I crave silence in my mind. I crave to be liberated from the mental violence of religious conformation.
During my "deconversion" years i reached a place i call spiritual satisfaction, in my studies of Zen and Tao, and being that i craved a god thing, i adopted Hindu philosophy. I was happy , eclectic, and increasing in understanding and the fruits the Christians crave.
But as i am i have no niche, no label. I am neither Atheist nor Religionist. There are my personal flaws and i seek to master them. At best i would call myself a mystic and a sage. A sage with nothing to teach and no one to help.
I have been told, upon my reconversion, when i asked how it was that i attained peace during my out time, yet now in trying to be a christian i am experiencing mental turmoil; that Satan doesn't care what you do with the "Lie" but he will attack you now that you have the "truth" again.
I find that ... really fucked up reasoning. What that by virtue of thinking within Jesus this and Jesus that, that act of cultivating spiritual growth is to be attacked?
Suppose i do not believe in the theological Jesus, thus am damned, yet i credit his name for the answers to my prayers and for all the good things in my life, making me in obedience to the Bible and having "victory" over my sin, and answers to all my prayers would i fall under the verse where Jesus teaches that "he who is not against him is for him? He who is not taring down builds up" ?
If i have spiritual victory over my sin based on my own application of the teachings and say thank the Lord for it, would i be more effective a "christian" than the christian who has no victory, but constantly waits on Jesus and thanking him in advance for requests that don't come to pass, yet he believes in the theology?
I come to discover that the average person seems to believe in two gods. There is the God they learn about in church and thru theology, and there is that god they have a personal relationship with.
They believe in god because they have some kind of subjective experience of it via prayer, and spiritual growth. That personal relationship can be discussed among each other in agreement. Just like the Fundy man and i could talk about knowing god, and be in agreement.
The other god is the one of theology. When a human seeks to put a form to the god in their imagination, and to try and discover its revelation and to determine where that human lives in a theological sense. And in any place where the theological god is in disagreement with the personal god , the christian is taught that the personal idea must be abandoned or labeled demonic.
From my other posts one might determine i believe the theological god is man's creation.
IN fact if i was Satan, and i wanted to make sure humanity would never discover truth, i would create religions. I would keep a human from ever questioning whether or not what they have is true, or from objectively testing their understandings.
I am overwhelmed and desensitized form the arguments both christian and atheist. And seek the repose of my former and natural faiths. I am pleased by my ability to let go of the mental war, and simply breath the air, and observe the living moment.
Back to my two gods theory, lets say a Christian does not normally carry about their minds all the theological arguments in their daily life. He does not pray ...
"lord who is three in one, almighty creator in six days, forgive me for yelling at my children and help me be a better parent, as i know that you are working out my sanctification, to align me with my spiritual position of justification based on the eternal sacrifice of your son.......... amen"
They do not tend to justify each thought with theological debates nor experience god thru them. They simply experience the subjective reality and only bring out the theology when challenged.
It seems that unless one is carrying about the theology, they are relying on the same natural faith that i do, calling it spiritual growth and an appeal to theology is after the fact.
In my faith it does not seem correct to use the bible to defend our base human emotions. Greed, anger and ignorance. IF one verse tells me to love my enemies, i do not see it as correct to argue for an instance where righteous indignation could be applied. I cannot find it within myself to use hatred in one instance and call hatred disobedience in another instance.
My faith is to remove the least good form my moral character and to increase the noble. Such as Paul teaches..... whatsoever things are good, lovely, virutous, if there be any praise, think on those things. I find that if the christian would put half as much practice into applying the good of their faith instead of rationalising their desire to keep their evil human inclinations justified, the world would be better off.
Even as a christian this bothered me ever so greatly, i have a natural inclination to seek the good things, and cannot self justify applying hatred or even the justification of "well i am a saved sinner, i am human ect" being human is no excuse.
