There’s something many Christians don’t realize, and many atheists don’t talk about: it is very hard, scary, and time-consuming to leave your faith and become an atheist. Becoming an atheist (or agnostic, polytheist, etc.) tears at the fabric of your personal identity, rips out all the mental, emotional, and (il)logical safeguards you previously placed your faith in, and decimates your support networks and communities. As a former Christian, I know this firsthand. And it frustrates me that this isn’t talked about more, among Christians and among atheists. So here I am, talking about it on the internet.
Christianese and The “Lazy Atheist”
The Christian community has an extensive lexicon of terms and phrases, something I like to affectionately call “Christianese.” Christianese does some pretty silly things with the English language. It puts prepositions in strange places — only in youth group do you “love on” someone, a term that is both puzzling and slightly pornographic. Christianese also peppers sentences with unnecessary proper nouns and adverbs — “Lord, just…” is a common way to start every sentence in a group prayer.
Christianese also has a selection of phrases for people who leave the faith, including: “backslidden,” (primarily Old Testament) “fallen away” (primarily New Testament) or “lapsed” (primarily institutional). These words all suggest that to leave the faith is an act of laziness, weakness, or lack of trying. If you no longer climb up, you slide back. If you no longer hold on, you fall away. If you no longer adhere to a set of rules or responsibilities, you have lapsed. With this kind of language ingrained in the Christian community, it’s no wonder that they view people who walk away as being weak (either mentally, emotionally, or spiritually). This couldn’t be further from the truth, but the subtle negging of this particular mind game is admittedly brilliant.
Becoming An Atheist Is A Struggle
Listen, leaving a faith you grew up in is not an easy thing. It’s a painful, introspective, self-aware process wherein you strip yourself down to your elements and reassemble yourself piece by piece. It will inevitably include feelings of panic, loss, guilt, anger, frustration, and betrayal, none of which are pleasant and all of which need to be worked through sufficiently before finally coming to terms with your atheism. You will be forced to wade through conversation after frustrating conversation with other Christians — in small group, in church, over lunch with friends, in lecture halls — where the questions eating away at your mind are dismissed with the same Bible verses or institutional catchphrases. Even at my college, surrounded by some of the most intelligent minds in Christian academia, I walked away with either insubstantial fluff or mind-bending interpretive theories, both of which left me wanting to pull my hair out.
Becoming an atheist doesn’t happen overnight, either (although terms like “backsliding” and “falling away” make it sound like a quick, split-second kind of thing). The process of leaving the faith can take years. I started having those first deep, world-shaking questions about my faith four years ago. I’m still adjusting to this new life, weeding out old biases, teaching myself that cosmic guilt is unnecessary. I’ve listened to the many debates, read dozens of books, watched hundreds of videos, inspected multiple holy texts, exposed myself to innumerable worldviews, and exhausted most of my close friends (both religious and otherwise) with persistent conversations on the subject. It’s time-consuming and intentional. It’s not a slip-up, not a mistake, not a lack of attention or concentration, and certainly not weakness.
Choosing To Stay An Atheist Is A Struggle, Too
Once you become an atheist, choosing to stay one presents its own challenges, which require strength and mental clarity. If you come from a background of faith, you will find that the people who used to be your greatest support system either vanish, become hostile, or look at you differently. Sure, the lucky atheists among us might have family or friends that accept them and love them regardless of their lack of faith, but the point remains: you now embody everything they think is wrong with the world. You are now, more or less, the “enemy,” the thing their God said to watch out for. If you are not hated, you are pitied. And you are always, always to be disproved, by word, deed, or prayer.
There are also very personal reasons staying an atheist is hard. If you’re going through a difficult time in your life, it’s really hard to no longer be able to feel like a higher power is watching out for you. If something bad happens to someone you care about and you can’t be there, you feel at a loss to help because you no longer believe prayer works. If someone asks you “Why do I face this challenge?” or “What happens after death?” the answers get a lot more tricky. (On the other hand, questions like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” get a lot easier to answer.) These are trying experiences, especially when you used to feel connected, safe, like you had the answers.
Atheism Is Worth The Struggle
So, why become and stay an atheist? It’s different for different people, and I can only speak for myself. I went to a Christian college where we were encouraged to ask hard questions about faith and the Bible. (Note: Of course I didn't and wasn't)I asked the questions that didn’t have acceptable answers. Believe me, I looked for those answers. If you could have seen 20-year-old Vi staggering out of the library with a dozen thick tomes on the subject of God, you would have laughed. I decided I couldn’t logically come to the conclusion that God existed (at least in the form that Christians claimed He did). It wasn’t even a choice at that point. My brain literally wouldn’t allow me to reenter that warm, fuzzy world of faith, even if I’d wanted to. It was like waking up from a dream and not being able to fall back to sleep.
Once that happened and I came to terms with that loss, I realized that other things I had been living with — a pervasive sense of inherent dirtiness or unworthiness, fear of the corrupt outside world, the ghostly promise of societal persecution, the mental gymnastics required to morally justify Hell, the concept of sin itself — had been lifted from me. The freedom and lightness of being that I’ve felt since then is rivaled only by my newfound ease of mind and spirit. But the point is that this did not happen all at once, it did not happen without sacrifice, and certainly did not happen without years of critical thought and work that continues to this day.
