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As a PSA for those that this thread applies to, get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQVMFUN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_9-B1BbXT9XBWV in the nude color. Position yourself on the end of a pew and enjoy podcasts, audiobooks, etc. Hopefully that helps.
Read The Bible Unearthed. There isn't even any archaeological evidence for the genocide of Canaan or the Exodus. So now ya get to have Christians not only argue that the genocide happened because the Bible said so, but that it was morally justified. Fun!
> All she said was “I rebuke that.”
And you say, "I rebuke your rebuking". You can play that game all day.
BTW, <em>50 Simple Questions for Every Christian</em>: Guy P. Harrison
That's the lie of the TLW movement: that once you're married, all the body shaming, the whole "sex = chewed up piece of gum" horribleness, will just fly out the window on your wedding night and you'll have the most wonderful sex ever. As if people can just shed all that psychological baggage in the blink of an eye.
Personally (and thankfully) I was spared all of that. I had heard of purity rings (and that was only well after leaving Christianity) but I really didn't learn of the true awfulness of the purity movement until I read Linda Kay Klein's Pure book. Holy Toledo!
> Do they have the capability to critically think about their belief system and choose not to?
You've almost got it. Religion isn't special, though, because it's basically true for all beliefs we have. There's a fascinating book called "Thinking, Fast and Slow." The author posits and demonstrates that, when it comes to thinking, we tend to avoid high-effort thinking, like thinking critically. There just isn't enough time to hold a debate or verify every new thing we come across.
We tend to "think fast," bypassing critical thinking, especially if we'd made up our minds about the topic beforehand. We end up being skeptical only of things that clash with what we already believe, but we don't hold the same standard for things that go along with what we already believe or that don't conflict with any other belief.
Your father believes that all atheists have a form of Asperger's for the same reason. He's never challenged it because it goes along with his idea that something must be wrong with atheists, which serves to reinforce his own belief that worshipping a god is normal.
Edit: punctuation in book title
well for one, christian persecution at the beginning is something of a myth - there were some persecutions, but they were isolated events.
there's this idea that the romans just hungrily wanted all the christians dead because they were christians. however, christians at the time WANTED to be martyred - it was preached by bishops as a noble thing, it was played up in christian literature, and whenever christians were arrested they did everything they could to not co-operate so they'd be executed. (for more info, read Candida Moss' "The Myth Of Persecution", and Catherine Nixey's "The Darkening Age")
if the romans were so giddy to execute, and the christians happy to be nixed, there would be no christianity today. there woulda been no christianity by the time of constantine, to be sure.
if you want to talk about a religion that's been persecuted and survived, try judaism. compared to that culture, christianity is a wimpy crybaby.
King James, that hero of the church.
Ever read the Daemonology of King James? It’s a book where HE writes about all the torture he put people through because his fear of their majik. He was a cruel, brutal, sick, little man.
Yo there’s a book that describes what his life might’ve been like if he was born then. It’s called Eli by Bill Myers
I can’t imagine how different Christian rituals would be if this were the case.
Take your time and don't feel like you have to rush this. No one can tell you what you should believe, only you can decide what's right for you.
As for book recommendations I always recommend Demon-Haunted World as a good place to begin. It serves as a kind of primer for learning to distinguish what's true from what we only think to be true.
Good for you! It's funny that what you're saying can even be understood as a joke, when reading those books should be utterly unremarkable.
BTW, since you seem to be interested in reading about evolution you should definitely check out Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. It's the single best popular book I've read on evolution -- clear and well-written, and really makes the case in an irrefutable way. It's worthwhile on its own, but if you're dealing with skeptics it'll also give you plenty of ammunition.
In the apologetics book Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties the first paragraph in the introduction says:
...Some guidelines are as follows: 1. Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it.
Blinky and Sal Facebook page. Also, there is a book out of the first few years of Blinky and Sal called Straight from the Pit of Hell
Toe cleavage is an actual thing, though. It has its own Wikipedia page, it has a bunch of Pinterest pages (of course it fucking does), Mimi Pond talks about it in the delightful Shoes Never Lie (long overdue for a reprint). Whether it's sexual is another matter: it does seem like an incredibly minor thing to be obsessed about. But then, religious people can make anything sexual: the sight of a woman's hair will make a man go mad with lust so she has to cover it up like it's her problem and not his, clothing has to be shapeless or a man will be able to see that a woman has hips or legs and not be able to think of anything else, and god forbid you should expose your shoulders.
> How do some of you deal with this sort of thing?
go to T H E R A P Y
Seriously. I did two years of monthly sessions with an extremely good therapist to learn not just to heal from the trauma but to learn the emotional skills my Christian parents refused to or were unable to teach me.
> What can I do to calm myself down.
For $25 you can buy Mind Over Mood which includes many techniques to fight this sort of panic. In the meantime try box breathing.
It is okay to be afraid, it is okay to be sad, it is okay to be angry. When these feelings intrude into your actions and make life worse for you, it is a good sign that you would benefit from talking to a therapist. I believe in you. You are competent and strong. You deserve to be happy.
I've had a copy of "It Ain't Necessarily So" by Matthew Sturgis disappear.
Tomorrow, Dad's going to come up to you and say "I didn't realize...my entire life is a lie."
>Any books you can recommend covering this?
