you said:
>>30 Years in Darkness ? ... then moved on to ?
meaning 30 more years under the thumb of my imaginary friend, my god
delusion. i moved backwards, to the "religion" of my youth,
atheism... my god was a reflection of my own mind, and i was always a
stickler for the truth and a perfectionist, so i had a very tough god
to follow... but he wasnt leading me anywhere... side note: as kids,
we had a Ouija board, and once me and me brother were playing, and the
board was answering some question and my brother starts laughing,
saying that he had not been touching the thing, so i was doing all the
movement, thus proving what a crock it was... i relate my following
of god to something similar to that. end note.
you said:
>> What bought you out of it ?
brought, not bought! ;$)
I already did answer this, in a previous post, the one I had thought
might have offended you-- perhaps you missed it! Since you didnt
respond, that was why my paranoid mind assumed my words were
offensive... so the words below may be offensive to many:
Here is the answer again, in different words:
i was raised methodist, which is a liberal christian faction that
believes creationist theory is bollocks, and that the creation story
of Adam and Eve can be understood symbolically, and thus liberal
Christianity is compatible with modern science.
how and why i became a "Jesus Freak", that's a long story in itself,
better to skip, as this could be many pages... (look up the jesus
movement of the late 1960's)
anyhow, in 2008, as unhappy, tormented and frustrated as my life was,
I could not abandon my faith, which I assumed was rock solid, based on
trusting miracle testimonies, and such... i even read all the atheist
books that came out, looking for someone to topple my belief set, but
all the books did was attack christianity with much the same arguments
i had with it myself, even Richard Dawkins book, the God Delusion, was
useless to challenge my strange version of faith. (i didnt belong to
any church for those 30 years, searching for like-minded believers,
never found one)
Then one night, as I studied Romans 8:19, (for the zillionth time)
I noticed something I hadnt really considered before. The author,
Paul, was saying that "decay" was a product of original sin. This
startled me, because decay is just a chemical process, without which,
life on earth could not exist. Digestion itself is a form of decay.
Anyhow, in a flash, all sorts of connections came together in my mind,
for example: Paul was a creationist! Something I had never actually
thought about earnestly (hard to believe now)... And obviously, so
was Jesus! because if original sin was not something real, that
actually happened because the man Adam, who was created, not evolved,
on a planet that was created good, and perfect, no decay or evil of
any sort, etc, if Adam and Eve were just symbolic characters in a
story, then Jesus's death on the cross to pay for that sin, didnt make
any logical sense. Why would the Son of God need to die to fix a
problem that never literally, actually happened, except in a
mythological creation story, if it isnt the literal truth about how
life on earth actually began... it is so blatant obvious now...
It was a flash of great terror, suddenly seeing my faith collapse,
feeling myself falling back into atheism... but what choice did i
have? it was a no-brainer... I felt very sick and depressed to have
wasted most of my life following imaginary ghosts, but i could not
pretend to believe something that I could now clearly see was fraud.
That is, either I had to abandon science, and believe that Adam and
Eve were real people who brought sin into existence, or I had to
abandon christianity completely, as a true faith. (and as for my
trust in miracle stories, i was obviously the victim of rumors and
fake news)
footnote:
This revelation has given me a whole new perspective on everything.
Now I know why the right wing fundy Christians hate liberals and
liberality so vehemently, because liberal christianity is more corrupt
and evil than fundamentalist christianity. So the fundys may be crazy
to believe in creationist theory and reject science, but at least they
are being consistent with their bibles. The liberals, by pretending
that Adam and Eve dont have to be understood literally, are perverting
their own faith, quite literally, in fact... (do the math! connect
the dots! i speak to any liberal christians reading this thread)
All the mono-theist religions have this same fracture between fundy's
and liberals. That is, Islam,Christinaity, and Judaism, in all their
myriad versions, they are all based on the creation story of Adam and
Eve, and are split into two groups that cannot be reconciled... about
two-thirds of the planet is under this delusion.
if only the liberals could realize this, and snap out of their god
delusion, then they would not be so crippled politically. This is WHY
the fundys have power over them, because they are less hypocritical
(even if they are crazy)! this may not make sense, but if only i
could find the right words... i could change the world!
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