(nod to LeoPardus for the suggestion)

There once was a girl who was looking for love. She was tired of the same old surface relationships; ones that never truly satisfied her heart as well as her intellect. She tried dating off and on. She found a lovely peaceful man named Buddha, but to her, he was too passive. She ended up always having to make the decisions or sit calmly watching him meditate. She needed more excitement than that. She dated a guy named Aristotle and even his best friend Plato, but they were too much “into hanging out with the guys” and didn’t want to commit to romance. Her friends kept trying to set her up with a new guy named Jesus. He was perfect for her and would love her until the end of time. He was manly and heroic. His relationship with his Mother wasn’t so hot, but his dad and he were very close. He sounded wonderful, almost too wonderful, but after a series of failed dating experiences, she agreed to go on a blind date and see for herself.

She was enraptured! Never before had she felt like someone knew her very soul. He would gaze into her eyes, listen to her conversation for hours, and she just KNEW that he was the one. Apparently, he did too, because instantly he professed his love for her and wooed her with all his might. Sure, there were some warning signals. He wanted her to completely renounce all her old friends and even her family. He said she would have a new family now and if she really loved him, she’d do this for him. He was extremely jealous of the possibility that she might have been intimate with anyone else. He wanted to know every single detail of her previous relationships. This worried her a little. He seemed so intense sometimes. She was hesitant to renounce her family because her family had always been supportive of her and loved her, but she reluctantly agreed. He was every thing she was looking for after all. She even met his family and they were all so very nice to her. She couldn’t believe her luck!

Her fiance did not want a long engagement, nor did any of his family and friends. “You’d best snag him now, while you still can! You never know when it might be too late!” they’d tell her. Her family was concerned she was moving too fast and advised caution. But she didn’t listen. So within a few days she and Jesus were married. The ritual was of water and wine and much joy. She felt so spiritually attuned to him and seemingly he to her. She didn’t even notice much that her family was treated by her new husband’s family as less than neighborly at the wedding. She was too thrilled. The honeymoon lasted for almost a year as she and Jesus got to be on more intimate terms.

Only one thing marred her happiness. The day after her wedding a couple of members of Jesus’ family showed up at her door after he had gone to work one day. They handed her the “family book” with great reverence and awe. “Here,” they said, “you MUST memorize this and follow everything you read here. It’s very important. Your husband’s father wrote the book and we all must follow it.” “Does my husband have to follow it?” she asked. “Oh, no!” they cried, “he wrote it with his father, so he doesn’t have to follow it, but we do. It’s for our own good. Everyone will be happier if you just accept it and do it without question. Read it EVERY day and you’ll be alright.” they counseled. So, she took the book reluctantly from them and began to read it and try to follow it. It wasn’t easy because it was a mishmash of family history and stories that seemed not to have much to do with anything. But there were some parts that seemed beautiful and she wanted so much to be beautiful for her new husband.

But soon, the honeymoon excitement began to wane and things started to turn sour quickly. She knew it was her fault. Her new family kept telling her that it was her responsibility to keep the relationship exciting for Jesus. Perhaps if she didn’t talk so much or ask questions at family gatherings. Jesus’ family was pretty rowdy themselves and were always fighting and squabbling over trivial things. She didn’t know why she was always singled out as the troublemaker. There were more than enough! Pretty soon, Jesus was hinting that she’d gotten to gawdy in her attire and was putting on weight. This hurt her feelings, but she tried desperately to keep him interested. He and her family kept pointing to examples in the book which described how they wanted her to be, but it just felt false to her. It didn’t help that Jesus was off most of the time, working. He had many jobs to oversee because he worked for his father’s business. He was slated to take over the company and very soon at that. His family kept promising that soon all would be perfect and they would all be rich and move into larger quarters. Just be paitient.

However the new bride began to wonder if perhaps Jesus’ father’s business wasn’t more important than his relationship with her. He stayed out later and came home exhausted. His father was a stern unapproachable man who demanded perfection of everyone. He had no problem sacrificing his son’s health to be a success in the business he ran. It began to take a toll on her and Jesus’ marriage. Where before Jesus would listen to her talk for hours, now she knew he barely listened. She would get monosyllables for responses and he never initiated romance any longer. Their times of intimacy disappeared. She blamed herself and tried harder to adorn herself with the clothes the family manual told her to. But Jesus neither noticed or cared what she did. He was only concerned with the company. She even spent more time on her knees in front of him because he seemed to perk up when she did that. But even that wasn’t enough.