>Old Testament actually referred to other Gods actually being thought to exist. Do they not read it?
i've been apollogetizied on those already, they are either not real gods but metaphors for worldly things or it was taken out of context /s
Different commentaries. Little “devotionals” to make the stories more applicable to (insert demographic here)
I had the teen adventure bible or some bullshit, circa 1998.
You know, the battle of Jericho was not about slaughtering a city full of men, women and children.. it’s about “how God works in radical and XTREME ways, when you trust him!”
Edit: it was the extreme teen bible. Comments in the reviews are funny: https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Teen-Bible-NKJV/dp/0785200819#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div
I hear you, dude. Got my degree in theology before I quit, too, but dodged a bullet and had a STEM career before I started wasting my vacation time in seminary.
As toxic and abusive as the church may have been, it was still a major part of your life. It's natural to mourn that big a portion of your life dying, even if that cutting-away is healthy. You're not wrong to feel lost; the rules you had are gone. It's like suddenly having the training wheels taken off your bike.
I think the important thing to remember, the thing that really helped me, is that a lot of the "dangers" that Christianity "protected" me from, and a lot of the "important issues" that Christianity's rules were so important because of... well, they were all sort of imagined by Christians. There's no devil and no sin. The rules weren't protecting you from anything except leaving.
So sure, the world feels terrifyingly open and formless now. But it's not trying to hurt you. That's the Christian myth. The world is, more or less, willing to give you a good time. There are warm summer days and thunderstorms with hot chocolate, the slow relaxation of that inner critic you were taught to have, and a relaxation of a tenseness you may not have ever realized was there.
You may benefit from therapy now that you're in a place of openness and growth. The book Leaving The Fold might be very useful to you because it talks about what you might experience now that you've left. But, no matter what, I'm glad for you and I'm happy you've made a decision that (I think) will vastly improve your quality of life. Good luck. I'm proud of you and I have confidence that you'll make a wonderful life for yourself now.
It's not as common, but it is a thing. My mom had me read this book called "Every Young Woman's Battle". It was...weird, and I was pretty skeptical of a lot of it even as a Christian. It addressed pornography, though it was mostly to say "women do it too, but you shouldn't!" I think it also talked about wearing modest clothing, though I don't remember that part as much because, as a tomboy, I naturally prefer much more modest clothing. The part I do remember was about masturbation, and a lot of it just seemed dumb. (Yes, they considered it a sin.) It had "testimonies" in there from girls who masturbated, which was weird enough already. Some interesting ideas it had in there were:
Masturbation doesn't help you sleep. So don't try it.
Masturbation won't reduce your sex drive on a date, so don't use it to try to make it easier to say no to sex later in the evening. (Because the guy will probably want sex from you. Men are animals, after all.)
Masturbating will make your future husband frustrated because he won't be able to please you as well as you can please yourself. You don't want to sexually frustrate your future husband, right? This was the only downside to masturbation that I recall seeing in the book (besides declaring it a sin).
I found the last point in particular pretty amusing, since it seems so ridiculous. Suffice it to say, Christian women do hear this kind of nonsense too, just with more sexism!
Meditation is great. Start easy. Sit comfortably. Focus on your breath. Count the in, count the out. So, first breath in is 1, then out is 2. In is 3, out is 4. Go slow, do that for 5 breaths...the the count of 10. Very relaxing and real, unlike the commune with God.
A good book is Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meing Tan.
I recommend the books Raising Freethinkers and A Manual for Creating Atheists. The first is about raising kids especially when you were raised religious yourself. The second is about how to talk to religious people about their beliefs. I felt way more prepared to deal with my religious family in regards to my children after reading those books.
Set boundaries and prepare to hold your family to them. Our kids are young and our main rules so far are 1) no group prayer in our house, 2) no religious themed gifts, 3) when our kids are older, you are free to answer their questions honestly, but you must frame it as "this is what I believe" and not "this is the truth".
You are the parent. You make the rules.
Is there anything more specific you are worried about?
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." -- Richard Dawkins
(Now in book form with handy references, thanks to Dan Barker.)
Semi-related (maybe?): Notes from a Tilt a Whirl is the only book a pastor recommended to me when I began deconverting. The author tries to come across as a free spirit just loving the beauty of the world, but it doesn't take much reading to realize this is a fundamentalist. Even my wife (still a committed Christian) was shocked with the way the author talks about atheists and she wondered why a pastor would ever recommend this to someone struggling.
I read,”Why Evolution Is True “ by Jerry Coyne.
It’s an easy read and lays out an argument that I can’t find flaw with.
Only the most obtuse could peruse this scientific aggregate and still try to deny the age of the earth and evolution.
Do you do avoid everything in life that someone says is 'unhealthy'? Someone once said that "if you live that carefully you won't live to be a hundred; it'll just seem that way." Actually, even the Mayo Clinic doesn't subscribe to the idea that alcohol is always bad. Read their thoughts on it here:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/red-wine/ART-20048281
I've been a moderate drinker (with an occasional 'overindulgence') for my entire life. I've made it to eighty-five and I see no reason to abandon those pleasant interludes for whatever time i have left in this life!
Yeah, I think the craziest thing about what your dad said is implied. If a man is “against” God then he is incapable of having a normal loving relationship and only wants a sex slave. Do you think there’s any chance your dad is projecting? Seems like such an absurd thing to say. I guess he thinks that he can scare you by saying that into believing again.
Also: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/strike-a-chord
People's testimonies of Hell are consistent because they are based on the same source material, just as people's testimonies of alien abduction are consistent these days.