I have seen lately in various posts, smug Christians asking , who has deconverted for intellectual reasons.... they are under the impression that many leave the faith because we have sour grapes because god didn't fix everything for us. Talk about a straw man.
My Straw man, taught me one thing yet acted in a different way. My straw man was internally inconsistent, my straw man went up in smoke. And there was no man of rock to be found.
After much fair and balance inquiry i find that in the end all i have is my personal experience.
The god i find to be the most realistic is located within me. And the best theology i have ever found is in the baghadvadgita. and the best psychological/spiritual science i have found are in Zen sutras.
I find that it doesn't matter to me whether i am evolved or created or any mixture of the twain.
And i find there are matters in reality that i will never get my limited intelligence around.
Theology is a science for those far removed form the faith of the common man. Atheist theology also doesn't effect the experience of faith to the common man.
I find the bickering nothing but straw men. And entertainment more than an act of finding reality.
Here's what i know.
Human kind had existed in recorded history for over 8000 years, and humans have set into motion the means to practically exterminate themselves in a matter of 200 years, all in the name of convenience. We have only in the last 100 years begun to redefine our once common moral ideals such as family, higher powers, community, self reliance, freedom. We have long since left off development of natural science in favor of technological science, and i think that is a detriment to our human development.
I know that i am only a person with opinions and i lack education to defend them, as do most of us.
I know that Quantum Physics is fascinating and i would wager than their aren't many Christians in that field because the pure study of numbers would show that many of our spiritual thoughts are naught but equations that can be proved and disproved.
I find that in History and archeology the bible is but a pagan religion with not much physical support, as even is my baghadgadgita. I find that what would be true religion is a matter of discovering Wisdom and overcoming Human Evils with or without gods.
*flush*
*ahhhh the quiet*
*praise god*
IZM
Friday, December 21, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Bewildered
Ok.......
How do i go about this post?
Ya know that Wonderfull "true christian " man i was going on about before, he cut off our friendship last saturday. Apparently i dont appreciate him, because we butt heads on cirtian issues ,such as useing my rational mind to understand events and find the root causes of events and sin within myself, rather than to deny the act of rationalization and rely on empty faith to solve my sins. And also my having a desire to keep hold on the many things i learned philosphically in my non christian days.
Backing up. Last wednesday i invited him over after church, we where going to talk about the service and the near holy ghost revival that the Pastor missed. ( meaning he and I and a few others where really whooping it up in praise of god and the spiritaul jucices where flowing but the Pastor was more interested in getting to the lesson) And i had wanted this old man to help me disearn a particular websight, for scirptural correctness.
During the conversation he was going over Prophecy, and i , in the interest of getting my Atheist arguements finially put to bed, asked about some studies i have read that say the story of Jesus fullfilling the prophecies may have been structured ad hoc.
He went into a brain stunned stupor. Next thing i know he was going on about having fatherly feelings for me and that he wanted to comfort me. He got touchy feely. I had an emotional reaction.
a little background on the reaction, i really never had a steady daddy in my life, my mother was not one for holding me and frankly when it comes to Men i honestly can't tell the difference between true caring and manipulation. I precieved that he wanted a little comfort for himself after the mannor that he shared with his adult retarded daughter, to hold innocently , to be still and in charge of expression..... But i completely was unable to handle the situation.
When i look back on it i see it thusly, i have father issues and he has children issues ( as his normal children grew up rejected christ and himself) He of course denys having any unresolved psychology. And calls my seeing it as "rationalisation"
The next things that happened where a change in the room's atmosphere, from happy and god minded to dark and spiritaully oppressive. I tried to get him to wake up form the depressed stupor and pray with me. As far as i was concerned that there was a Spiritaul attack and i wanted to return to the happy praise and leave the mindset that exposed my ( or our) psychological issues. He was not doing any talking therefore we where not going to be able to solve the riddle of why the feeling in the room changed so dramatically. He would not admit his own feelings or confirm mine, or even pray in what could have been interpreted as a spiritaul attack according to his veiw.