A Call To All Christians With Atheists In Their Lives (AKA All Of Them)
Dear Christians, atheists know you will never agree with them about their lack of belief. Reasonable atheists don’t expect you to. We are grateful when we can have civil conversations about our differences without fear or anger. But the one thing you can do for the atheists in your life (and no matter how insulated in the community you are, I guarantee you have atheists in your life) is respect the intentionality of walking away. We are not weak. We’ve done a very difficult thing, something many people wouldn’t even dare to do. At least give us the courtesy of acknowledging that.
Originally published on Medium in November 2017.
58 comments:
Several people I know have told me that I am "mad at God" simply because I seriously question that God exists. I guess what that means is that the existence of a God, as they believe, is so clear and undebatable that to question his existence must be motivated by some kind of underlining anger that is just misdirected toward God. I can tell you that I am not "mad at God" but merely question his existence. That indicates to me that pondering the most important question of life, "is there a God" is a no-no in the world of religion. No critical thinking allowed here!
That author needs to stop whining. It's easy to be an atheist. Unless you are a Hindu, you already disbelieve in at least 300 million gods. It's not hard to disbelieve in one, two, or three more.
Yes, it can be hard to be a proselytizing atheist, just as it can be hard to be a proselytizing Christian or Amway salesman. People get tired of hearing pitches from people involved in multi-level marketing schemes, just as they get tired of hearing pitches from Christians. Take the hint, and be a quiet atheist, you'll have many more friends that way, including some who may confide in you regarding their own doubts and disbeliefs.
Also, remember: You are not Mr. Spock from Star Trek. Hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution have made you who you are. You are wired to draw inferences from incomplete evidence, and to hold some beliefs that may not be fully rational. You are a herd animal. If you are tempted to believe in something you know is irrational, don't beat yourself up over it. Simply by recognizing that your belief is irrational and likely false, you are ahead of 99.9% of the believers around you, and you should feel no shame or discomfort in discarding that belief when it no longer serves its purpose.
The bottom-line message? RELAX. If your belief prevents you from relaxing, abandon that belief. Dogmatic atheism may be just as uncomfortable and unhealthy as dogmatic Armstrongism. Sadly, many former Armstrongists may have developed a masochistic streak regarding their religion, and won't be comfortable as atheists unless their atheism makes them uncomfortable. The best thing you can do, if you can do it, is to take a view similar to what astronomer Carl Sagan expressed. It's OK not to have all the answers, and to gaze in wonder at the mysteries you don't understand. But if someone tries to stop you from asking questions, RUN AWAY.
No matter how loudly you shout from your speakers corner of this website. No matter how outrageous you try and trample God under your feet. You are once a Ambassador College Graduate always a AC grad. The way you try things on offending is proof of that, as the way you only pick and choose which questions you answer whilst leaving other aspects off.
Do you have to bang the drums of Atheism to drown out the still small voice of God?
I believe that a true Christian should or would not attempt to convince anyone who is bent on proving their personal beliefs relating to the existence or non existence of the God that is defined in the bible. I found this was true early in my commitment to living a life that I believed was revealed in the bible. It was the only way that I survived the 42 years of an active roll in the WWCOG and have maintained my living by my personal beliefs 61 years and counting. I have a variety of families in my life and as far as I know they all accept me as a Christian and positive aging human being. ASB
Dennis:
You need to put on a blue suit, with white shirt, and red tie and start going "door to door" with a cheap paper tract in hand, like the Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons do to peddle your atheism.
You are a Laodicean Atheist otherwise!
Another upside down article posted by our veryown Mini-me Anti-Christ, Dennis Diehl.
The Godless Cain killed the Godly Abel, not the other way around. Which is why the apostates post on Banned using their real names and sometimes phone numbers, but the God believers have to hide in the shadows, remaining anonymous.
I think I should add this to explain my Christianity. My parents were members of the church named the Old Germen Baptiste Brethren when I was born. My formative years were built with the beliefs of living by the bible stronger than HWA. Those beliefs help me survive WWCOG with out damage so I can say I was born a Christian which mean I am in my 89th year as a Christian and counting. ASB
Why doesn't Dennis post an article describing all the mental gymnastics he must be employing to cope with the knowledge that soon he will be reduced to ashes in the coming judgment. Especially considering his advanced age.
"I decided I couldn’t logically come to the conclusion that God existed (at least in the form that Christians claimed He did). It wasn’t even a choice at that point. My brain literally wouldn’t allow me to reenter that warm, fuzzy world of faith, even if I’d wanted to. It was like waking up from a dream and not being able to fall back to sleep.
Once that happened and I came to terms with that loss, I realized that other things I had been living with — a pervasive sense of inherent dirtiness or unworthiness, fear of the corrupt outside world, the ghostly promise of societal persecution, the mental gymnastics required to morally justify Hell, the concept of sin itself — had been lifted from me"
That says a lot. Coming to conclusions about God or no God based upon logic is natural when that is all a person has to work with.
Lets face it, there has always been a group of "believers" who only academically in their minds formulated a "belief". Others have been completely convicted by many "outwardly" circumstances in their lives which has propagated a solid belief in God.
The word faith has gotten so tarnished in this day and age. Faith isn't some warm and fuzzy feeling in the mind. The Hebrews 11 faith is a very persuaded person or a fully convicted person. The examples given in that chapter are people that in one way or another had an interaction with God and were assured of all future possibilities.
Why some who never went to church growing up in life see or experience multiple miracles in their life and others having been a church goer their whole life have never experienced answered prayer or seen anything to indicate there is a higher power capable of creating life out of nothing is beyond me.