People who claim to have seen Hell, or have been there and returned, are mistaken or lying, one or the other. People make mistakes all the time, and people lie for their own benefit all the time: those are possibly the two most consistent facts about human psychology.
The question is, "Which is more likely: that someone has written a fraudulent book about their or others' experience in Hell to make money from the credulous, or that every detail about eternal punishment from a supposedly loving god is true?" I know which one I'd put my money on.
I've heard really good things about the book Pure, by Linda Kay Klein (here's the Amazon link). If money is a concern, see if your local library has it.
I 100% feel for you, I was raised with the same purity beliefs. To this day it impacts my (married) sex life, but I'm actively working through it with a professional. Highly suggest that or a therapist when you're in the financial position. Until then, there are lots of great books and so many other women who can offer you moral support. You're not alone, you're not broken, you can heal and have a healthy, happy sex life! Check out @erica.smith.sex.ed on instagram, she's the sex educator I'm working with, and she has several highlights about purity culture and recovery from it. Education and community will get you a long way until you can work with a sex-positive therapist.
Holy passive aggressive slut shaming. Gross, gross, gross.
Don't put up with this, please. Loving your family doesn't mean you have to expose yourself to this toxic garbage.
Set some boundaries, talk to your s/o about what that will mean interacting with your family in the future, let your s/o help you stick with those boundaries. Perhaps you can tell her that you aren't hiding anything, that your personal life is personal, that you are happy; that you had tried to honestly connect with her as she enters this new stage of her life; that you are deeply disappointed and saddened that she thinks so little of you and can treat you with so little respect; and that you wish her well, but will not every accept such abusive stuff from her again.
I, personally, would be extremely uncomfortable participating as MOH for such a person. I do not envy you having to figure that out.
Give her a copy of Linda Kay Klein's Pure as a wedding gift.
I looked this up at Amazon. It omits the anti-LGBT passages.
"You can’t choose your sexuality, but you can choose Jesus. Now you can choose a Bible, too. " *cackle* Hell yeah.
I wrote a novel you might find illuminating which deeply explores this topic. It's a love story between a gynoid and the roboticist responsible for creating her. He has no desire to possess her, wishing instead for her to be free and follow her own path.
However he is confronted later on in the tale by devoutly religious refugees who will not tolerate anything but a traditional relationship in the Biblical sense, and will only permit them to stay if he'll wedge her into the box that Christian sexual politics requires.
There's this long discussion between them I could just quote here for you if you'd like to save six bucks. It's all about the psychology behind Biblical gender roles and how men designed them to precondition women's behavior from birth for the sake of comforting various male insecurities about sex.
You'll note the only review is a one star, from an offended religious person. :)
I had those.
Therapy helps a LOT. Specifically CBT skills of identifying, disagreeing with, and stopping narratives put into your head by others. The book Mind Over Mood teaches this skill as well.
A good book on checking out what archaeology has found out about the Biblical stories is, "The Bible Unearthed". It shows that the Exodus, King David, King Solomon, and so on are mainly fictional tales.
Hi guessijustfeellike,
I happen to be the author of the post. Just want you to know you are not alone.
I second neverNonLearning's pointing you to clergyproject.org. They can help with practical matters for people who are in career ministry. Also seconding that you are in control of timing, particularly if your job is at stake. Don't feel guilty about this, you don't owe anyone anything.
Finding community is hard but a search on meetup.com for humanist or atheist groups should get you some IRL contacts.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk through things.
It's called "The Case Against The Case For Christ", and the author is a theologian, unlike Strobel, a former journalist whose brain was curdled by religion until he became the Christian apologist he is today.
I don't have a funny anecdote, but speaking to your point, from a book I'm currently reading (and highly recommend):
> A related distinction insisted on by Richard C. Lewontin (1983) centers on the role played by the individual organism in evolution. In Darwin's theory, only populations evolve: changes which affect the individual in the course of its lifetime cannot become part of the evolutionary process. This is because, in the model of heredity confirmed by modern genetics, the only characters that can be transmitted to the next generation are those the individual was born with.
—Evolution: The History of an Idea, by Peter J. Bowler (I'm reading the 3rd edition; there's a 25th Anniversary edition now).
That said, in the late 18th century, the evolutionary theories of French biologist J.B. Lamarck were popular, as he posited that acquired characters can be passed on, but this is fully debunked by modern genetics.
Intersex is key. When I read the chapter "The Myth of a Pink and Blue World" in Kathy Baldock's Walking the Bridgeless Canyon it cracked open a door in my brain that I didn't realize had been welded shut. God did not make them male and female; God made them male, female and thirty-one variations on what we call intersex.
Here's another good resource. Happy reading, all.
This reminds me of this famous Richard Dawkins quote:
> The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
You can see Biblical evidence for every single one of those adjectives at this web site, courtesy of Dan Barker/FFRF, who wrote a book based on Dawkins' statement. Though personally my favorite part there is "in all fiction."
Yes, Jesus existed. He was most likely an apocalyptic prophet/preacher.
If you can stomach a read, Bart Ehrman has written a number of books. I'm currently reading this one and it's just fascinating. I'm not much of a reader and it's slow progress for me, but I'm really enjoying learning who Jesus likely was. He was in some ways, more amazing than I had previously thought.