I finnially said there was no solving the issuses for us that night, we should separate and pray. And by the by he left.
(this was a skeloton explaination of course, of the events that evening, another detail i can add is i haven't felt that "rock in the pit of my stomach" feeling since i was a kid breaking up with a boyfriend whom i didnt want to hurt)
That man and i agree when dissussing spiritaulality, our personal experiences of God, even our individaul insights into the scripture. But we fall apart when i use my brain, or ask tough questions, or cannot respond emotionally.
For alittle more background when i engaged what he calls rationalisation, he seemed to take it as a challenge to wether or not i cared for him in a child to father way, if my words of affection even mattered. As if people who loved each other where supposed to agree on every single spiritaul count.
After he went home that night he called back saying his mind suddenly cleared on his way home and he was then able to see that what happened was an attack, and he wanted to come the next day and pray and lay hands on me. I was amiable but in my spirit i knew that it was not just ME that caused the situation. It takes two to tango, ya know, and if he was NOT affected then why could he NOT join me in prayer when I realised what was happening? (How many supoosed demon opressed people are fullly aware that whats going on and ask for prayer support)
(yes i realise many of my non readers dont even believe it was spiritaul but i dont want to keep typing spiritaul/psychological all thru the post)
The next day i let him, i tried really hard not to laugh. My wiccan days where screaming at me about how he didnt even bless the oil, and did not accept that demons have real names. Aparently christians think demons have titles like "rebellion", "greed", "Averice" instead of names and heirarchys.
He was full on convinced that the bad juju was gone now, as a result of his annointing me with oil and prayer. IN my inward parts i was reeling with the proceedure mistakes and merely felt that what ever psychological issue we have was temporarilly made dorment, but i did not press the issue.
Then came saturday, i had two days to debrief myself over the events on wednessday, to ferret out what mistakes allowed the atsmosphere between us change. i concluded it was both of us, our issues butted against eachother. He wanted the comfort he missed with is now dead daughter, and i didnt want my space compromised. I also concluded that the episode begain with the question about prophecy, which to me means, he shut down rather than think about challenging his 70 years of devotion. A trained responce to any form of independant thought, followed by the deversion of "let me hold you", which threw everything in to an emotional crisis.
I tried to explain tenderly those conclusions because he kept proding me to. IN fact i actaully had not made any firm conclusion or desided on any course of action, i developed a theory and sought to test that against his experiences that night. To think it through like a rational person. But he was incapible.
He immediatly started in on the you dont care about me, i should go, i have done all i could to help you, and when we rationalise we get ourselvs into trouble.........
He was offended that i thought he had any kind of issue, and that i wanted to help him, that i prayed for him to truly have peace and let go of his resentments toward his children. He claimed he was merely telling me his OLD PAINS in the spirit of counseling ME and letting me know he to was human. Rather than how i saw it, unrelated stories that he still cryed over and relived every time ( and they where many times) he repeated the tales of woe.
SO he cut it off and skipped town.
What i am bewildered about is what does his reactions say about the god who TOLD HIM that i was to be a new family to him that would NOT reject him? Or about the commissions he felt from GOD saying that he was to have a hand in helping my husband back to Christ service? Or even the impression he felt form GOD about giveing us some money so that my family could go and visit my natural father whom i had not had a christmas with in over 20 years? Or that he felt it form GOD that we where worthy to be the execitors of his will upon his death?
DID HE MAKE A LIAR OUT OF GOD?
i begain to determine how that much of what we claim form god is the result of our surface emotions, and that being the case shouldn't we TEST stuff?...er... rationalise?