Finally, she could take no more of Jesus or his family. Nothing she did was right. She wasn’t trying hard enough, they all told her. Jesus was even contemplating new relationships with other women and seemed enraptured anew by them. He spent all his time wooing them and promising them things that never materialized for her. She was devastated and then angry. Jesus had promised her unconditional love, but she realized there were all sorts of hidden conditions attached to those promises. She tried to warn the new women he was wooing, but they were too enraptured themselves and wouldn’t listen. Other people who had been wooed by Jesus but who refused him came by to give her comfort and she was grateful for that. She also missed her family very much. Jesus’ family kept insisting that her old family had to marry members of Jesus’ family or they couldn’t be truly accepted by them. She thought this was absurd. She was at her wit’s end.

She had met some new friends while Jesus was away all the time. One friend she met, named Reason, kept telling her that it wasn’t normal for one’s husband to make her do all the work in the relationship. “Why,” Reason asked, “do you have to follow the manual to the letter, but your husband and father-in-law don’t have to?” “Ummm, because they wrote it, they know best?” she countered. Reason was aghast, “Well, why should you believe them? I know of another family who has a similar book and they say their’s is truer than yours. How do you know their book doesn’t have the best way?” That was a good point, and she didn’t know how to answer. Reason brought up lots of good points, many answers to which she could not find in her book. She began to question the veracity of the family book for the first time. She asked Jesus about it, but he told her to keep reading…it would come to her in time.

She finally decided that she’d had enough and told Jesus she wanted a divorce. He didn’t respond at all really because he was too busy, but he did leave it to his family to take care of the problem. Jesus’ father was furious and insisted that she stop this nonsense or he would cut her out of their will and inheritance. She would be left without a dime! The rest of the family were furious as well. Some tried to make her get an annulment, insisting that the marriage was never consummated. She however, KNEW differently. Others who were happily married themselves begged her to give it another try; to become more compliant and willing and do everything Jesus told her to do. She had to learn to compromise, they told her. She knew, though, that she had compromised her own self respect and integrity enough.

She moved out of Jesus’ family compound and back in with her old family, who welcomed her with loving arms. “We’ve missed you and hoped you would come to your senses, but could never contact you!” they cried. She felt ashamed for the way she had treated them and apologized. Her new friend Reason helped her to get over the relationship with Jesus, but a couple of times she ran back to Jesus and his family and tried to make amends. It would be great at first, but then the same old frustrations and coldness would creep back in. The family would let her back in, but always hoping to teach her a lesson. They didn’t allow her the same freedom as they used to and began to gossip behind her back about her new friends, even hinting that she practiced “weird rituals” and contacted unsavory characters. She tried to ignore them, but the stony silence from Jesus and his family became too much for her and she decided to move away completely; to sever the relationship for good.

She was sad, but at the same time she was excited about her new friends, her reunion with her family, and the prospect of a new life. She was elated to be free from the dark, dusty family manual that was foisted on her when she married. She soon discovered that other families had similar books, which they either took too seriously or not seriously at all. She began to read these books and found them to contain the same obscure stories and ancient homilies all designed to keep everyone believing the same things. Some of the books contained wonderful tales with new concepts and vivid images. Those she kept on her library shelf. She didn’t have to worry anymore that every book she owned had to meet Jesus’ and his family’s approval. She had less and less contact with them and more and more confidence in herself. She was finally free!

She finally settled down and married Reason, who had always been her faithful companion; from the very first time she had met him. He never lied to her and always insisted she find out things for herself rather than accept everything he said. Their relationship was effortless and loving and in their intimacy they bore several children together; Charity, Love, and Patience. Their marriage was a marriage of equals. She wished she had met him sooner, but knew that her first marriage prepared her for the maturity she needed to live a confident, free life with Reason later. And for that she was most grateful.

