Rejected, Banned, Shunned, Excluded.

[Llwellyn]

Hello all!

 

I was wondering if any of you have ever suffered rejection or exclusion from any community because you do not subscribe to the Christian belief system? Have you ever said negative things about Christianity that caused people to shun you, or fire you? Have you ever been dumped by a girlfriend, or ignored by your parents? Let's just start a catalogue that will fully illustrate any rejection of us, real or imagined.

 

The point is not to develop some kind of persecution complex. But rather, it is to just compare notes with one another.

[pandora]

I was fired from being my best friend's maid of honor at her wedding. That sucked... still not quite over it.

 

Other than family stuff, such as getting harassed constantly by my dear MIL, I keep my thoughts to myself often enough and I don't get much harassment.

In fact, it's quite the opposite... because I got a religion degree, people assume I'm very religious, and then when I explain it to them, they are shocked. >)

[godlessgrrl]

Hm. Probably the biggest thing was that I got mindraped by a fundie SO a few years ago, when I was still in religious/spiritual limbo about things.

 

I was partway through my deconversion and hadn't decided to ditch Xianity completely, but was looking around at lots of other things, mainly paganism. I met this guy through a mutual friend, and he came across as all sweetness and light and acted like he adored me. Only it was actually an attempted cult snare and I just didn't recognize it.

 

I mistook love-bombing for love (because I didn't know what love-bombing was, or even that there was such a thing) and things were just magical and wonderful. Until the pressure started coming to convert to his religion (some brand of Foursquare, iirc). His true colors finally showed a few months into it when I suppose he got tired of trying to convert me. He dropped the facade and was suddenly a misogynist Bible-thumper with an unhealthy attachment to porn (unhealthy enough that his only relationships with women had been at strip clubs and in the pages of porn mags). His asshole fundie friend told him one day to "get rid of this one so that the Lard can find you a godly woman", and he did.

 

It was a pretty devastating experience, and it's hard to describe why - I guess I'd just never been quite so deceived, and never been quite so... violated, really. It was like the guy raped my soul or something - and of course, felt totally justified in doing so.

 

Really, though, when he finally came clean he was just a fucking piece of work. The guy was a self-righteous prick - so proud of himself for being a virgin at the age of 32, and so proud that he was better and purer than me because of it; never mind that he frequently went to strip clubs and had looked at women through the lens of hardcore porn since he was 7 years old. Seriously, he'd never had any kind of serious relationship with women - he wanted us all to be like the pictures he saw in his magazines. And yet godly, at the same time. He had a total virgin/whore thing about women - he expected his women to be passive, sexy, nothing more than a good Xian receptacle for keeping him from sinning and pumping out his good Xian babies. He didn't like it when women spoke up, or asked for what they wanted, or had needs; his expectation was that his ideal woman would always know what his needs were and spend her life meeting his needs, never speaking up to ask for anything other than permission to spit or swallow.

 

And of course he played everything like he was this godly, upright, moral person who was just so much better than me because he'd been saved by Jeeeeee-zusssss™ and I hadn't. And in the end I didn't mean shit to him, of course. I never meant shit to him, from day one - he lied to me nonstop from the moment we met, about his feelings, about his POV, even about his religious testimony. Everything was fake. And I don't know why I didn't realize that - I suppose to this day I blame myself for not recognizing that he was lying scum, which is just... embarrassing at best. I guess that love-bombing thing is pretty effective, huh.

 

And yet, in his mind, he was still better than me, because I was a divorced, non-virgin, sexually active, outspoken, politically liberal, non-Xian woman. Go figure.

 

That's honestly the worst experience I've ever had with a Xian. After him I'd had it with that religion. I'd been on the fence when I met him, and after he finished with me I got off the fence and vowed I'd never be a Xian again. I also knew that I'd never *trust* any Xian ever again, either - Foursquare boy made it crystal clear to me that Xians aren't interested in non-believers as people, they're only interested in us as notches on their conversion belt. Or at least there's enough of a risk of that, that I refuse to trust Xians at all.

 

So yeah. I got missionary dated, and it sucked ass. Other than that I've been fairly lucky.

 

I'm on CF right now too; they're idiots. I'm nice and polite and play by the rules but by and large I have very little respect for the vast majority of Xians there. There are a few that don't seem dumb as a rock, but otherwise - man. I swear my IQ drops every time I read certain fora.

 

CF is like a train wreck: don't want to stare, but I can't look away.

[Kuroikaze]

I was fired from being my best friend's maid of honor at her wedding. That sucked... still not quite over it.

