know what he/she/it is like. I am panentheistic because I think god is in all things: me, you, plants, animals.

 

As for Jesus, I've decided that regardless of whether he was a historical person or not, I am not interested in following the religion created in his name. Personally, I believe he existed, but most of the stuff written about him is a mixture of myth and reality.

 

Good luck.