- Mysteryofiniquity

The more I interact with Christian fundamentalists, either in church or on the Internet, the more I become convinced it is a disease of the mind, or at least a self-replicating meme or “mind virus.” Having been a Christian fundamentalist myself, I can honestly say that you aren’t in your right mind when you are caught in the throes of religious fundamentalism. As a fundamentalist you close your mind to anything but what ancient texts say. You only listen to certain things and filter everything through the lens of your chosen religion. How can this be normal when we are born without filters of any kind (except pain and pleasure)? Being a fundamentalist is like confining all your thought to the works of Archimedes or to Shakespeare (that might not be a bad idea) and refusing to accept information past that point. It’s like insisting that Greek culture is the only true culture and channeling all of your efforts to seeing that it becomes our culture now.

That being said, there is a certain thrill in suddenly “waking up” and realizing you’ve been deluding yourself for many years. What I once did to become a fundamentalist, I have now done in freeing myself from it’s grasp. You slowly begin to grasp that the fundamentalist rituals you are using are designed solely to keep those delusions fresh and ever present in your mind so that you will quickly fall into line if you have doubts. Hell is an ever present threat. You pull out pat phrases and use terminology of the group rather than honestly grapple with questions that come your way. It’s brainwashing, pure and simple. Why? Because of two simple mental tricks foisted upon the weak of mind and ingrained over time:

1) Never trust your mind or your spirit

2) If it’s not in the “scriptures” don’t trust it.

Using this memetic device over and over, you are guaranteed to become a mental and spiritual robot, willing to take orders from those who will gladly tell you what to do and how to do it. The bible is used as the mimetic tool. Your brainwashers will interpret society and the bible for you, don’t worry about that. You may read the bible, but don’t think about it too much. If you refuse to trust your own thoughts and feelings and keep repeating to yourself that “satan” is trying to lure you away when you read other things, then you have successfully stunted your growth for the rest of your life. Is it any wonder that fundamentalists are stuck in the adolescent stage of life? Is it any wonder that they cry and bawl if they don’t get their way? Is it any wonder that when faced with opposition, they cajole, threaten, use stock phrases and when these tactics won’t work, they become violent and hateful? There’s nothing more evil than the false smile and the “God bless you” of a fundamentalist who won’t accept your view of the world as equally as valid as his. I know! I’ve done it myself and recently too! Because it’s so EASY and so smugly self-satisfying.

I’m over-generalizing here, but many Fundamentalists are people who have had rough lives and are looking for unconditional love. Every fundamentalist I’ve ever met talks of being “saved” from drug dependency, alcoholism, depression, abuse, or suicide. Or a fundamentalist speaks of feeling love for the first time in his life. Rarely does a fundamentalist come from a happy family, unless said family is already steeped in fundamentalism and the believer knows no other happiness. Why? Because happiness does not need the remedy fundamentalism provides: a tightly knit group of like-minded people who resist the larger culture in which they find themselves. Fundamentalists cannot cope with the world as it is. They must invent an ideal world that shelters them from chaos.

In a way it’s admirable that we can divert our attention this way to try to “heal” ourselves, but it is only a tiny, tiny step to full fledged mental health. And, turning to religion is not a necessary step to heal ourselves. There are other routes. Religious fervor is not a cure but a band-aid. Its effects should be temporary, but some never grow out of the fundamentalist mindset and choose to remain in ignorance. The fundamentalist worldview is basically an ideal. These ideals, like political ideologies, don’t really exist in the real world as we experience it with our bodies. These ideas must be invented and grown from revolutionary-like movements, spurred by revolutionary-like messiahs. It’s very, very hard to change the brainwashing of fundamentalism. It requires a strong sense of self and determination and the drive to be aware; to wake up! It requires education, formal or otherwise. This is why trying to reason with some fundamentalists doesn’t work. But I believe it can be done. The fundamentalist can change if they allow themselves to rethink and analyze why they believe. They can change if they perhaps allow themselves to imagine just a tiny bit that their scriptures were written ages ago by men who didn’t have all the answers and who weren’t right 100% of the time. The fundamentalist can change if they can see that their worldview is not necessarily the only “correct” worldview, or that the god they worship does not exist except in their own minds, or that the promises the church keeps teaching them will work, in fact do not work in practice. One has to pull oneself up by the bootstraps, so to speak, and realize the damage done to individuals and to families who fall victim to this mind virus. But it’s also very painful to wake up and not something people willingly take on without a serious jolt to their belief system.