I do know one thing, if I haven't seen what I have seen in my life I would be beating the same drum as Mr. Diehl does and just as loud.
4:26
I stopped reading your lengthy posting the moment you totally misrepresented Hinduism. There is one God in Hinduism you fool.
Nck
I’m not sure of what this “tweet” style quote is supposed to mean, or who in particular it is supposed to be aimed towards. And, then again, there is literal and philosophical. But, in some of the new, cool, international jargon that has surfaced here recently, let’s have a pop at it! (I like that).
First of all, “If you no longer climb up, you slide back.” This is true both literally and philosophically. Conditions do not remain static. They must be constantly rejuvenated. A companion saying (personal favorite) is “Any organism that ceases to grow is actually dying.” I believe the intention of the quote here, though, is perhaps a stereotyping along the lines of Christian belief, as opposed to encompassing all philosophical growth. It seems to be asking, do Christians acknowledge a lifetime of philosophical growth in an atheist? In fairness, do atheists recognize growth of Christians in understanding and practicing the teachings of Jesus Christ? I believe we are left in most cases with two glass houses in the neighborhood!
“If you no longer hold on, you fall away.” Cue the adversary hanging with sweaty palms from a rail hundreds of feet in the air. Somehow, 70% of the time, the hero is not able to pull him to safety. That would be the literal. Philosophically, it is often necessary for a seeker of truth to “fall away” from bogus or inferior beliefs in order to reach a higher plateau of truth and purity. That is a life-long process. It is also not recognized as valid by those left behind who feel that they have already arrived at ultimate truth. Hence, conflict and often rejection.
“If you no longer adhere to a set of rules or responsibilities, you have lapsed.” OK. Isn’t that saying that we all function more reliably if we have a personal code? OTOH, is there any such thing as a pure anarchist? If there is, I haven’t met them. I believe that even the Unabomber had his guiding precepts. Some of those helped him in eluding the authorities for so many years. So, we are talking about specificity here. Lapsing for the black and white thinker means falling away from one specific monolithic pattern of rules and responsibilities. These are not universal, they only exist within various philosophical subsets and contexts, because there are varying degrees of atheism, Christianity, and other philosophies. All have liberal and conservative poles. There is also a high degree of human interpretation, imagination, and ability or deficiency in comprehension.
Thought provoking quote this morning, but hardly unifying. It does, however, help a thinking person to realize why there are so many seemingly unresolvable differences amongst us. Perspective. We are taught from a very young age not to see or tolerate shades of grey. This sets us up with a classic “us vs them” mentality, creating artificial enemies. We’d be better off finding common ground, but can you really do this with culties?
BB
4:41 AM asks, "Do you have to bang the drums of Atheism to drown out the still small voice of God?"
Interesting question. Flannery O'Connor wrote a novel exploring this question titled *Wise Blood.* O'Connor was a Catholic writing about Protestant characters in a Protestant environment, so some of the imagery looks weird to people of both backgrounds. To both camps, the novel is fascinating. I recommend it.
I am curious. It seems to me that many Christian-types regard me as an atheist because I no longer believe in the the God of the Bible or the Bible as the His Word. Is this a common assumption of most Christians? I view myself more as agnostic, or possibly Diest, along the lines of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason".
There is still much science cannot explain without some metaphysical force or powerful consciousness in play. I keep an open mind to the possibility of a spiritual world, and possible after-life. Christianity requires a belief in a man-made god and a book full of myths and contradictions. Does this make me an atheist?
May I please be an agnostic (I don't have the answers), or must I be an atheist??
By the way, I didn't suddenly "lose my faith". It took years of work and investigation. It is not a road for the faint of heart. Much courage is required.
"Do you have to bang the drums of Atheism to drown out the still small voice of God?"
IF he's so all-powerful and magnificent, why does he have such a still, small voice? Where the hell was he during the holocaust? Same place he'll be if you come down with cancer -- nowhere!
Bob Thiel: It's so hard to be a prophet! Nobody accepts me as one, and I must constantly defend my position, my mission in life.
Dennis Diehl: It's so hard to be an atheist! Nobody gets it, and I must rephrase and repeat my reasons over, and over, and over.
Same diff. Bottom line? Teachers can only be teachers if they can find willing students. Seems like a couple guys need to give it a rest!
BB
Dennis is saying, "It's not easy being green." Committing to atheism requires personal investment and puts the atheist at some risk. It is a non-trivial decision - at least for Dennis. I would agree. I was once an atheist - when I was in the ninth grade. Back then it was easy because nobody I was around cared if you were 14 years old and an atheist. In fact, other than a couple of guys in my science class, I don't think I ever discussed atheism with anyone. My atheist period passed by unnoticed. Lasted about a year.
What is really worse: believing in a non-existent god or believing that god does not exist? I have spent time around both classes of people.
(Personally, I think Dennis likes being an atheist because it is a good pretext to "stir the pot" once in a while to see whats in the stew.)
"Dennis Diehl: It's so hard to be an atheist! Nobody gets it, and I must rephrase and repeat my reasons over, and over, and over.
Same diff. Bottom line? Teachers can only be teachers if they can find willing students. Seems like a couple guys need to give it a rest!
BB"
Good point. Will do Bob...
This particular article ( I did not write it) has been on the Banned sidebar for a number of years and simply thought to bring it to the forefront between innings of Malm, Thiel and Pack.
