Arrogance
The topic of humility versus arrogance has been – for the longest time – a major blocker in my own thinking as I am sure it has been for others. I remember wrestling with this issue for years as far back as when I was thirteen or fourteen. At that time I would hear others talk about it and try to sort out what it means and how to achieve it.
As I remember, the struggle went something like this. I had been told multiple things about humility – and as with all Christian doctrine – I noticed through recurring headaches that there were strong contradictions in what I was taught.
One of those major contradictions was the impossibility of pursuing ones ability to be humble if a humble person does not think about their humility. A lot of people told me not to think about being humble, but I knew I was commanded to be humble. This, naturally, made me introspect to figure out whether I was. Then I would remember that a person who is humble cannot know it. But how am I supposed to pursue humility if I cannot think about it?
Naturally I wanted to resolve this contradiction. I mean, if it hurt my head that much surely resolving it would help others, right?
But there was a problem. The Bible. The Bible was the problem. First of all, the Bible never said that a humble person does not recognize his humility. In some places it implies the opposite. If you believe Moses wrote Deuteronomy, then you have to believe that a humble man can honestly – and in humility – write that he is the most humble man on earth. Noticing this, I began to garner a general distrust for Christian memes, since it seemed like people were ultimately pulling their end ideas out of their ass and these normally contradicted the Bible in some way…
Continue Reading June 20, 2010 at 9:22 am Joshua 17 comments
Self-Deprecation
Hello everyone, I’m back – if not only for a short time – to discuss something that has been bothering me for the last month or two and with a small discovery I hope will be helpful to others still dealing with the traumatic reprogramming necessary to leave the church you once loved.
It has come to my attention recently that I am an extremely self-deprecating person. When people compliment me, I find it difficult to just casually accept their compliment without either having a completely inflated ego as if starving for attention or wanting to dismiss their genuinely kind words as unnecessary flattery. In other words, I don’t really like to think about myself except in a negative light and as a result of the lack of confidence I tend to rebound the other direction on occasion in full-on arrogance.
Now, I’m sure a decent number of people struggle with this and perhaps you are one of them. What I’ve realized recently is that the Christianity I grew up with almost encouraged this type of thinking. And here is how…
Continue Reading June 18, 2010 at 11:38 am Joshua 157 comments
Jehovah’s Linguistic Land Grab
Is your god patient?
Not if he’s the god of the bible. According to the theology of most Evangelicals, Jehovah’s wrath is so intense over the first offense of any human that he immediately deems the offender deserving of eternal torture. No joke. One offense by any offender is sufficient to incur a divine wrath so terrible that “there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” for eternity awaiting that offender when they die.
“Can’t god do what he wants?” you may ask.
Sure. There is nothing illogical about a malicious god. God can be as mean-spirited as he wants to be. But in addition to being malicious, the god of the bible is then also a liar since he claims to love the very humans he damns to hell-fire over a single offense. This god of the bible unequivocally claims in 1 Corinthians 13:4 that love (agape) is patient. If god loses his temper over the first offense, and deems eternal torture the only thing that will appease his anger, just how much space is left over for patience?
Normally when we think about patience and impatience we think of 2 extremes with a soft delineation somewhere in the middle such as is shown in the following image.
Here patience and impatience fall on a normal continuum. Because words belong to human convention, the standard for the extremes ought to reflect human sentiments about patience and impatience. For example, (more…)
Ideas About Groups For Nonbelievers
Why am I telling you all of this? Because I have realized something that I want to share with you. Even though I’m a curmudgeonly hermit-y atheist, I love going to the 3 atheist/freethinker/skeptical meetings we have every month. That’s 3 Sundays a month where I happily leave the house and go socialize with a small group of people. And I look forward to it. The one or 2 Sundays where we don’t meet I miss it.
Even people like me benefit from social community and contact. The beauty of the atheist/freethinker community is that we are relatively like-minded. We have a foundation of common ground. But we are also quite different, of course, which is good because that makes things interesting. The added bonus of freethinkers, skeptics and atheists is that we seem relatively level-headed (overall – there are exceptions, of course) and we argue and discuss matters with interest and fairness. No drama llama is invited! So it’s actually fun and mentally stimulating.
I think we all need some type of community, which is one thing that religion has in its favor that being a lone atheist or nonbeliever does not.
But this is easily remedied. I thought I’d share some thoughts on how to get involved with a secular group of like-minded people. If none exist in your area, you can start one up…
Unequally yoked marraige – episode 1
Don’t expect a Hollywood production here, folks. This has absolutely no production value, and the only edits I made were to remove two or three times where I slipped and called RoseMary by her real name. But I think the audio came out ok, and that is what is important.
I uploaded this to blip.tv since they allow me to embed an audio player here. Here is the description I put there:
My wife RoseMary and I would like to welcome you to the first episode our podcast. She is a Catholic Christian, and has been her entire life. I met her in 2004. We dated, and even though I was a liberal Baptist Christian, we fell in love. We wed in 2005. Some time in 2007, after 2 years of marraige, I lost my Christian Faith, and now considers the term ‘atheist’ to most accurately describe my religious stance. But my wife loves him whom I do not believe exists.
Does this story sound familiar? Is your marraige challenged with a similar situation? Has one of you fallen out of the Faith? Believer, what advice have you gotten from your friends, family and church? Non-believer, do you have anywhere to turn for support, or do you feel compelled to stay in the closet? RoseMary and I both believe that these stories are very common, yet few are willing to share these stories.
We are not so sure that we want to tell others our own stories, but are willing to give it a try. We want to share our experiences of being “unequally yoked”. Do you have a story to share? We would like to hear it, and possibly share it with others. Please contact us at unequallyyoked@hotmail.com
It is my hope that this proves beneficial to somebody out there, and it generates some healthy discussion around here.
- HeIsSailing
Are you unequaly yoked?
I have scoured the online world looking for stories, experiences, perspectives and worldly advice from couples who are “unequaly yoked”, particularly those where one has de-converted after marraige. With the exception of religious sites that dispense advice to win the heathen back to the Faith or consider divorce, I can find absolutely nothing out there. People in hurting marraiges need more than that. I am particularly interested in those who want to remain in a healthy marraige, and those who have children. How do you maintain a healthy marraige when you have different religious beliefs? What challenges do you face? What compromises do you make?
My wife and I would like to discuss these issues, and maybe (with Paul’s permission) post them here for your enjoyment. I should be ready to put the first episode up in the next couple of days. I don’t have any idea what will become of it, but I do think it is an important topic that *nobody* is discussing.
I am interested in your stories. Perhaps we can hook up a skype interview or something, if you are interested in sharing your experiences here – or maybe you can just submit emails for me to read. Right now, I am just in the crazy, brainstorming phase…
Continue Reading May 4, 2010 at 12:23 am HeIsSailing 32 comments
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