For some, this kind of strength would precipitate a mental break that can’t be borne. For others, mere argument here on this site will not achieve what we hope it will, an enlightenment into reason and hope and a break from the false strictures of religion. It takes so much time to reason with rote answers. It also takes a huge dose of patience and humility to allow others to de-convert at their own pace. But, I’m willing to do it. Look at it as an intervention to save my life. Why? Because I’ve gone through the process and am still going through the process. I want to wake up.

-MysteryofIniquity

For some reason, that never sat well with me. I was furious, but taught myself to ignore the fury to be a good Christian. Nowadays there are numerous stories of child abusers, killers, rapists, and evil Christians of the Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist variety and evil Muslims such as the 9/11 hijackers and those who kill their wives, daughters, and sisters for their own “honor.” We are told again and again that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We are supposed to realize that these people are also God’s creatures and to think evilly of them and wish them harm is not a good thing to do. Yet, when the likes of Fred Phelps and his band of psychotic cult followers picketed a fallen soldier’s funeral in my small Midwestern town, I was furious. Forgive them? Are you crazy? I couldn’t do it. I cheered when the Iron Sleds, a Harley-riding motorcycle group who supports military veterans, decided to step in and guard the family from whackos like Phelps at the funeral. I secretly hoped there would be an “incident” and that Phelps would get his face smashed in, that violence would ensue.

It was at that moment that I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I could not live up to that injunction to forgive everyone. I tried for years and years to forgive and thought I had it licked. But, God will just have to not forgive me as well and by the bible’s own statements, I will die unforgiven. I will die then sort of hoping there is a hell where perverted step-fathers go and according to the bible, I will be right there with him once again. I relish that thought. I relish the revenge I would be free to finally engage in. And for that, I will rot in the Christian’s hell for eternity. You know what? I don’t care. Those people don’t deserve my forgiveness. And who cares if I forgive them anyway? The lack of justice in this world is the surest indication that God or the gods do not exist. There is no better proof in my opinion.

-Mysteryofiniquity

2Pe 1:5-7 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, (6) and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, (7) and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love….and with love, humor……….

(broken record scratch)
Wait……what? Humor? Is that in the bible?? No, absolutely not. I added that last bit. To me, the mark of a truly ethical and moral person is the ability to laugh with others and chiefly, to laugh at yourself. The inability to laugh at yourself is a true mark of hubris in my humble opinion.

One thing that has always bothered me about the bible and biblical history is that there are no examples of people laughing and having fun except in a derogatory manner. Sarah laughed, but it was more like a “Sure, I’m going to have a baby!” type of chortle I’m sure. I’m sure she wasn’t having any fun at that point! Later on Jesus himself said,

Luk 6:25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

Woe, harsh! God laughs in the bible, but usually at the demise of nations or people getting their just desserts:

Psa 59:8 But you, O LORD, laugh at them; you hold all the nations in derision.

Pro 1:26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you,

Fundamentalists of all religions possess a curious inability to laugh at themselves. Their pride and their surety that their interpretations are RIGHT are just too overwhelming. Sure, they have Christian “comedians” and people who write humorous books, but it all seems to be an attempt to convince themselves that they really can laugh. “See?” they ask, “We can laugh. Hahahahhahaha!” There are never any full-out belly laughs that come welling up from within or giggle fits because of silly things said from the pulpit. That’s not done. Somehow that’s just wrong and indulgent. Childlike. Fun even. Sure, fundies never come right out and SAY, “Don’t laugh” because they don’t have to. It’s part of the package. Sure, they all SEEM to be happy, laughing people, but it’s always at another’s expense. Those of us going to hell, that is.

Can you imagine the Inquisition busting up over a double entendre? Can you imagine Calvin chuckling? Luther? Perhaps as they were roasting heretics, but again, that’s not good humor or laughter, that’s just evil. The bible enjoins us over and over again to be “sober” and watch or God forbid, we might be caught laughing when the terrible day of the Lord comes. You know what? I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing if that happens.