 

Other than family stuff, such as getting harassed constantly by my dear MIL, I keep my thoughts to myself often enough and I don't get much harassment.

In fact, it's quite the opposite... because I got a religion degree, people assume I'm very religious, and then when I explain it to them, they are shocked. >)

 

 

yes this happens to me all the time as well.

 

the converstation goes like this

 

 

Them: So what was your major in college?

 

Me: Oh I was a religion major.

 

Them: Oh, are you planing on being a pastor?

 

Me: RAWR!!!!

[Lizard]

IRL, not much.

 

Netlife though..

I got banned from a couple xtian boards for posting here and another "new age" type site. Nothing I posted on their sites. But for one, posting "shit" on another site.

 

I was being "chastised", they said and I could "come back" when I saw the truth.

 

The other one is kinda sad. The dude died of cancer..he did let us "apostates" back ..we just wanted to tell him goodbye..his site is still up there and he never gave the reins to anyone else, so there it sits.

[LosingMyReligion]

I haven't really told anyone about my deconversion. They already think I'm possessed bySatan, so might as well not add more fuel to the fire.

[nirrti]

Ironically, I was disowned by my father because I went to church (years before my deconversion). He and his wife and kids were Jehovah's Witnesses. And as you know, JWs believe they're the only legitimate Christians and anyone else is of Satan. What made it so bad, my father never really was much of a parent to me yet he always used the fact I went to church (because I was raised by my mother's side, not him) as an excuse not to let me live with him.

 

He finally let me stay with him when I was 19 and my mother was going through a messy divorce. At first, he allowed me to go to church then he would flip-flop and say I couldn't. This went on for months until he relapsed

(He was a drug addict. Some "Christian"! ) after he had a car wreck and blamed it on me saying "Jehovah" couldn't bless his household because I lived there.

 

So he gave me the "choice" of quitting church or getting out of his house. He also wanted to limit the time I spent with my mother's side of the family and ban me from talking to anyone who wasn't a JW. Of course, I wasn't having any of that from some bastard who was never in my life in the first place so I left. I'll never forget, when I was packing the last of my stuff in my mother's car, he said, "Please give me back the house keys. You won't be needing them anymore." His wife said, "Have a nice life." The cold-ass bitch.

 

Well, a year later, he didn't need the keys anymore either because his wife divorced him for being a crack head. ......Oh, and she left JWs, remarried and now goes to Church.

[Lorena Rodriguez]

I am not sure what would happen if I told people I no longer believe. I haven't told anyone, not because I afraid they'll shun me, but because I don't think it is any of their business.

 

I have, however, withdrawn from pretty much anyone I know. So while they haven't shunned me, I have done it to myself. I am way too sensitive to expose myself to other peple's opinions of how I live my life, so I hardly see anyone anymore.

 

I am learning the valuable skill of being alone with myself. I spend hour after hour alone, reading books and doing stuff I love--like watching soccer or ice hockey on tv. I love it.

[Kurari]

I think it was while I was going to the first church I joined. I'd never been to church before, and had grown up with my family telling me that church was for losers, pretty much. Everyone there was so darned excited to have me there, I got the welcome wagon in spades and it scared the hell out of me. So my first impression didn't go over very well. Then when I couldn't jump right in and start giving my entire life over to helping out the church by doing Sunday school or church flyers, or whatnot because I was working two job and didn't have time, the congregation pretty much just tolerated me after that. It wasn't said in so many words, but they pretty much let me know I wasn't a "real" christian and I never would be.

 

Well, they were right. Even when I was a christian, I never felt like one. I never felt like I belonged. Even after that when I joined the Swedenborigian church (who was really a cool bunch of people), I eventually had to stop kidding myself.

 

Other than that, I don't have anyone in my life who cares what I am so I haven't run into any discrimination. Oh well.

[Llwellyn]

By the way, what was it like to be a Swedenborgian? Do they think of themselves as Christians and worship the Christian Trinity and believe in the Christian Bible? They are more mystical and universalist that Biblical Christians, aren't they?

[Kurari]

By the way, what was it like to be a Swedenborgian? Do they think of themselves as Christians and worship the Christian Trinity and believe in the Christian Bible? They are more mystical and universalist that Biblical Christians, aren't they?

 

I call them "Technically Christian" but it's honestly hard to tell because they are so different from other denominations. They don't really believe in the Trinity. They don't witness and discourage prostelyzation unless asked. They don't think Jesus is the "only" way into heaven. They believe in the Bible, but believe everything in the Bible is a metaphor. Satan doesn't really exist. Most of their interpretations come through the writings of Emanual Swedenborg.