What an ignorant post.
Great post here. Describes my journey to atheism well. I would never have understood the difficulty of the journey unless I had taken it myself. But that's life as a whole. One must walk in the journey to truly understand it. That said, one can be respectful and civil about others' journeys, even if they don't agree or understand. I wish more people would just be this way toward others and their beliefs.
I find the bitter openly God hating comments on here shocking. Especially considering the fact many current ministry from various COG groups dwell here.
7:49 Stop it with your bullshit. Remember where the bible says that with what judgemental you judge, you will be judged. You have no clue what God has in store for Dennis. I know that the God I've come to know is more gracious than the God that you're spouting off about. While Dennis might not be among the firstfruits (who knows, I don't, nor do I want to pretend that I know) he will most definitely be raised at the Great White Throne Judgement.
If I were you I'd be afraid that with that judgemental attitude of yours that in the GWTJ God would raise Dennis then have him go to your grave just to give you a hand getting out. And just from what I've learned about Dennis from this site, if that happens he'll gladly assist you.
km
"We’d be better off finding common ground, but can you really do this with culties?
BB"
I'm more than willing to find common ground Bob. There's been way too much tension between us.
km
nick at 10:33 rudely declares, "There is one God in Hinduism you fool. "
I don't know anything about Hindu theology, so I looked at Wikipedia under the keywords "God in Hinduism." Apparently, Hindu ideas about god or gods run the gamut from atheism through monotheism to polytheism to panentheism. And I skipped a few isms. Apparently nick got hold of some monotheistic Hindu writer or guru and assumed that was the only kind there is, in spite of assertions in many places that Hinduism is host to many gods.
I will not turn nick's rudeness back on him and call him a fool. Superfluous to say it explicitly.
Anyone else here notice how nck has turned into an obnoxious jerk? Why be so nasty to people all the time now?
I don’t know what makes it this way, but normally when I meet a Jew or a Seventh Day Adventist who keep the Old Covenant sabbath, I feel a kinship with them. It’s like it’s cool, and there is mutual understanding. But the minute I meet someone who arrived at the sabbath through Armstrongism, all of the horrible cultic aspects of the WCG come flooding back, and I become filled with hostility.
Does that happen for anyone else?
BB
9:47
Thank you for your feedback.
I'll try and do better.
In Hinduism the overall principle is Atman (Atmen (Sanskrit - indo European "breathing, air, ruach, wind) The single principle.
The 300 million are merely manifestations of the one principle.
A bit like the" christian" trinity concept. The trinity million concept so to speak.
I find 99 percent of the comments absolutely horrific in terms of research.
I occasionally turn into a jerk that iron to iron can sharpen out.
Therefore again thank you for your careful and and proven comment regarding my conduct.
Nck
When I left the church, my family and friends wanted to know why. That led to more than one discussion about how they had reached the conclusions they had about which god to worship and which man to follow, and how I had come to reject their conclusions as false.
Not only are religions cheating in offering a self-defeating game instead of a roadmap, my family and friends were all cheating during those discussions too, by using a double standard.
The core benefit churches profess is that they possess the esoteric knowledge of how to get to heaven and avoid hell, and for a price they will share that recipe with you. Because so many people who were older, more experienced, and presumably wiser than I was, believed that Herbert Armstrong possessed just such a recipe, I accepted it on that basis as a reasonable proposition.
As the years went by, I diligently followed the recipe WCG taught: building righteous, godly character by leading a life of literal obedience to biblical laws, habitual prayer and bible study, and baptism by full immersion and the laying on of hands in order to receive the holy spirit, through which a christian grows and overcomes to become an exemplary figure who pleases the deity and is rewarded with eternal life.
That's what one might expect based on the boilerplate. However, in reality, some very different dynamics came into play.
By one calculation, god is pleased through a direct relationship in which you are judged according to strict lawkeeping and ritual. What matters is the quality and extravagance of your displays of ritual devotion that evidence your love for god. Whether you love your neighbor not, and whether you treat him well or poorly, is not that significant, as long as you've shown the proper reverence for god directly.
By another calculation, god is pleased through an indirect relationship in which your devotion to him is judged through your devotion to your neighbor. If you treat other people with compassion, respect, and forgiveness, then he will by the same measure treat you with compassion, respect, and forgiveness as well.
The trouble is, if you treat your neighbor well, then you just enable his impurity and disobedience, and since your purity is tainted by the company you keep, treating people better than they deserve will only serve to drag you down to their level and contribute to your own impurity. And thus god may well judge you as impure and cast you out.
But if you are judgmental and intolerant, and you drive out those who don't live up to your high standards, you stay pure, but, in the real world, everybody hates you and you're isolated and lonely. What's more, god sees how you cast your neighbor out, so by the same standard as you used, he may well cast you out too.
Whichever of these different, but equally christian gods you believe in, and whichever moral strategy you choose, as a christian, you always run the risk of having guessed wrong. And you can't do both, because to do one is to neglect the other, and vice versa. Thus, there is no way to "make your calling and election sure." You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
In practice, I found myself flip-flopping between these gods, and judging myself as wrong regardless of what I did, until I realized that this was a game designed to keep well-meaning and sincere people like me busy chasing their tails.