If you have a subscription to Audible.com, I'd recommend Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity from The Great Courses. I just finished it, and thought it was fantastic. It's given like a college-style lecture, and each lecture is only about 30 minutes long. It goes over the whole of history from the Big Bang, the creation of stars, planets, planet Earth, the evolution of life and humans, and what we know of pre-recorded and recorded history up to the present.
More importantly, though, it goes over how we know all of this. It doesn't go deep in on any particular topic, but it's good for a drive-by overview of the Big Bang/cosmology/evolution/human history that puts more in-depth studies into a good perspective.
edit: spelling
In case anyone wants to know (as I did), this quote comes from Unseen Academicals (according to goodreads.com).
I discovered at various Pride celebrations this year that there's specifically a weed pride flag. And Amazon has it, of course.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Canadian variant flying around somewhere.
For starters, and I hope this doesn't come off weird, masturbate. One of the best ways to be better with a partner is to know your own body and to learn what you like and how you like it. Second, communicate with your partner about what you want and need before, during, and after sex, and ask her what she needs from you, as well.
I would also suggest checking out this book - Understanding Human Sexuality (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0073382620/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_W7XSub0BNY67H). I studied it for Psychology of Human Sexuality, and it provides excellent and subjective info on everything from the biological mechanics of sex and reprpduction to STDs to relationships and dating. There is some info in there about counseling and therapy, as it is a psychology textbook, but you may even find value in that.
And remember, not every time you have intercourse will be amazing. Sometimes there's simply no spark, and sometimes it's over too quickly. It happens to everyone, and this is another area where communication is key.
Best of luck!
>It's like a cult.
As for the conspiracy stuff, I think it's an outlet for skepticism for people trained to be skeptical of everything except Christianity. Starting from the wrong position that Christianity is true, unsurprisingly that leads them to a lot of other drastically, comically wrong conclusions.
Although the other half of it is that many of them don't actually know what critical thinking or the scientific method entail, and think that 'doing your own investigation' means watching Youtube videos, believing in the ones you find compelling.
Yes. It’s not all of them, but some of the most egregious and faith shaking.
I recommend following it with the “Christian” rebuttal. Makes for very interesting back to back perspective shifts.
Thanks, this is a good resource!
I'm still not sure I buy the mythicist position. I think it's likely (at least probable) that the accounts of his life are a composite of a few apocalyptic-cult Jewish preachers and a large dose of fiction, most of which was fabricated long after his death, but it sounds like a stretch to argue positively that the man didn't exist at all.
I guess I'd be much more likely to believe the mythicist position if it could be shown that other contemporary cults had fabricated their godheads as well and that this was a common occurrence in Jewish culture at the time.
Either way one thing is absolutely clear- the Jesus described in the bible clearly did NOT exist.
edit: I looked up the author and found this exact book on Amazon.
Hey! I got mine at an independent store in Phoenix, but I just found some on Amazon!
>I haven't ruled fully ruled out that the Torah is illegitimate for myself yet.
Look at the religious history of ancient Israel (according to actual historians & scholars), and you will have that answer. Much of the OT is fabrication/storytelling & retelling of prior beliefs that preceded this Yahweh character who got merged into those beliefs. To get you started, you can chase down some of these questions, which I'll leave you to do in your own time as it's a lot to process:
Who are the "sons of God" who came down and slept with the daughters of men to produce giants called Nephilim? Why was this not interpreted as angels until the 3rd century BCE?
Giants were the descendants of Anak, according to the OT. Who is Anak?
What is this divine assembly in Psalm 82, where God says to the rest of the assembly that they are gods, but will die like men?
Once you have those answers, you will be able to answer the next one : Why did Jacob inscribe on the altar "El Elohe y'Israel," meaning "El, the god of Israel," yet the rest of the Bible uses the form "Elohim" to refer to God? Does the common English translation "God, the God of Israel" even make any sense in a world where many gods were worshiped in the very same region, or is it more likely he was stating the name a specific god and calling him the god of Israel?
Where did this other "name" of God, Yahweh, originate? (Hint: Shasu)
From there, you might find it interesting to chase down this character called Moses and his real name & history. (Hint: He wasn't from the Levant)
Recommended reading: The Invention of God by Thomas Römer
> I find no pleasure in anything
This is one of the classic definitions of clinical depression. When weighing the trustworthiness of your emotions, and evaluating competing philosophical/religious stances, you are largely trying to apply some kind of transcendental/magical solution to a biochemical condition. That observation doesn't necessary devalue what you are trying to do, because making sense of existence is something ~~all~~ many of us are driven to attempt. But be aware that the solution(s) you need might not even be in the realm of your inquiries.
Having said all that..... I'll skip the first of your numbered questions because of lack of experience, but:
> Do you find your emotions trustworthy?
My emotions aren't propositions that can be true or false. They're the stuff of life, and whether they would seem to steer me straight or crooked, they are mine, and they are not to be denied.
> How do you know whether to base decisions on logic versus feelings?
Note that the question of "decisions" here usually has more to do with action than belief. My heart tells me what to do in a way that serves the happiness of myself and those I care about, and the head serves the heart, helping with strategy, warning it against foolishness now and then.
> Are feelings sometimes more important to well-being than logic, or do the two always have to fit neatly together to be ideal?
In the end, they're sides of a coin. Because we know the heart is the head. Growing means achieving more integration. As such my own opinion is that we learn more about the heart by studying psychology than we do studying religion or philosophy. Big recommendation for the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman: it's solid scholarship that addresses these head/heart issues in a surprising way.