- Mysteryofiniquity

From GodTube

Not only are you responsible for failing to be ready to die a martyr, you’re responsible for other peoples’ manipulative tactics as well. The only thing cheesier, and the twist I was expecting, was to make the guy with the gun become an angel or Jesus. Now THAT would have been sweet and a double smack on the knuckles! (sigh)

- Mysteryofiniquity

Painting courtesy of Christine Vaillancourt

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Christianity for the last 20 years. It’s been a long, long time since I fully, truly believed in its tenets or its “authority.” At one time I would have defended it to the death if I had to. But, things started going downhill for me when I first discovered that there were hundreds and thousands of different beliefs and doctrines and sects. Most of the differences were within the Christian church alone. I should have taken my first clue from the fact that no two churches believed 100% alike, even the Catholic Church which claimed to be the ULTIMATE truth. I think when I first realized that there was no unity of belief or doctrine, it set the stage for everything that followed.

The next sacred cow to be murdered was the doctrine of the inerrancy of the bible. Once that stranglehold of “faith” was broken, I could think clearly for the first time. It’s as if a breath of fresh air descended upon me. Some say education truly begins when you can step outside of your binding beliefs and see the world from another’s eyes. Don’t just imagine it. Truly step inside another’s beliefs and LIVE it for a while. Only then are you attempting to learn. So, university showed me that looking at an institution from the inside is not the only picture of the institution. You need to step out of the building and walk around it and peer in so that you get the whole picture. Observe it, take notes, interview others. Those who are peering at the world through the pages of a book will never get the whole picture. They need to close the book and start looking at and experiencing the world directly. They need to quit forcing something upon themselves and learn to live from the inside out.

All these steps were vital in forming my world view AND for simultaneously deconstructing my world view. (I’m not using the term as literary theory uses it (nod to Derrida), but as a literal unpacking and examining of contents). In fact, I think the prepackaged world view Christianity offered to paste over my personality was beginning to self destruct the moment I first began believing in it. I just didn’t realize it at the time. Well, how much I truly disagreed with Christianity came to the fore this morning when I cracked open the cover of the October issue of Christianity Today. The entire issue was devoted to Christianity’s chief bugaboos: the sexual “sins” of Divorce, Homosexuality, and Masturbation. Yes the old DHM, the trinity of sins that dare not speak it’s name. Oh there were other things sprinkled throughout the magazine on a variety of prepackaged subjects, but the offenses against my beliefs were almost too numerous to mention. First there is a wishful thinking article called “The Death of Blogs” by Ted Olson. Olson wants to believe desperately that the democratizing internet and the art of blogging will fall by the wayside soon. I suspect because atheism and the subsequent blogs about atheism are making huge inroads in challenging Christianity and exposing the charlatans of the movement. They sooooo want everyone to get back in the closet and keep quiet. Fortunately, this won’t happen soon.

The next offense was a series of articles about divorce and remarriage. While it may have been a good analysis of biblical ideas of divorce, I was totally put off by Ginger Kolbaba who writes that she is pretty peeved that she is second in her husband’s marriage career. She says it’s like being the Runner up at a beauty pageant. You “win” but nobody knows about it. She then says,

That pageant is the story of my marriage. I’m a runner-up wife, I’m not a first in my husband’s life. I’m a second. And, technically, I’ll always be second. Yes, I got the crown and all the privileges; the parades, the photo-ops, a great trophy husband. But I never got to experience the applause for being announced as first. His ex-wife experienced the firsts with him: first walk down the aisle, first love, first sexual experience, first house, first child….There are moments when I mourn that, when I mourn the loss of my dream to be the first (33).

There are so many things wrong with this statement and the rest of the article, and on so many levels, that I’ll let you sort it all out for yourself, but please, does anyone else EVER think this way? She mourns being first? It sounds to me like someone living in la-la land, not to mention that what she imagines are his firsts, probably really aren’t! I wouldn’t care if my husband married me after a disastrous first marriage. I could care less if he had sexual experience “first” with someone else. I do not worship or idolize virginity. It’s irrelevant to any future relationship. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The next set of articles spoke of the ex-gay movement in Christianity and the very few Christian “researchers” who are trying desperately to disprove that homosexuality is genetic or deny that it is something so innate it cannot be changed. Never mind that more reputable scholars have proven them wrong again and again. They still search on and try to convince themselves that it’s the unforgivable sin. (Oh, wait, the unforgivable sin was divorce!) The usual father and mother blaming is implied, as well as the refusal to see the opposite stance, that homosexuality is not in some dichotomous dance with heterosexuality. They refuse to see that all beings have the ability to be omnisexual. There aren’t just two sexes; that indeed some are born both sexes. What are they? Nor do they explain why some people are bisexual. Again, they assume that what is the norm for them is the norm for the whole world. Even then it’s only focused on men. Why? Because the reasons they give for male homosexuality do not jibe with the reasons for lesbianism. The mish-mash of theories goes on. Yet, they use language that alcoholics use when they say, “the urge never goes away.” Excuse me? I thought it was curable. Hmmm. Sounds like heterosexuality to me. Can we change that? The senseless demonization goes on.