Continued…
…Continued
After flip-flopping that way since my youth, and twenty years after baptism, I stood back and sincerely took stock of my progress, and of my personal experience. My conclusion was that, in christian terms, my life amounted to stagnation. So what is a christian to do when he follows the recipe, but it doesn't work?
The church was no help here, preaching nothing but simplistic platitudes. The bible itself was no better, being a cacophony of disagreement and undefined exhortations.
If you're supposed to take things on blind faith, as Jesus says in John 20:29, then you can't "prove" all things, or anything at all, as Paul says to do in I Thessalonians 5:21. How are you supposed to "work out" your salvation, as he says to do in Philippians 2:12? How are you supposed to do this "overcoming" as it says seven times to do in Revelation 2-3? How are you supposed to "make your calling and election sure," as it says in I Peter 2:10? None of these concepts are defined. No one has any idea what these words mean, or if they have or have not accomplished any of these things. Not individuals, not organizations, and certainly not self-styled apostles, prophets, televangelists, or spiritual gurus. They are all the "blind guides" of Matthew 15:14. Furthermore, if you rely on the "blind faith" of John's Jesus that makes it impossible for you to guard against every "blind guide" that Matthew's Jesus warns against. Who should you listen to, John's Jesus or Matthew's Jesus?
Besides falsification by the law of noncontradiction, christianity is also falsified by its unmanageability. Try to use any methodology of management available for well-defined tasks, you will find "salvation" too poorly defined to be managed. Try to establish milemarkers to gauge your progress along the "narrow path" from earth to heaven. You will not be able to do it. There is no way-station at which you can assess your progress and make any course corrections. You don't have a lot of choices except to wait until it's too late to make any adjustments to find out if your guesses were good or bad. You would not expect a good god to make such an important procedure unmanageable, but this is exactly what you would expect if none of it were real at all.
Because christianity, according to its sacred texts, is not well-defined, it is not possible to use them to create any definitive recipe to get you or anyone else to point B. Were the christian god real, there is literally no way of having any clue as to where you stand with him. It is the utterly undefined nature of the religion that made me realize point B, if it even exists, is a place about which zero actual knowledge exists. This recipe is the core service churches claim to offer, but do any of them actually have a recipe that works? Who can even tell? Life is too short to give more than two or three of the recipes different denominations have come up with a fair chance.
All these recipes are is a game that has been engineered to be unwinnable. You're put in a circular room and told to sit in the corner and then you are blamed for failing to follow instructions. The fault is with the religion, but the religion does an end-run around this by building into the dogma that the fault can never lie with the religion. The only option the believer feels he is left with is to blame himself. Deconversion happens when the believer sees the game is rigged and the previously hidden option, that the only way to win is not to play at all. I refuse to play such a game, so that is why I cannot be a christian anymore.
Continued…
…Continued
During my conversations with friends and family about my loss of belief, I shared my personal experiences with them. In response, they countered by explaining how I was not entitled to my personal experiences because they were all wrong. Yes, the church had many problems, but the bible couldn't possibly have any. Even if I could not see my spiritual growth, they could. You might not see how your prayers were being answered, but that didn't mean they weren't. How could I be so sure about any of these things? In short, I had no right to my own personal experience. Everyone else set themselves up as a higher authority than I was over my own personal experiences. They weren't being rude by being skeptical, they were "just asking questions."
When I quizzed them about how they came to believe, they cited all sorts of personal experiences that convinced them beyond a shadow of a doubt that the christian god was real, was active in their lives, and that the church's interpretations of the bible were "the truth." Those personal experiences include coincidences that couldn't possibly be anything other than direct answers to prayer, voices they heard in their head, dreams, and in one extreme case, visions of demons seeking to directly influence thoughts and outcomes while protective angels delivered preemptive warnings. But if I dared to ask symmetrical questions, about how they could be so sure their interpretations of these things were accurate, my skepticism was being very rude indeed! How dare I question their personal experiences! These are their bona fides. They'll always know that god is real and active in their lives because of their personal experiences. With all that, no one could ever convince them otherwise. And why would I be willing to throw away "the truth" just for some "temporary pleasures"? Omg...
It's fine if they want to assert that their snap judgments regarding their personal experiences cannot be wrong. It's not my job to point out how impoverished the thought processes are that have led them to thoughtlessly jump to one conclusion, while pretending many other far less outlandish ones don't exist. But it's entirely another thing when they assert that I am not entitled to the same rights to my own personal experiences. And they assert this superiority from a position of relative intellectual poverty to boot. But of course, anything more than such poverty is of the devil anyways, right? Bottom line is it's just another instance of how christianity is sewn out of a patchwork of nonsense, contradiction, gaslighting, and cheating. Something that is built on a foundation of that cannot help but be false, and I have no more time to waste being scammed like that.
However, I have begun to understand that what is important to me is not necessarily important to everyone else. Figuring out what's true, to the extent to which it is humanly possible to figure that out, is more important to me than anything else. I don't have patience to sit around knowing I'm being lied to. I think for other people, even though they might know they're being lied to, it serves some other need for them that I don't understand. I have come to see that truth was never important to my parents. Their life was devoted to seeking and optimizing for some other need. I'm not sure what, but it certainly wasn't truth, nor was it character. I don't have that need, so that's why I cannot be a christian anymore.
BB said: “Bob Thiel: It's so hard to be a prophet! Nobody accepts me as one, and I must constantly defend my position, my mission in life.
Dennis Diehl: It's so hard to be an atheist! Nobody gets it, and I must rephrase and repeat my reasons over, and over, and over.
