Christian Baggage Carousel #1

A

ahimsa

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I've manged to bury the idea of Jesus as the savior of man very deep within myself.

I am what some might refer to as a struggling christian, because while I no longer identify myself as “christian,” the baggage of that birthright and indoctrination is something that is still very much a part of me. It is excess baggage in that I really don't need it, yet I find it very difficult set down. It follows me from place to place, but I am unable to walk away from the baggage carousel. The problem with excess baggage is that if you carry it long enough, it will eventually become a real burden. It will chafe at your hands and become heavier and heavier, slowing down your journey and effecting your ability to move or “think” freely.

My personal struggle to know god and understand my connection, as well as my academic investigations of religious philosophy in general, have resulted in a complete polar shifting of my personal belief in god. My new position is simple. God is perfect. God is pure. God is love. In this trinity, there is no place for anger, wrath, jealousy or murder. In this trinity, there is no home for hatred, intolerance and disharmony. It's simply impossible.

The bible is terrifying. The Quran is terrifying. Even parts of the Gita are drenched in fear and violence. At what point will human-kind become tired of these useless narratives? Even a small child knows there is nothing to be gained from violence. Why do people continue subject their children to a birthright of violence and human suffering and call it religion? Why must we make them afraid of god? What is the point of their trembling?

The god in my heart, that exist everywhere, without form or specified substance, weeps at their trembling. The god that I wish to know, suffers for human-kind without exclusion, loves without conditions and is incapable of causing harm to any living thing.There is no “one people” in this divine kingdom. There is no loyalty and there is no wrath. In this kingdom there is only unity and equanimity.
 
Ahimsa, a lot of Christianity is based on trying to make you feel as guilty as possible. Zero in on how Christianity makes you feel guilty. Count as many examples as you can find.

The next step will be to do something about it, but first of all let us know how you are doing with this first step.

Just to give you a little background about me, I too am a former Christian. When I was finally able to break away from the guilt trips they all tried to lay on me, things went a lot better for me. Christianity no longer has the power to make me feel guilty about anything. It took a while, but I finally made it. You can too!

You have nothing to feel guilty about. Keep telling yourself this.

Keep us posted as to how it is going.
 
I understand where you are. I was there at one time.

I am not responding because I disagree with Nick or Wil but because I agree with them both and to add one thought.

I will offer this. Your struggle seems to be with a concept of Christianity. Change the concept. You would not be the first to rely upon one's own interpretation of the text. Good luck.
 
Welcome Ahimsa. It would be of help if you would clarify in what Christian denomination you were raised in. Sounds very Baptist to me. Although some over the top Catholic groups can be as bad. Which group's indoctrination are we talking about. If you feel comfortable saying.

Because there are many Christian traditions that do not lean so heavily on the guilt trip agenda, some do not lean on it at all. It might be you need to merely refocus on a different doctrine that suites your belief structure better.
 
ahimsa said:
The bible is terrifying. The Quran is terrifying.
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The recent history of the 20th century is terrifying – and 'religion' was not the cause of tragedies on an industrial scale. The Shoa, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot ... the point is not turn away from history, but to seek to understand it.

ahimsa said:
At what point will human-kind become tired of these useless narratives?
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At no point. They are the only narratives we're really interested in. We say we aren't, but we're kidding ourselves.

ahimsa said:
Why do people continue subject their children to a birthright of violence and human suffering and call it religion? Why must we make them afraid of god? What is the point of their trembling?
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Seems to me you've had an exposure to a particular culture, rather than a religion. I don't know a religion of violence and human suffering. I see plenty of evidence of cultures distorting religious messages for their own ends.

ahimsa said:
The god in my heart, that exist everywhere, without form or specified substance, weeps at their trembling.
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One needs to proceed carefully here. I reject the idea of God 'weeping' for the same reason I reject the idea of God as 'jealous' or 'vengeful' ... I reject the idea of God conditioned by emotion, that's an anthropomorphism.

ahimsa said:
The god that I wish to know, suffers for human-kind without exclusion, loves without conditions and is incapable of causing harm to any living thing. There is no “one people” in this divine kingdom. There is no loyalty and there is no wrath. In this kingdom there is only unity and equanimity.
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I rather think that's been the religious message from the beginning.

But for unity and equanimity there has to be harmony ...
 
I don't know a religion of violence and human suffering. I see plenty of evidence of cultures distorting religious messages for their own ends. Thomas.

This is certainly the religious party line. All I know is that our history is filled to overflowing with violence and human suffering done in the name of religion. It is uncomfortable for me to let the religions off the hook so easily as you propose.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
All I know is that our history is filled to overflowing with violence and human suffering done in the name of religion. It is uncomfortable for me to let the religions off the hook so easily as you propose.
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I like to play the devil's advocate on this one! People are quite happy to make that claim, because having distanced themselves from religion, it means they cannot be held accountable for history. The fact that the West overflows with violence and human suffering not done in the name of religion should have made the point by now that blaming 'religion' nowadays is just a cop-out.

It's a discreet form of tribalism, really. The non-religious say it to each other, and they nod, and so the meme goes on.