After making my way through a specious article by John Piper about the sexual “failure” in the act of masturbation, I’d had enough. The only failure is such medieval views of sexuality exhibited in this issue. Oh and don’t forget this gem of a quote from Chuck Colson’s closing column, “We worship at the altar of the bitch goddess of tolerance.” On that note, I was done. It never occurred to me all at once before, as it did at that very moment, how much Christianity tries to force you into a particular mode of life, regardless of your genetic makeup, your background, your hormones, or your brain activity. The cult of Christianity appeals to our emotions first by offering itself as a panacea for all problems. It sentimentally offers Jesus as someone who will stand invisibly by your side and LISTEN to everything you have to say (and conversely watch sternly everything you do). But after reality sets in, AND IT WILL SET IN, we are offered a panoply of further teachings to try to “explain” why people consistently fail to live up to the Christian message. I know I failed at it consistently. Then I realized something.…I didn’t fail. I realized that Christianity is not a normal way of life. I realized that it wasn’t Christianity that got me through the hard, hard childhood and teen years. It was me. And I did it through my strength and through my experience in life. Christianity is based on 1st century concepts and morals that were never meant to explain to or provide for the 21st century audience. It is a theory imposed from the outside onto people who are so different and so wonderfully complex that to force us into prefab jell-o molds of philosophy and thought is the height of absurdity. Most people come to their senses and realize what they’ve been trying to do with yet another world philosophy. But sadly others don’t. Like me they hang tenaciously onto the “fun” times, like a divorced couple who remembers all the good times and not the bad, and who keep reconciling. Only to realize that it never worked and will not work again. It’s irretrievably broken. It’s time to move on.

I think, for me, it’s finally time to move on. To stop trying to force my life into what Christians say it should be. It no longer fits and I have grown out of the desperate need that precipitated my move toward faith to begin with. There’s nothing like reading about something and hearing your inner voice saying, “No, no, that’s not what I believe. That’s not me” to make you realize how much it no longer fits. How disagreeable such a hateful and narrow faith system really is. I think I’m finally ready to lay it down for the last time.

Finally, I think it’s time to retire this blog persona and, like the chameleon, morph into someone who doesn’t cause so much consternation to others.

- MysteryOfIniquity

I’ve been making my way slowly through the book Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman and am more and more convinced that there is no such thing as a “true” text of scripture, let alone an inerrant scripture or a “verbally inspired” scripture. There ain’t no such animal. It’s all verbal and doctrinal gymnastics to keep the faithful ignorant. I think that’s precisely the dirty, little secret of textual critics or anyone else who’s been to a university not tainted by religious bias and committed to honest inquiry. There is no “text” of scripture at all, but several letters, treatises, gospels, and other bits and pieces that were chosen randomly by a bishop here or another teacher there according to their whims at the time. No women were allowed to choose the texts, even though women were apostles and prophets as well. God no more orchestrated the gathering of these bits and pieces together than Zeus orchestrated the gathering of all of his children from several different mothers for a family reunion of the gods in ancient Greece. Of course, I always knew this from my own studies. Ehrman just solidified it for me.

Ehrman began his career as a conservative Moody Bible College graduate who, after working his way to a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, realized that what he was taught as an ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian just didn’t jibe with the facts. In fact, the tossing about of texts, the castigating of those of differing opinions, and the fighting over words went on from the very beginning of Christianity. This was no seamless growth of a new movement, with faithful martyrs, or wonderful conversion stories. From the beginning NO ONE AGREED on how the church should be organized, which texts were considered authoritative, or what the mission of the church was. Many claimed they knew, or had a sanction from God to have the right opinion, but they were no different than anyone else.