I'm sorry to hear you're going through such a rough time - sounds extremely difficult.
The idea that you can only choose between conservative Christian theology and atheism is a false choice. There are lots of other possible religious and spiritual paradigms out there, and I personally still believe in an afterlife even though I have left my old Christian faith. Christians want you to think those are the only two options because it serves their goals and keeps people stuck.
I would also highly recommend EFT tapping, as it's a technique that has helped me a lot with my anxiety and health issues. I can't promise it will solve all your problems or be an overnight fix, but it's one of the best self-help tools I've found. It's also often recommended for people dealing with trauma. 'The Tapping Solution' book by Nick Ortner is also good and relatively cheap as an ebook.
I hope you can find the help you need somehow, and don't forgot to reach out and call free mental health support lines if you ever need it. This website is also a good place if you need free chat support: https://www.7cups.com. You might also want to check out the Exvangelical group on Facebook, as there are lots of people there who can relate to your struggles.
Cults, including christian ones, aim to keep people uneducated. That means carefully controlling what they read. It's unlikely that your coworker was allowed to read freely.
While I appreciate u/Aro_Space_Ace's input on the matter, there is considered by most people to be a difference between "fringe" christians and outright cults. Ace's parents allowed them to read, and perhaps even encouraged a broader education. It would seem that they were not part of a full-blown cult, although they were perhaps fringe, given that mainstream christians typically don't homeschool.
A wider vocabulary requires a wider education. A wider education is very dangerous to cults.
Indeed, I posted this link in the sub today that helps you get a bit of a glimpse as to why cults would want to prevent extensive reading: https://buffer.com/resources/reading-fiction/
In essence, reading helps you develop empathy (counterproductive to christianity in general, and more so for cults), tolerance (same as for empathy--this is bad for christianity), and emotional intelligence (ditto here).
They would want their child to read the bable, but only the parts of it they wanted, and they would be super careful to inform them of how to "properly" interpret anything. All questioning would be firmly punished "to save [the child's] soul".
During my de-conversion I most definitely struggled with this feeling. Everything in the world suddenly became "gray," and all of a sudden absolutely nothing I did seemed to matter at all. I described it as "living in Ecclesiastes."
One route to go is the Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus, try to find your own meaning in the struggle of human existence, route. Accept that life is meaningless and enjoy your sandwich wholeheartedly. I just couldn't accept that. I couldn't learn to enjoy the sandwich without at least some vague sense of a higher purpose.
Another route to go, and where I ended up, is some type of spirituality without religion. I fell in love with the mystic strands which span across religious traditions. Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy led me on a route to reading the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, The Cloud of Unknowing, The Desert Fathers, Philokalia, Kabbalah, Sufis, Buddhist descriptions of meditative states, etc. I believe Sam Harris' Waking Up explores some of this as well from an Atheist perspective. I have come to rest in "spiritual practice" without doctrine. I practice Centering Prayer, which is extremely similar to Transcendental Meditation and some strands of Zen. I think the difference in some of these meditation practices is simply how the person describes the experience (i.e. using "God" language, "emptiness" language, etc.).
Another author I really resonate with now is Viktor Frankl who most famously wrote Man's Search for Meaning. He says there that man can get through any "How" if he has a "Why." If we have a sense of higher purpose, the struggles in our lives make sense. Maybe it's just because I can't shake off my C.S. Lewis days, but I still think that humanity's felt need for "purpose" points to something above or beyond the physical. Something we can rightly use the word "spiritual" to describe.
You might be interested in Alpha God by Hector Garcia:
>The book focuses on the image of God as the dominant male in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This traditional God concept is seen as a reflection of the "dominant ape" paradigm so evident in the hierarchical social structures of primates, with whom we have a strong genetic connection.The author describes the main features of male-dominated primate social hierarchies- specifically, the role of the alpha male as the protector of the group; his sexual dominance and use of violence and oppression to attain food, females, and territory; in-group altruism vs. out-group hostility (us vs. them); and displays of dominance and submission to establish roles within the social hierarchy.
My introduction to Sagan was his 13 part series.
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X1F546N/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_8GCR54EVG8S5VZV137XB
It's a wonderful documentary series. It was made before the "'History Channel" style of bombastic documentary style.
It is both deeply informative yet also presented by someone with a genuine love of astronomy and human potential.
Motivated reasoning plays a strong role in why people persist in believing in bad ideas, even well after they should've discarded them. And faith itself is a powerful amplifier of motivated reasoning. If you already believe in an idea; and the entire idea of faith is to get people to believe in certain ideas strongly; every thought you have about that idea is filtered through layers of motivation and complexes of belief about the world.
When inside a system of beliefs, you see the world very differently than when outside it. That's the entire purpose of systems of belief.
There's a decent book that covers this sort of topic in detail; from people believing in scams, cults, pseudo-science, to holocaust deniers. Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer. One insight I pulled from the book is: smart people aren't necessarily less likely to believe in false ideas, or to divest themself of bad beliefs. Smart people are more capable, after all, of coming up with intelligent-sounding reasons to believe in bad ideas. So it's really important to learn skills to test your ideas, and to find trustworthy sources for your information.
The message you got said
>“Those who do not weep do not see.”
That has absolutely nothing to do with Crohn's disease at all.
What happened was someone sent a text to the wrong number (as they told you after you tried to contact them). Then you decided to try to make it into a prophecy by making incredibly flimsy connections like "The message said 'weep' and Chrohn's disease makes people sad!"