I mean, look at America. A nation founded on an active programme of ethnic cleansing and biological warfare. A civil war fought over the right to own slaves. A nation that practice eugenics; enforced sterilisation, enforced lobotomy, etc., to weed out those elements of society deemed not up to the mark. A nation that has replaced slavery with a penal system. A nation that has killed four of its own presidents, and has been perhaps more active than any other in overthrowing ... sorry ... it bringing about 'regime change' ... in countries unfavourable to its commercial prospects ... need I go on? I cloud blame all our ills on America since WW2.
 
You misunderstand me. I do not separate out religions as a special case. I would make the same claims for regimes as I would for religions. Or for ethnic groups. Any fill-in-the-blank that does evil in this world should not be able to get off the hook of its responsibility by claiming it's not the institution, it is people abusing the institution. The people are the institution!
 
My point was that I was not referring but to religion alone. However to respond to your comment, if an institution can be used or misused for a bad act, the individuals themselves doing the act are responsible. If they do a bad act in the name of an institution which condones it, it is also the institution that is responsible.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
My point was that I was not referring but to religion alone. However to respond to your comment, if an institution can be used or misused for a bad act, the individuals themselves doing the act are responsible. If they do a bad act in the name of an institution which condones it, it is also the institution that is responsible.
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Do you think Christianity as a whole is coherent enough to condone or condemn?
 
I was raised in the Southern Baptist hellfire and brimstone, no dancing, no drinking, no premarital sex, no smoking, no cussing tradition (although infarctions of the latter two were generally allowed indulgences of the flesh weaker brethren might not have mastery over just yet). It has an internal logic that kind of hooks you in when you accept it's basic assumptions and understand it:

1: God is a loving but stern Father figure and would not bat an eyelash to take a life if it meant saving a soul from eternal damnation-- and Christians should see it likewise. This tenet could lead ( if allowed to fully blossom into it's logical antecedent) to jihadi Christians who'll justify lopping off your head so you won't continue to corrupt your "soul" in sin and perdition.

2: "Love" must always be understood in the long view as relates to salvation and damnation. If you beat your kids to save their souls from hell you love them. If you indulge them and do nothing to steer them away from the path of damnation you hate them.

These edicts make perfect sense under the basic assumption that there is a God in Heaven who expects you to believe certain things and act in certain ways if you expect to inhabit his place of residence after you die. Those who do not believe certain things and act in certain ways are, if they die without repenting, just so much trash to be burned up in a fire forever.

Within the context of it's basic assumptions every religion makes sense.
And those basic assumptions are generally framed by the authoritarian hierarchy as sacred answers that may not be questioned.

Everyone need to know, however, if it is worth believing it is also worth questioning -- fundamentally, extensively and relentlessly -- and come to your own honest conclusions within your own heart and mind.

That's the message I'd shout out from the mountain top to everyone if I were up on one.
 
izniss said:
Everyone need to know, however, if it is worth believing it is also worth questioning -- fundamentally, extensively and relentlessly -- and come to your own honest conclusions within your own heart and mind.
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Yes, but a lot of churches do encourage their followers to question what is said, but in a sort of twisted labyrinth where the only way out is where they want you to go. So even if your message is simple in a way, the application for each individual isn't always straightforward.
 
Do you think Christianity as a whole is coherent enough to condone or condemn? Tea.

I'm not sure I understand your use of the word coherent in this sentence. How do you mean it? Other words for coherent are - comprehensive, consistent, rational, reasoned, lucid. Or is there some other word that would better define coherent as used in this sentence?
 
Ah. Okay. I'm not sure this isn't a trick question. lol. Christianity is not organized in the sense that there are so many variations on a theme which make up the different churches all calling themselves Christian. Each church group, however, does tend to be very organized within itself.

I would suggest that it is the same for a country. Organized? As an overall entity under a single government - yes. Yet separated into thousands of groups with differing ideologies, morals, principles.

Does any of that matter in the end when it comes to responsibility. During the Inquisition, or the Crusades, the Church approved of these atrocities and the institution of the Church must shoulder the blame. In the U.S. today, our government condones the killing of a couple hundred of people in order to try and kill one individual with its drone strike operations. It is the country that must shoulder the blame.
 
I'm not trying to trick you, you just seem to make it a lot simpler then I see it, and when it comes to blame I think you and I come down on different sides.

Devils' Advocate said:
Does any of that matter in the end when it comes to responsibility. During the Inquisition, or the Crusades, the Church approved of these atrocities and the institution of the Church must shoulder the blame. In the U.S. today, our government condones the killing of a couple hundred of people in order to try and kill one individual with its drone strike operations. It is the country that must shoulder the blame.
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In your example, is the country all it's citizens, the individuals responsible for the operations or is it the specific system that allowed it?
 
Religions don't kill people....people kill people...

That being said...there isn't any dancing around religions doing their part in population control via war and genocide. Go by sheer numbers...yeah 20th century had its issues, go by percentage of the population... a different story emerges... let us not forget G!d told Bush to go after Sadam..
 
I know you were not trying to trick me, Tea. It was a joke. Hence the lol?

You said when it comes to blame you and I come down on different sides. Could you elaborate? What is your side when it comes to blame? It interests me and I would like to understand where you differ from me.

As Wil said, there isn't any getting around religions doing a lot of harm in this world down thru the generations. To which I would add countries, ethnic groups, and so on and so on.

When horrible things happen who is responsible? It is actually a very darn good question. Take the Holocaust. Who was responsible, in your opinion Tea. Hitler? His regime? The soldiers who carried out the orders? The common folk who were too scared to challenge it? Who was to blame?
 
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