Same diff. Bottom line? Teachers can only be teachers if they can find willing students. Seems like a couple guys need to give it a rest!”
A-FOOKIN’-MEN bruther!!!
It’s probably cos you weren’t born or reared in Judaism or Adventism otherwise you’d probably have your own hang ups and baggage with these cults too BB that would trigger hostile feelings towards them like Armstrongism does.
Thank you for sharing your experience and conclusions
503. Sounds familiar
Byker, I completely understand. When I was about ten years old there was an old woman of 19 who was a friend of the family. My mother was only 27 at the time so they became good friends. She was raised in the WCG at the same time period that you experienced. I know that her mother was very, very, very strict. I remember her telling how her mother would make her wear long dresses to school but once she got out of mothers sight she'd roll the dress up.
She also got hooked on smoking, because in the late 60's that was one of the rebellious things to do. Personally I have no problem with smoking in moderation. No different than alcohol. imo
My point is that later in life, after she moved away the running joke in our family, my mom, myself and my two younger sisters would make fun of her mother, we'd say things like "Wipe that smile from your face, IT'S THE SABBATH!!!"
Though we still joke about it sometimes, we realize that it was serious for her, she had to live it. Maybe that's part of the reason that my parents weren't as strict with me. I loved staying home on the sabbath when dad went alone, Saturday cartoon time. Speed Buggy et al.
I guess I've always had a rebellious streak, I got my left ear pierced when an electrician that I was working with on a federal job was told by his boss to remove his earring at work. i made sure I wore it to work every day. Though out of WCG at the time, and occasionally attending with UCG I'd wear the earring hoping to get a response. While in the WCG the fad for young boys was wearing a rat tail, I made sure my six year old son had one and if anyone said anything they'd get an earful from me.
Just after I left WCG and while attending GTA's CGI I'd allow my 10 year old son play little league on the sabbath, and let my daughter play in the band, and majorette during Friday night football games. The worst thing anyone can do is keep their kids from being around others their own age. It's not work folks!
Probably why I don't go for the legalistic sabbath and feast keeping today, though I still believe in keeping them. We've had some discussions on this as I'm sure that you know even though I posted anonymous. Sorry for calling you a legalist, I know that's how they taught it and to truly follow Armstrongism there can be no liberalism.
Which is why I hate being called an Armstrongite even though I still hold to a lot of what he stole from others.
Kevin McMillen
In WCG, HWA, the organization, and the clergy class were the Holy Trinity that we all were taught to worship. It's sad that they've caused so many to throw out the God of the bible but it's perfectly understandable. This is why the God that I've come to believe in will not punish anyone for being duped by a salesman. I don't even believe that hell is a punishment, but a place chosen by those who reject God after fully understanding it all. I'd like to believe in universalism, but the "ashes under their feet" while possibly symbolism, seems to be literal. Again, who really knows?
Kevin McMillen
Wow, after reading 12:30ams posts, and while I feel for you, I now have to decide, were those people who wrote the bible very intelligent deceivers or ignorant shepherds like we've been told by some. It can't be both. Can it¿¿¿¿ 😉
km
Anonymous 12:30, 12:31 AM
Tremendous writing of book quality for what is a really big decision for a person to make.
I have been accused all my life of being an over-thinker and especially by the ministry. Over thinking is a great benefit to have in life. You are always able to think through obstacles with efficiency or contemplate one, two, three or four work arounds known as plan A plan B etc.
The negative aspect of over thinking is you can build all kinds of walls in your mind with some being many layers deep. Having walked out of the WCG in December 1994 I told myself everything and all that is related to religion is nothing anymore. I trucked all the books and booklets and my bible up to the attic. I never read nor listened to anything religious or prayed a prayer for close to 20 years.
I had an old carpenter tell me when I was still young that one day I would run into a very complicated project that would test me every which way possible. He said when that day came, I would need to step back as far as possible from that building. He said I would see that everything would be smaller and all the big complications wouldn't be as big. That day came for me in the future on a big job I had undertaken. I was able to get 500 feet away up on a hill. I couldn't believe how small the building was from that vantage point and I was able to think through all the complications from that vantage point.
As you step away from Christianity and all of the big problems associated with it, you might keep somewhere in your mind that the truth is a very real possibility in the Christian religion even if it has been corrupted, abused , misapplied, used for gain, used to induce fear and turned into evil in many ways. The world as we know it will change in many profound ways in the future. And when that complicated times come, see if you see things differently from a different vantage point.
5:11~ Could be. I am somewhat culturally fluid in that over the years I've been involved in a variety of celebrations with any number of ethnicities, and have actually enjoyed them. Holidays or special days can all be enjoyable. It isn't the days in or of themselves, because all cultures seem to be happy within their own contexts. My Jewish friends have marvelled at the fact that so much badness in Armstrongism could stem from the misuse of their beloved culture. It was shocking to them to learn of us.
The attitudes, the arrogance, the focus on HWA, and the fact that WCG practices and traditions were imposed based not on love, but under duress and threat of extreme punishment was what ruined beautiful Jewish cultural practices which we appropriated. One of my friends who was part of the Chabad movement had shared with me that when they received their Torah at their Chabad, they had a ceremony in which they all danced with the Torah. It was not in book form like a Bible, it was a scroll enclosed in its own special ornately decorative "garment" (for lack of a better term). Such joy is indicative of their love for their way of life.