If anything, this story illustrates the lengths Christians are willing to stretch to produce "evidence" of the supernatural.
I was a bit anxious, but I knew the facts were the facts regardless of what I or anyone else "believes". Here is a great quote by H.L. Mencken that always gives me perspective.
But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant. -H.L. Mencken
It depends where you fall on the spectrum of skepticism... Finding others who share 'similar enough' views is a big key, Atheism has increased by leaps and bounds over the last few decades (so it tends to be the easiest post-christian group to fall into). There are plenty of 'atheist sunday brunches' and other regular get togethers on websites like meetup.com
There are less, general 'skeptics' groups... but they are out there. If you really like to get down and dirty discussing these sorts of things, you can check out some Philosophy meetups (though be forewarned there are obviously many views there, including some more religiously prone thinking)... but it's still a place to chat (also usually listed on meetup.com).
It really does require a willing flexibility though regardless of the group ya likely choose. Some are casual about it and others more 'militant'. I wish that I tended toward more of the social aspect than general discussion bit (no two people really line up that well... so just doing things together tends to be more successful).
>"No man can control his belief. You cannot believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. You hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which falls."
From Robert G. Ingersoll's What Must We Do to be Saved? A very compelling author on the subject.
That was one particular study. There have been others - I found this metastudy, which surveys several experiments (with mixed results).
there are plenty of atheist groups online on facebook locally, etc. meetup.com
universal unitarians
hobbies
volunteering
activism for social causes: human rights, animal rights etc.
if you can move to a more secular location that is a fantastic option.
I'm familiar with it, yeah. Lots of misinterpretations of Genesis that lead to the museum skewing science. I know of a good book on it that breaks it down into layman's terms
https://www.amazon.ca/Mis-interpreting-Genesis-Creation-Misunderstands/dp/0578823691
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius
"The Communist Manifesto" by Marx & Engels
Check out "How to Have Impossible Conversations".
You can care for somebody who isn't reasonable, up to a point. Depending on her willingness to have fair discussions, it may be best to simply not discuss religion/politics and stick to other subjects.
I've recently purchased this book. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0996091300/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
I've listened to a lot of his debates on YouTube and done a lot of looking into why Jews don't accept Jesus. I think it's probably the most important question that christians should research.
I was always just told they were, of course, stubborn and refused to listen. Perhaps they just know something we don't.
I'm in a similar situation, older, but I've had some experience dating. COVID has given me a convenient excuse to work through things for a while before actually seeking to date, so that's what I'm doing. Can't guarantee what I'm doing will work out, but that's all I've got. I'm an early 30s cis straight male for context.
- I'm working out. Not just important for health, but it definitely helps with confidence. Makes me feel more attached to my body and taking ownership of it. Not having to ask myself "bUt iS My hEaRt iN ThE RiGhT PlAcE" when I make positive changes helps a ton.
- I'm reading some secular relationship books. "Attached" and some books by the Gottmans are on my reading list.
- I would like to find information on what dating actually looks like. My past relationships were spawned out of church groups and weren't always healthy, so I don't have a great perspective here. I think I know what I'd want, but I might still have some Christian blinders here. I just haven't found a good resource for sorting that out.
- I'm reading Guide to Getting It On. It helps with answering questions about kissing, sex, and anatomy so I won't be clueless. Fair warning for Southern Baptist eyes - there are pictures of sex organs and dancing.
I probably can't provide much more in the way of advice, but feel free to send me a PM if you want someone to commiserate with.
No problems with OP's thesis whatsoever. For most people, however, Lifton's TR&tPoT is too anecdotal and early in Lifton's development of his thesis. Having read several of RJL's books, and for anyone interested in his groundbreaking, first-hand research, its implications and later real*izations, may I recommend his concise and currently relevant 2019 book, *Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry**?
cc: u/foxyshambles, u/59Spruce, u/DJ_Hastings013
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything is a great place to start. Read his introduction in the Amazon preview and you'll get an idea of the books content.
Here's a typical review:
'A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time and space, Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey, and reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.'
Another book, actually written from a Christian perspective by former bishop N. T. Wright is "The Challenge of Jesus". This book challenges much of the narrative of Jesus and encourages the church to get back to some facts in their belief system, which caused me to question much of what I had ever been taught. It was one of the first books at the beginning of my deconversion, especially since I was willing to read it. Just see this negative Amazon review for an idea of its power.
Lol so the guy was arrested and executed by Hitler before completing a couple chapters or giving it a title; the book is now just titled Ethics, by Deitrich Bonhoeffer.
I can’t find a not-sketchy pdf link so here’s a link to the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/dp/068481501X
For sex ed, www.scarleteen.com is great. They cover healthy relationships and boundaries as well as just the sex part. I highly recommend it for people who grew up in religious environments with an emphasis on gender roles. Their site has a search function and posts are tagged, so you can always just bookmark it for when you need it. They also have a book that I need to dig into.
I (cis woman) was basically taught to be passive and wait for a man to ask me out, then let him run roughshod all over me in the relationship. Learning how to actually communicate my needs has definitely been helpful.
In addition to a focus on critical thinking skills that includes identifying fallacies and formal logical flaws in arguments (and very closely related to it) you may also want to focus on skepticism (really a component of critical thinking): to withhold acceptance of ideas until they have been justified by sound arguments. If you want to learn about it in a more formal way there is a university press (MIT Press) book recently published: Critical Thinking (MIT Press Essential Knowledge series). It's a small format short volume that discusses the history of critical thinking, the elements of critical analysis, and practical tools for analyzing arguments and developing critical thinking skills.