Jon is right when he writes that the reason the christian church is failing it’s mission is because it can’t agree on what the word “christian” means, what the word “church” means, or what is its actual “mission.” In fact, a cursory read of any history of Christianity will clearly show that Christians have been disagreeing since the death of Jesus, hardly a sign that God is directing it and a sure sign that it’s of human origin (as is every religion in the world). I’ve believed for some time now that we create the mythologies that help us cope with the world. Mine is a mix that works for me. Fundies call this the “cafeteria approach” which I see nothing wrong with. I’d much rather take that approach than the approach I call “here’s your dinner and you’d better eat all those damn peas or I’ll kick your ass six ways to Sunday!” approach. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with believing anything that helps me move with love through the world. For me, as long as you harm none, live and let live, and leave a small footprint on the planet, you can believe pretty much anything you want! If the fundie God wants to send me to hell for that, so be it. I’ve lived according to my conscience.

- MysteryOfIniquity

But I want to believe. I want to believe that there is hope for us here on earth, comfort for the sick and needy, help for the helpless and love for the unloved. I want to believe in assurance for abundant life here on earth, and everlasting life in the hereafter. I want to believe that I will spend all eternity with my wife, the woman that I love. I want to believe there is hope in the future, there is relief when I get older, and there is confidence of my eternity.

Oh, how I can believe this! I have coined a similar type of feeling that I fall into, much like HeIsSailing. I call it spiritual depression. To me, and this is ONLY my definition and no one else’s, spiritual depression is that limbo of the gray area surrounding cognitive dissonance where you want to believe one thing, but your mind tells you something else. It’s the heart/mind dichotomy. Now depending on which viewpoint you take on the extreme spectrum of believer to atheist, there are different reasons for this depression and different cures for it. Neither view solves the dilemma and leaves one even more spiritual depressed.

Surprisingly, if you Google “spiritual depression” you get a preponderance of Christian web sites. All of them tout the cure for spiritual depression as “returning to God,” repenting, turning to the Lord once again. In other words, just give in and believe already! What’s wrong with you that you just can’t believe and get it over with??? That is the implied question isn’t it? This puts the blame for your depression squarely on your shoulders. You just didn’t have enough faith in God!

Well, autodidact that I am, I decided to look at the atheist/agnostic/feminist terms for spiritual depression, which I believe are: existential angst, nihilism, existential despair, looking into the abyss. In this definition, the atheist is faced with the despair of knowing you will die and there is nothing else. I’ve faced that as well. I don’t like the feeling, but we all have to face it. No wonder the pie-in-the-sky answer of an afterlife is appealing. Like HeIsSailing, I want to be with my spouse and kids in heaven. Hell, I even want my cats to be there too! But, there is no evidence this is so. All of these terms, from both sides of the spectrum, look at spiritual depression with or without the concept of God attached to them. I have a different take on spiritual depression. I look at it through the lens of alcoholism. Once having been a huge binge drinker at one point in my life, I know whereof I speak. So let me try to explain.

Like alcohol, Christianity is an intoxicant. It alters the way we think about ourselves and our lives. It gives us false confidence where we feel like we can handle anything. When we are drunk, we feel like we are the most witty, intelligent people on the planet. We lose our inhibitions. Like alcohol, Christianity is also addictive. We are given “tools” to keep us spiritually drunk with obsessive bible reading (devotions), praise music, close, tight-knit fellowship, and prayer. Like alcoholism, I believe some have Christianity in their “blood” or in their genetic makeup. Such a one will always tend toward faith and belief, no matter how hard they try to rid themselves of it, just like the alcoholic: it’s a disease. For these people the best program is to go cold turkey. When I try to go cold turkey from Christianity, I invariable have a driving desire to go back. Weak creature that I am, I will fall off the wagon occasionally, return to church, start reading the bible again, bargain with God, you name it; but eventually the high from the binge will end and reason will reassert itself. Believe me when I say that I am in no way denigrating the struggles of alcoholics by using this analogy. But it is the best analogy I’ve come up with to illustrate what Christianity is like for me. It’s a drug, plain and simple. When I’m not on it, I feel a general spiritual malaise, as if I’m just waiting for the next binge. I’m not happy with it and I’m not completely happy without it.