*sigh*
Well after this, and the pain i been going through, i resurfaced over at Debunking Christianity for more reading and thinking.
personally my idea of God never told me any of those things, my impression was god brought me someone who understood the spiritaulity of god like i did and that was way groovy. it made me think i could have my god and the bible too. And that i cared for him much like a daughter and ought to be a comfort to this man. The only impression i got form what i would call GOD.... said to me "i have given you a short friendship" He said that about 2 weeks after i met the fundy man.
oh and that little voice also said, when i asked it why the fundy and i bump heads, "your not going to trust or like my answer but, it is becasue he is religious" and then impressed upon me the two parables of "not putting new wine into old wine skins" and " the parable of the telents, ie reaping where god has not sown"
and thats all god had to say about that,
and i think this is all i have to say about it also.
On another note, i should like to email a particular person over at debunking christianity, but am afraid i already screwed up thinking i was at all able to piss with the big boys. But i would like to ask how the former chrisitans deal with a question/observation that has lead me to "reconvert" a few times.....
That being, doesn't the world seem to be growing worse and worse, the dishonesty, the violence, the lack of honner amoung people, the increase in diseases, the decrease in supplies? I read a study that within 50 years we may well be out of FISH. Global warming? Itsn't it supportive of the bible's teachings on the End Times?
And this i have also "reconverted" over thinking about why it is that people are extreemly anti-CHRIST, not anti muhammad, not anti buddha, not anti sun yon moon, but put so much energy into being anti Christ. And how that other religions won't let jesus be who jesus said he was, but try to adopt and redefine him according to their beliefes? Why bother with some 2000 year old dead dude? That would seem to support the bibles teachings also.
And please dont answer that a broken clock is correct twice a day.
but in light of all the other textaul critisisums, and logical debates, and experience baised debates, my silly little question seems extraordinarilly silly. Since a christ positive answer would lead to the rationalisation that all the other arguments are jsut the mental mechanics of .........could it be......might it be
SATAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN?
Rather than actaul history, research, years of college, ect ect.
I find myself extreemly unsettled about there being NO known occurence of "the slaughter of the innocents" makeing Matthew a liar. NO exodus and wandering of the Jews in any other history, (unless you count the expultion of the huksos with no wandering) Anyway.
I should like to make a study on the natural deaths of many of the old religions, the onese who died with out a christian sword. Perhaps the greek religion with the rise of Aristotle. Or the Norse religion, but i am not sure how that one died. So i can make a study of the history-ness of the dieing of the Christian faith in this day and age. Yet would it die? There are still small pockets of Zoroastarians, and how did their mainstream faith die off? But i do not know where to begin with the research.
I am also unsettled by the fact that i can't find consitant resources that agree on the dateing of the books of the new testament or the development of the conon. The Christians say one thing , and the Atheists ( who seem to manage consistancy) say another.
But that might be becasue my only access to research is Google. A few years ago (maybe 20 i guess) our town libary actaully had a BOOK BURNING!.........
well i guess thats all for now, no answers here.
Justine
(ps the spell check on the blogger is not working for me ,for some reason, please dont think me an idiot for the reason of bad spelling. Rather if you must, Think me an idiot becasue i haven't flushed my spiritaul toilet yet.)
How do i go about this post?
Ya know that Wonderfull "true christian " man i was going on about before, he cut off our friendship last saturday. Apparently i dont appreciate him, because we butt heads on cirtian issues ,such as useing my rational mind to understand events and find the root causes of events and sin within myself, rather than to deny the act of rationalization and rely on empty faith to solve my sins. And also my having a desire to keep hold on the many things i learned philosphically in my non christian days.
Backing up. Last wednesday i invited him over after church, we where going to talk about the service and the near holy ghost revival that the Pastor missed. ( meaning he and I and a few others where really whooping it up in praise of god and the spiritaul jucices where flowing but the Pastor was more interested in getting to the lesson) And i had wanted this old man to help me disearn a particular websight, for scirptural correctness.
During the conversation he was going over Prophecy, and i , in the interest of getting my Atheist arguements finially put to bed, asked about some studies i have read that say the story of Jesus fullfilling the prophecies may have been structured ad hoc.