If you are up to a difficult read: The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James
It's old and too long, but it's divided in 20 lectures or so, so you can always browse a bit and read a part that looks interesting.
I still have the gnawing feeling too. I think it is just the human condition to always feel unsatisfied and like there is something missing in life until you find something worth living for. Some people find that in religion, any religion. But once you find out Santa isn't real, you can't go back to believing. I haven't yet found my reason for living since I left, and that has been really hard. I've started going to Buddhist services just to seek out other ways of thinking. A lot of what I've learned has really helped me, although I don't believe in any of the supernatural beliefs Buddhists do (karma, reincarnation etc). A book that really helped me process this was "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E Frankl. He went through Nazi death camps as a psychiatrist and his studying the people around him in the concentration camps was what got him through. He has a unique perspective on why some people find purpose and others don't.
You are definitely not alone in your feelings. I was fortunate in that my husband and many of our friends had already deconverted so I wasn't alone once I did. We are hoping to move to a more progressive city where everything and everyone isn't stuck in the same Christian, Republican, and racist mindset that pervades my small town.
Models by Mark Manson is a great guide for learning to express yourself in a attractive way. That will set you on a good track.
Your story is uniquely yours. You can own it without being embarrassed. And you are definitely investing too much interest in these girls. Just be casual. MM covers this is the book. As well as dating, etc. The audio book version was great for me.
Didn't really work for me and those around me. We wanted to wait for marriage but didn't realize how quickly making out leads to sex. (Edit- sex after like 3 weeks of dating, then we kept telling each other that we were going to stop have sex now, until 3 years later when we finally just got married. Ha!) Then again, my household wasn't a good Christian one and my SO was a Mormon also from a pretty messed up household.
My niece wore the whole purity promise ring thing but we were happy that she didn't get knocked up till she was 20. Still not married but they're going to be good parents.
I feel bad for those of you deeply affected negatively by the purity movement. However, it is extremely common for men to feel guilt and shame for showing their sexuality. Not sure why but it's not just Christians.
There's a great book out there to help guys get comfortable with women and to feel comfortable expressing their sexual desires. Models by Mark Manson. I highly recommend the audio book.
Read Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning. He was a Jewish psychiatrist in Germany in the 1930's, and you can guess what happened to him -- but he survived, and later wrote a book on how human beings create hope and meaning out of extreme suffering. It's powerful, insightful, and not religious at all.
Yeah I didn't get to celebrate Christmas at all between ages 12-18 because my Dad decided it was too pagan.
It was after reading a book which outlines all the ways Catholic traditions came from ancient pagan religions. Even though its premise is that the Catholic Church is the woman Babylon described in the book of Revelation, the level of detail is pretty interesting.
I remember sneakily listening to Christmas music on the radio in my room when I thought no one would hear me.
A large part of your identity evaporated. I don't think there is a human on earth that can just calmly walk through that and not feel shitty or isolated. You aren't isolated in how you feel. You don't have to feel like you are the one guy in the room who ended up not having a broad and experienced time as a child/teen/20 something.
As for dating I never really learned to date either. I did meet my husband as a friend and we just hung out together long enough that our personalities meshed. We never had any kind of official court-ship or dating, etc. Just one day it was.
Work on friends first. Do you have any hobbies? Any interests? You might want to check out meetup.com. Most groups are welcoming of newcomers. If you DO happen to find an odd group don't let it discourage you either. People of all types can be found anyplace you can find people.
One last thing. I want to point out every time you say to yourself "I am an awkward, incomplete human." You reinforce that idea. You build a shrine inside your mind to your own loss and pray to it. As hard as it is now you need to walk on the sand alone. Jesus isn't going to carry you, but that's okay. You can carry yourself. If you persist, others will come along and help you carry.
You are a person. Don't treat yourself as anything less. You are a person and you are just as capable as any other person you meet. You are just as fragile as any other person you meet. You are just as capable of forming friendships as any person you meet. Treat yourself as such going forward.
>I haven’t “found Jesus”
I haven't found the Loch Ness Monster ... for the same reason.
See this chapter of an old book. Free online.
Just read this:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46986/46986-h/46986-h.htm#ch2
You can read the rest of the book if you wish but this does it.
Hell is proof positive that the religion is fake. Imagine a car salesman who used that as a selling point. You'd know how bad he was if he claimed everyone else's cars would burst into flames and kill you.
Read this chapter of this book.
It's free online and is devastating.
The language is a little odd because it was published in 1910. But it will get you set up.
Not the same, but there are parallels. My mom, dad, brother and half sister have more of the trappings of success than I do. I struggle to get through life a bit, and am regularly in physical pain. I have an Associate's degree with help from Voc Rehab and work through them to attempt to find a job when my illness doesn't flare up.
My mom and sister have Bachelor's degrees. My Dad is a not really practicing lawyer. My brother has a Master's in business. Here's his LinkedIn page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/oclaypool
While not the same, my apparent lack of success generates similar feeling for me I think, as being around Christian family members. I think they are all Christian, though if they left the faith they wouldn't be telling anyone.