When reason comes back I know what it is I need to do, but I just can’t seem to do it. In my mind, I know Christianity is bad for me. It changes me into an ugly person. I don’t like myself when I am a Christian. I go on binges where I think just one more “sip” of church-going will help me feel better. Yet, I can’t just take one more “sip.” I have to go whole-hog and drink the whole bottle, six-pack, whatever. I immerse myself once again in bible reading, bible study, committees, church-going. I make promises I can’t keep. And then once the high is gone, I have to try an extricate myself from it. Like my teen years, I wake up in the morning and don’t recognize the face next to me in bed. “What the *$&& did I do last night?” This is always the question I’m left with.

Christian web sites say that to turn back to Christianity will cure me of my spiritual depression. They write:

It is the truest part of Christian love to address the problem of sin and the curse, which can only be cured by knowing Christ, as the ultimate answer to depression. (Found at http://www.reformationtheology.com/ 2006/ 06/ thoughts_on_spiritual_depressi.php)

Yet, they miss the point. More Christianity or more Christ is not the answer for those of us who feel deeply that there must be something more basically human than putting “on the nature” of someone else. There must be something epistemologically deeper than this to fill the void that is within my spirit. Christianity itself is just a Band-aid for something as yet unarticulated. Once I faced this existential angst of my own mortality I can move into freedom and action, or so they tell me. A summary puts it this way:

2. The solution:

a. In choosing our own nature we must choose human nature for all humanity. In order to act freely, we must not let our action be determined by any of our particular desires or interests. We must act as any free agent would act, hence we must act as we would like other people to act.

b. In order to be free ourselves, we must desire the freedom of other people. To treat another person merely as an object for my use is to make an object of myself. To be free I must respect the freedom of others.

c. Even though my actions are free, they are not completely arbitrary. Just as the artist, while free to create, follows the constraints imposed by her medium, so our actions, while not governed by rules, are constrained by the choices we and others have made.

This is the closest my research has come to finding an answer for me. So now, how do I apply it without falling into the binge and purge cycle I’ve found myself in? Well, see there’s the rub. My mind says “Yes, yes!” but my heart says, “Yes, but….”

-MysteryofIniquity

Related Post: Why Do Christians Try So Hard To Convert Others?

Coming out of fundamentalist religion, which is completely patriarchal, is very hard, emotionally. The threat of hell and punishment is everywhere in the corners of your psyche. The god of fundamentalism is portrayed in the bible and in church and in all the literature as a punishing daddy who wields a rod of chastisement like nobody’s business. Oh the preachers all say god is merciful and loving, but that’s just double-speak. It’s to prevent reasonable people like you and me from running from the church. This god found in the bible and in church is the idol of every fundie parent’s eye and the supreme model for punishing their own children. I find this abhorrent. For every child out there suffering under the rods of their fathers and mothers steeped in fundamentalism, perpetuating the god as father image is tantamount to spiritual and emotional abuse of the worst order. To hold out this god as the ideal husband and father is abusive in itself.

However, fundamentalist men have a vested interest in keeping women under their control. They desire women for breeding, sexual enjoyment, and housekeeping and women are used only for reflecting their little god-sanctioned kingdom: the marital household. There is something destructive in the bible literalist, who demands and demands others become what he wants them to become, unnaturally and without mercy.

I don’t see how the ideas promoted by fundamentalism can EVER be good for women and children. As the most marginalized subset of society, women and children are ripe for exploitation and religion does more harm than good in this respect. As far as my mental health goes, I’ve tried many, many times to “submit” to the god of fundamentalism. When believers try to tell me that there is a difference between the god of the literalists and the god of their imaginations, I say that’s all well and good to say so. Their imaginations must be ten times more powerful than mine because every church I’ve ever been in, every book I’ve ever read on the subject, and every conversation I’ve ever had with believers is predicated on the notion that god is this male. He is this god the father, god the divine “He” that chastises sometimes unto death if we do not behave. I’m not interested in debating the very small distinction between the supposed “true god” and the god preached by millions of bible literalists every day. There is no distinction. It’s a ruse to get you to believe by any means necessary and nothing more.

The god of fundamentalist Christianity cannot bring peace of mind to women without women first denying who they really are at the core. I cannot live in two minds that way. I can’t live worshiping my abuser. I can’t live imagining that I’ve committed sin that a male god finds so offensive he’ll “take me out” of this life to save my soul. I’m going to find my spiritual sustenance elsewhere.

- Mystery Of Iniquity