He went into a brain stunned stupor. Next thing i know he was going on about having fatherly feelings for me and that he wanted to comfort me. He got touchy feely. I had an emotional reaction.
a little background on the reaction, i really never had a steady daddy in my life, my mother was not one for holding me and frankly when it comes to Men i honestly can't tell the difference between true caring and manipulation. I precieved that he wanted a little comfort for himself after the mannor that he shared with his adult retarded daughter, to hold innocently , to be still and in charge of expression..... But i completely was unable to handle the situation.
When i look back on it i see it thusly, i have father issues and he has children issues ( as his normal children grew up rejected christ and himself) He of course denys having any unresolved psychology. And calls my seeing it as "rationalisation"
The next things that happened where a change in the room's atmosphere, from happy and god minded to dark and spiritaully oppressive. I tried to get him to wake up form the depressed stupor and pray with me. As far as i was concerned that there was a Spiritaul attack and i wanted to return to the happy praise and leave the mindset that exposed my ( or our) psychological issues. He was not doing any talking therefore we where not going to be able to solve the riddle of why the feeling in the room changed so dramatically. He would not admit his own feelings or confirm mine, or even pray in what could have been interpreted as a spiritaul attack according to his veiw.
I finnially said there was no solving the issuses for us that night, we should separate and pray. And by the by he left.
(this was a skeloton explaination of course, of the events that evening, another detail i can add is i haven't felt that "rock in the pit of my stomach" feeling since i was a kid breaking up with a boyfriend whom i didnt want to hurt)
That man and i agree when dissussing spiritaulality, our personal experiences of God, even our individaul insights into the scripture. But we fall apart when i use my brain, or ask tough questions, or cannot respond emotionally.
For alittle more background when i engaged what he calls rationalisation, he seemed to take it as a challenge to wether or not i cared for him in a child to father way, if my words of affection even mattered. As if people who loved each other where supposed to agree on every single spiritaul count.
After he went home that night he called back saying his mind suddenly cleared on his way home and he was then able to see that what happened was an attack, and he wanted to come the next day and pray and lay hands on me. I was amiable but in my spirit i knew that it was not just ME that caused the situation. It takes two to tango, ya know, and if he was NOT affected then why could he NOT join me in prayer when I realised what was happening? (How many supoosed demon opressed people are fullly aware that whats going on and ask for prayer support)
(yes i realise many of my non readers dont even believe it was spiritaul but i dont want to keep typing spiritaul/psychological all thru the post)
The next day i let him, i tried really hard not to laugh. My wiccan days where screaming at me about how he didnt even bless the oil, and did not accept that demons have real names. Aparently christians think demons have titles like "rebellion", "greed", "Averice" instead of names and heirarchys.
He was full on convinced that the bad juju was gone now, as a result of his annointing me with oil and prayer. IN my inward parts i was reeling with the proceedure mistakes and merely felt that what ever psychological issue we have was temporarilly made dorment, but i did not press the issue.
Then came saturday, i had two days to debrief myself over the events on wednessday, to ferret out what mistakes allowed the atsmosphere between us change. i concluded it was both of us, our issues butted against eachother. He wanted the comfort he missed with is now dead daughter, and i didnt want my space compromised. I also concluded that the episode begain with the question about prophecy, which to me means, he shut down rather than think about challenging his 70 years of devotion. A trained responce to any form of independant thought, followed by the deversion of "let me hold you", which threw everything in to an emotional crisis.
I tried to explain tenderly those conclusions because he kept proding me to. IN fact i actaully had not made any firm conclusion or desided on any course of action, i developed a theory and sought to test that against his experiences that night. To think it through like a rational person. But he was incapible.
He immediatly started in on the you dont care about me, i should go, i have done all i could to help you, and when we rationalise we get ourselvs into trouble.........
He was offended that i thought he had any kind of issue, and that i wanted to help him, that i prayed for him to truly have peace and let go of his resentments toward his children. He claimed he was merely telling me his OLD PAINS in the spirit of counseling ME and letting me know he to was human. Rather than how i saw it, unrelated stories that he still cryed over and relived every time ( and they where many times) he repeated the tales of woe.