Addendum: this link below is a free book by philosopher who wrote on this subject. It is very dense and very heavy reading, but it's a decent rebuttal to what you're having to do here. It is called "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" by David Hume. An older religious scholar, St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote about 5 "proofs" that god is real but they have some gaping holes and so Hume rebutted them, but did it as though it was a conversation between people.
​
>So you believe there's a boogeyman in the sky who determines the fate of your soul but you won't believe a virus or pandemic exists? Fuck you.
Please refer to "our father in heaven" as Sky Daddy. Thank you. ;-)
And have a present.
This... is not the proper use of this meme format. Both buttons are doing the exact same thing in your meme. Choosing one is also choosing the other.
It should be two contradictory things that the subject is choosing between. Like “scream about how evil lil nas is” and “stay silent so he gets no attention”
But that’s still a pretty shitty meme. It’s usually used to portray two contradictory beliefs or actions.
Like this: https://www.kapwing.com/explore/daily-struggle-two-buttons-meme-template
Interactions with "God" can pretty much be explauned by God consisting of the same stuff as the self and imagination.
Miracles can be explained by the stuff mentioned in Tim Minchin's Thank you God.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=lyrics+tim+minchin+thank+you+god
What do you mean by "cranky?" Pissed off? Dubious?
This isn't exactly quackery...there are sites out there that are filled to the brim with evidence that it works...Though it is a shame that no real scientific research has been conducted on the subject.
EDIT: come to think of it, it's a real shame that the medical community is as polarized over the issue as everyone else.
To further this point, people have a certain expectation about what's going to happen to them on a given day. Any events outside that expectation have varying degrees of "hmm that was odd" assigned to it. What confirmation bias does is say "ok, the more of an outlier an event is, the more God had a hand in it." Which is fallacious on many accounts.
Here's a graphical representation using the normal distribution (bell curve).
I do. I don't think it's terribly pleased with me at the moment, but I try to improve little by little every day.
If you would like to explore therapeutic advice before you decide to meet with a therapist, the book Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell has a lot of great examples of why exchristians feel the way they do and offers therapy advice for overcoming it. I felt the same way about going to traditional therapy (and I haven't yet) but this book helped me want to and understand my need for it as a tool for a healthier life. It might be a helpful gateway into therapy for you. Good luck! We all support you here.
Your Inner Fish is a wondrous book about how we evolved to be the way we are.
The Five Ages of the Universe is the most mind-expanding book I have ever read, about how the universe began, how it got to be the way it is, and how it will eventually end. Compulsively readable and accessible even to a non-scientist.
No one wrote anything with the intention of telling straight history in those days. You were telling a story to persuade people, and everyone knew that. Jesus fulfills OT prophesy because the people who wrote those books wanted him to do so. It simply didn't happen, just as all the miracles attributed to him simply didn't happen.
I found an interesting book in a secondhand store called "From Jesus to Christ", which looks at the new testament chronologically from when it was written, trying to suss out the different views of Jesus that grew as Christianity did. Chronologically, it's the genuine Pauline epistles, then Mark, then Matthew and Luke, then Acts, then the other epistles attributed to Paul, then John. https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Christ-Origins-Testament-Images/dp/0300084579
You're correct.
Brazil's evangelicals are rising every year. Specially due the Evangelical's boom from the 80s to 90s because of the end military dictatorship. Like, the majority here, for now, still catholic but that number will decrease and the evangelicals will surpass them.
Andrew Chesnut studied this phenomena in the America Latin and, in my opinion, he is the best source for this in english. And he wrote once about this boom in the 90s in Brazil
Even going back further The Wisdom of Ptahhotep the oldest book in the world has great principles on how to treat people in different positions and you can still be a better person...
https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Ptah-Hotep-Christian-Jacq/dp/1845293428
I ended up throwing away my old student Bible & uninstalled the KJV Bible app once I learned the ugly, horrible truth of the Bible itself & how much of it's been plagiarized from other religions, etc.
Also, if there's one "Bible" that you or anyone else ought to have, it's this:
I highly suggest you get the Anabelle and Aiden books just to balance out the Bible crazy and get them thinking.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08394SQLF?ref_=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_thcv&binding=hardcover
Perhaps you’d find some congruence in reading A History of God (Karen Armstrong) which is a well-sourced look at the evolution of the Abrahamic tradition from polytheism into Judaism into Christianity & Islam.
Demystifying religion - seeing the evidence that it was created by people just like every other religion - really helped me realize I needed to let it go. Regardless, just keep looking for reliable, well sourced facts.
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345384563/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MXHTKJK73M3YZZPHNQWZ
< ...stop focusing on the negatives and to "focus on the positives"...
One of the most common religious traditionalist memes of the past half century. (If I've heard it once...)
But, figure this, <em>The True Believer</em> cannot hear what is not already stuck in his mental headphones.
> ...church leaders... made it an issue about me and my unwillingness to forgive.
Get <strong>This Book</strong> (NOW). Here's why:
"Never before has world-renowned psychoanalyst Alice Miller examined so persuasively the long-range consequences of childhood abuse on the body. Using the experiences of her patients along with the biographical stories of literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust, Miller shows how a child's humiliation, impotence, and bottled rage will manifest itself as adult illness―be it cancer, stroke, or other debilitating diseases. Never one to shy away from controversy, Miller urges society as a whole to jettison its belief in the Fourth [Roman Catholic] Commandment and not to extend forgiveness to parents whose tyrannical childrearing methods have resulted in unhappy, and often ruined, adult lives."