I've also known some awesome SDA members who were strongly normal. They kept most of our same rituals, but didn't live under a draconian form of church government, were largely non-judgmental, did not subscribe to weird conspiracy theories, and didn't live in constant fear of their leaders. They were into health, and family, were over-achievers, and respected members of their community who didn't hide or cringe when amongst non-members or the general public. There is a thriving community in California, surrounding Loma Linda University and Medical Center, which is widely considered to be cutting edge in ways that have benefitted the world at large.
We, on the other hand, were forced to be weird and distorted, separatists, bizarre and secretive. I did not enjoy living under such a shroud, and when I encounter some who still do, it sets off a negative reaction. How can anyone let their light shine, or appear as any sort of positive example, attracting others to a way of life given all the negative factors associated with Armstrongism? Is it any wonder that none of the splinters are growing? People are not naturally attracted to such environments. They can only come into them as a result of fear and coercion.
BB
Dennis is a preeeeeeeeeecher pretending to be an atheist. His strategy is to attack us with 100 articles every day for the rest of our lives until the rest of us atheists hate him and turn to God in our need for some Greater Power who can rid the earth of this constant source of noise.
Some think the name Abram is a variation of the Hindu god Brahma. There are a number of similarities besides the sound of the name. Google it.
km said...
"Wow, after reading 12:30ams posts, and while I feel for you, I now have to decide, were those people who wrote the bible very intelligent deceivers or ignorant shepherds like we've been told by some. It can't be both. Can it¿¿¿¿ 😉
No, it can't be both. They weren't shepherds or fishermen. Anybody who was literate in antiquity, between 1% and 3% of the population, was very educated for their day, though still ignorant about almost everything else we take for granted these days. They would have been wealthy elites, not menial farmers or tradesmen.
The new testament was composed in Greek. It was not composed in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. We know this because it contains a significant amount of word play that only works in Greek.
It was written by people who read Greek, and likely did not read Hebrew. We know this because the quotations of the old testament are from the Septuagint, and are not direct translations from the Hebrew scriptures.
It was written by people with elite educations in the literary styles and compositional traditions, such as the chiastic ring structure. The book of Mark, for example, is written like one big "onion" of chiasmus. That's also how we can tell that Mark is fiction, not history, because the real world doesn't work in literary ways like that.
It was written for an educated, Greek-speaking audience, obviously. The lack of familiarity with the geography of Judea Palestina indicates the authors of the new testament probably didn't even live there. It was probably written for the most part by a community of wealthy, educated Hellenized Jews in Alexandria. The same community of which Philo of Alexandria would have rubbed shoulders. And, obviously, it was written for other wealthy, educated, Hellenized people, not people who spoke Aramaic or Hebrew and couldn't read anyway.
Take that with the obvious propagandistic nature of the stories, which are frequently scenarios concocted so as to frame and didactically exhort its readership toward acceptance of a particular or idea or ideology, and I think it's pretty safe to say it was written by intelligent deceivers who wanted others to think it was somehow written by ignorant tradesmen. Even today, it's still somehow deceiving thoughtless people.
Years ago, a large group of people from the main office in my workplace went to a restaurant for lunch. I joined them. There were several work bosses there. They all kept staring at me from time to time as if demon possessed. They ignored everyone else and fixated on me. They knew from other sources that I was a member of HWAs church. My point is that it pays to be secretive and avoid such crap.
"No, it can't be both. They weren't shepherds or fishermen."
4:49pm You're not helping my dilemma one bit. 😉
Either you're correct and Bart Ehrman a liar, because Bart says they were illiterate fisherman, or Bart's correct and you're simply wrong (being nice here), or you're both full of bullshit. 😁
Honestly, I'll just believe the bible!
Kevin
"Even today, it's still somehow deceiving thoughtless people."
Hmmm, interesting. My wife's boss is a Harvard graduate Nephrologist and a devoted Christian. My daughter's boss has her own research lab at the University of Pitt, not sure of her degree, and is a Christian.
Perhaps I should lovingly tell them just how thoughtless they really are.
Let me ponder that a little.
Kevin
Kevin wrote:
"...Bart says they were illiterate fisherman..."
Citation?
I'd like to see where Bart Ehrman seriously, and not jokingly, says that illiterate people wrote...
12:15 Ya got me I guess. That's what I get for trying to be a little playful. Ehrman's claim is the disciples were illiterate and therefore couldn't have written the bible.
I still think you're both full of bullshit, but in a jolly kind of way. 😇
Kevin
Kevin wrote:
"I still think you're both full of bullshit..."
But you can't dispute any of the facts? Typical.
Feeling's mutual, I assure you.
How would we even know if the New Testament had been written by semi-literate fishermen and shepherds under the inspiration of God, or by learned helenized scholars fluent in Greek? The Bible is considered to be one of the world's great pieces of literature, it is a perrennial best seller, and scholars continue to study and debate its contents even today in the post-Christian era. There is much good contained between its covers, and humans have derived inspiration, encouragement, moral and ethical grounding, and hours of entertainment from it.
We were unfortunately exposed to bad people who tried to use it to control us along the lines of their objectives and agendas. I get that. But their misusage does not invalidate the basic goodness in it.
BB
"But you can't dispute any of the facts? Typical."
Can't? Or won't waste my time? I've said plenty of times on here that one can't "prove" faith. Faith isn't a fact, it's a hope.