SO he cut it off and skipped town.
What i am bewildered about is what does his reactions say about the god who TOLD HIM that i was to be a new family to him that would NOT reject him? Or about the commissions he felt from GOD saying that he was to have a hand in helping my husband back to Christ service? Or even the impression he felt form GOD about giveing us some money so that my family could go and visit my natural father whom i had not had a christmas with in over 20 years? Or that he felt it form GOD that we where worthy to be the execitors of his will upon his death?
DID HE MAKE A LIAR OUT OF GOD?
i begain to determine how that much of what we claim form god is the result of our surface emotions, and that being the case shouldn't we TEST stuff?...er... rationalise?
*sigh*
Well after this, and the pain i been going through, i resurfaced over at Debunking Christianity for more reading and thinking.
personally my idea of God never told me any of those things, my impression was god brought me someone who understood the spiritaulity of god like i did and that was way groovy. it made me think i could have my god and the bible too. And that i cared for him much like a daughter and ought to be a comfort to this man. The only impression i got form what i would call GOD.... said to me "i have given you a short friendship" He said that about 2 weeks after i met the fundy man.
oh and that little voice also said, when i asked it why the fundy and i bump heads, "your not going to trust or like my answer but, it is becasue he is religious" and then impressed upon me the two parables of "not putting new wine into old wine skins" and " the parable of the telents, ie reaping where god has not sown"
and thats all god had to say about that,
and i think this is all i have to say about it also.
On another note, i should like to email a particular person over at debunking christianity, but am afraid i already screwed up thinking i was at all able to piss with the big boys. But i would like to ask how the former chrisitans deal with a question/observation that has lead me to "reconvert" a few times.....
That being, doesn't the world seem to be growing worse and worse, the dishonesty, the violence, the lack of honner amoung people, the increase in diseases, the decrease in supplies? I read a study that within 50 years we may well be out of FISH. Global warming? Itsn't it supportive of the bible's teachings on the End Times?
And this i have also "reconverted" over thinking about why it is that people are extreemly anti-CHRIST, not anti muhammad, not anti buddha, not anti sun yon moon, but put so much energy into being anti Christ. And how that other religions won't let jesus be who jesus said he was, but try to adopt and redefine him according to their beliefes? Why bother with some 2000 year old dead dude? That would seem to support the bibles teachings also.
And please dont answer that a broken clock is correct twice a day.
but in light of all the other textaul critisisums, and logical debates, and experience baised debates, my silly little question seems extraordinarilly silly. Since a christ positive answer would lead to the rationalisation that all the other arguments are jsut the mental mechanics of .........could it be......might it be
SATAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN?
Rather than actaul history, research, years of college, ect ect.
I find myself extreemly unsettled about there being NO known occurence of "the slaughter of the innocents" makeing Matthew a liar. NO exodus and wandering of the Jews in any other history, (unless you count the expultion of the huksos with no wandering) Anyway.
I should like to make a study on the natural deaths of many of the old religions, the onese who died with out a christian sword. Perhaps the greek religion with the rise of Aristotle. Or the Norse religion, but i am not sure how that one died. So i can make a study of the history-ness of the dieing of the Christian faith in this day and age. Yet would it die? There are still small pockets of Zoroastarians, and how did their mainstream faith die off? But i do not know where to begin with the research.
I am also unsettled by the fact that i can't find consitant resources that agree on the dateing of the books of the new testament or the development of the conon. The Christians say one thing , and the Atheists ( who seem to manage consistancy) say another.
But that might be becasue my only access to research is Google. A few years ago (maybe 20 i guess) our town libary actaully had a BOOK BURNING!.........
well i guess thats all for now, no answers here.
Justine
(ps the spell check on the blogger is not working for me ,for some reason, please dont think me an idiot for the reason of bad spelling. Rather if you must, Think me an idiot becasue i haven't flushed my spiritaul toilet yet.)
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