 

They borrow writings and sayings and teachings from religions all over the world and encourage other spiritual groups to come and speak in their churchs. That's why I really enjoyed going to it. I learned about Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, local Native American, and we even had a Wiccan ceremony once. It was always something new and different every weekend and was quite fun. The mornings opened with opening the Bible and saying one of the more positive passages. Basically they enourage you to take what messages from the Bible make the most sense to you and your life.

 

Swedenborg wasn't a particularly religious person most of his life until he hit his fifties. Then he believed he could speak with god, angels, and visited heaven and hell. Being a scientist for much of his life, he took prolific notes about the dreams, visions, and projections he experianced, and he came up with what would be considered now a very new age version of God. One that was unconditionally loving, caring, and accepts everyone into His kingdom. Nobody is turned away, and there is nothing you can do that can make God abandon you. In the 1700's, this was quite profound as well as a dangerous viewpoint. The only reason he didn't get charged with heresy and hanged was because the King told the Church to back off and leave the old man alone (it's good to have powerful friends!). Swedenborg never intended for a church to arise out of his writings and most of them were kept secret or published under psuedonyms.

 

The religion mostly teaches personal responsibility and finding your own path to God. I always found the Swedenborgian view of Hell to be quite facinating. Heaven and Hell weren't really seperate places, but aspects of the same realm. Hell was something different for each person and it was also a place you put yourself, not a place God sent you to. It's not eternal; you can leave it anytime. Basically he described it that the people in Hell don't want to leave it because that is what is familiar to them. People living in hills of excrement, or barren wasteland, or even the traditional fire and brimstone. But it's not really torment. It looks that way to everyone else, but to the souls that live there, it's normal.

 

He described that sometimes souls in Heaven would come and try to take the souls of their loved ones out of Hell and try to drag them back into Heaven with them. But the souls from Hell would kick and scream and fight until they went back to Hell. It's kind of like how drug addicts, beaten spouses, alcoholics, and so on know their lifestyle isn't the best but they won't leave it until they are ready. Freewill continues on after death, and God lets them move on when they are ready.

[Amethyst]

I've had former friends shun me, but I look at it this way: I've made better friends since deconverting, and people come in and out of your life anyway.

 

My parents are basically deists with a Christian label, so they don't shun me. I do have other relatives who probably would if they knew, though.

[SilentLoner]

I don't tend to talk about my deconversion unless asked specifically. But at the family reuinions during the holidays the subject tends to come up too often.

The worst of it is dealing with the catholic family member's (male parental unit's side) whinings about hell and later on dealing with the muslim family members (female parental unit's side) same lecture with different prophet refences.

[Dra_Mucd_Uha]

I've lost Christian friends, my Christian gf is in the process of leaving me, and my Christian best friend is on the verge of not talking to me anymore as well.

 

I haven't told my parents yet. For obvious reasons.

 

I think I've had more persecution as an Atheist than I ever did as a Christian.

[JeffXL]

My family knows, though I have never spelled it out-- but my comments and church-avoidance when I visit make it clear.

 

I agree that it's no one's business, but after the repeated stupid religous e-mails I kept getting at work, I finally said something. And they still love me there! Unless someone starts talking about religion, I see no need to bring it up.

 

My department does have a pseudo-intellectual evangelical who spouted his BS constantly. That I would not let go. He has since shut up since I answered every asinine thing he said.

 

My sister is also an atheist, and is raising her kids as such. My two brothers are nominally Lutheran, but I don't know how deep their faiths are.

 

Christians can't shut the hell up about Je$u$. My evil athiest brother-in-law coaches Little League (see how nasty we are?). Some kid asked him if he was Christian. My BIL answered no, and the kid went on to ask if he wanted to be. Brainwashed by asshole parents! BIL just said it's time to practice our swings.

 

Arrgghhh!

[Lycorth]

It's interesting to see just how Xians are really showing the "love of Jeezus™" when Jeezus™ said all who do not follow him shall be damned into Hell™.

 

Any wonder they react negatively to any hint of deconversion?

[godlessgrrl]

I've lost Christian friends, my Christian gf is in the process of leaving me, and my Christian best friend is on the verge of not talking to me anymore as well.

 

I haven't told my parents yet. For obvious reasons.

 

I think I've had more persecution as an Atheist than I ever did as a Christian.

 

Ahhhh, yeah, feel the Xian love.

 

I'm sorry everybody's treating you like that. It sucks ass.