I've said before, unless I see a withered arm grow, I won't know for sure that there's a God. I've had what I think were miracles in my life, but I'm smart enough to know they could be just time and chance.
I'm more or less an agnostic theist, I just don't know for sure whether there's a God or not, but I hope there is and that he understands why I'm not sure. Jesus even said, after letting Thomas put his hand in his side, "blessed are those who believe and have not seen". Think of me a fool for this if you want, I don't care what you or what anyone else thinks anyway.
I'm not going to get into a long discussion here on whether there's a God or not, whether I'm a Christian merely because I live in a Christian society or not, been there done that and don't give a shit what you think.
We can either be blog friends or enemies, I'd prefer being friends who differ, but again I really don't give a shit.
Kevin
"We were unfortunately exposed to bad people who tried to use it to control us along the lines of their objectives and agendas."
Yeah right....the old blame emperor Constantine routine........
What did the Romans ever do for us......except running water, smooth roads, culture, christianity....(adaptation from Life of Brian)
nck
Byker, I agree 100%. If there is a God and if he wanted to he could have taken completely illiterate fisherman and miraculously caused them to write, and not just write but write in a style that scholars would deny their being capable of.
I realize this is classic WCG explaining away the subject, but if God does exist, why not?
Kevin
nck, I thought you were going to give it a rest ol' friend. 😁
I think your post was a joke, at least I hope. A smiley would help.
Kevin
WATT, I just took the time to read your 10:27am post. Very good!!!!!
Kevin
8:31
Kevin all writings are 100 percent scientific scholarship and 100 percent jokes.
My last posting referred to the fact that nothing in the NT contradicts the Roman administration JUST AS nothing HWA wrote contradicted the policies of the American empire.
Both do critique the system just as prophets do. HWA even alluded to my observation by the publishing of "The Modern Romans."
A new topic asks what our tenure in wcg meant. To me HWA was one of the most astute observers of the "Zeitgeist" if anyone here even knows the true meaning of that philosophical terminology.
So yes lots of smileys for the lazy and as much depth of thought as Gods talents have provided for the philosophers amongst us.
Nck
Kevin @ 8:39 ~ He did! Acts 4:13.
BB
BB, 👍
Kevin
Dennis,
I understand that you want to be praised for all the work you put into not believing. You now call yourself an atheist. So, you've been on two extremes in this life. However, in order to get from "believer" to "atheist", one has to cross some boundaries. In my life, I have observed several empirical "gotchas" as far as the Bible / History / God's existence. Here are just two of them. I wonder how you "get by" or dismiss these observations in order to arrive at atheist.
1) The bible is history - much of it has been proven in terms of the existence of biblical characters, places, and events. You could argue some things but that seems irrelevant to my query. Generally, across the old testament times, God uses the nation of Israel to "paint" a picture of His plan for mankind. It can be seen perhaps most clearly in the story of the exodus. First the passover lamb (representing Christ), then the marching away from sin (represented by leaving Egypt), then passing through the red sea (under water / baptism), then the rock (representing Christ) pouring forth water (Holy Spirit), etc. This sequence of events takes place over a relatively short period of time. However, this same plan is seen again in new testament times starting with Jesus sacrifice. The point is that God has painted His plan for our salvation using history as a canvas. This is a painting that no man or group of men could have done as we don't live long enough nor could we coordinate such a thing so as to call it a conspiracy / deception. Only a greater being could have done such a thing.
2) The structure and existence of every living thing including cats, dogs, people, plants, fish is so complex as to demand a designer / builder of same. To suggest evolution as an explanation is to ignore common sense. If we dismiss the complexity of the human body (for example) and assume (falsely) that we all evolved from simpler organisms, we have to admit that before we had any creatures of any kind, we would have to first have a single organic cell. But a single cell is also incredibly complex in that it must have all the components necessary to live including:
a) a cell membrane or other method of self-containment.
b) a DNA nucleus
c) a way to find food
d) a way to digest food
e) a way to reproduce
(continued due to unreasonable character count limitation)
(continued from previous post due to unreasonable character count limitation)
Without any one of these components, it would die an cease to exist. So, in order to believe in evolution, one must believe that random atoms came together to instantaneously form the complete construct of a cell. And, AT THE SAME MOMENT, random events would have to have produced food for that cell and that food would have to have been place extremely close to said singular random complete cell. A single cell including it's rather long DNA structure is vastly more complex than anything men has ever devised including houses, cars, computers, phones. One would expect that by the time we "evolved" as humans, all the cars, houses, phones and computers would already be here including all the infrastructure to support the production of same. And why male / female? If both of those didn't also arrive at the same time, then death was inevitable. Once dead, that lucky on-time random creature (male or female) that might have perpetuated more life is completely out of the picture, the whole crap shoot of random shit starts over with atoms (or smaller). It's a complete impossibility.
So, how did you get past this? Or did you just blindly ignore it because you needed to do so to get to atheism? Or is your version of atheism more of a "NO2HWA" type ... but you haven't dismissed this obvious stuff? Perhaps more of an agnostic? Perhaps even possibly still a believer who can't acknowledge same without losing his blogging privileges?
And, that's just two of many "gotchas" you would have to dismiss. This has nothing to do with HWA or Pack or Malm or Thiel or Meredity or Flurry or ???
This is just simply "Does God exist?"
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse ...
I wonder if you would comment on this ...
BD
Post a Comment