I was indoctrinated into Christianity at a very young age, when I did not have my critical thinking skills and was very susceptible to parental influence.

At the age of sixteen, I easily shed Christianity. But now, talking to other friends (listening to these people, I fear for their sanity; read my other thread in this forum, these people's beliefs are quite disturbing) who are Christian and with this damn voice in the back of my head telling me the opposite of everything I believe, I catch myself thinking things like "the lord works in mysterious ways" whenever disaster happens, like I used to. I shake it off as irrational though. But it's like Christianity has an emotional grip, as opposed to an intellectual grip, over me.

Do any other atheists who used to be Christian have this and how do you shed it? This has convinced me all the more that Christianity is a dirty virus and it's disgusting watching the young be indoctrinated by their parents, who in turn were indoctrinated and therefore think that it's the "right thing to do".



[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 12-11-2006).]

That doesn't make it a "dirty virus". You act like you are a scared victim. It's just a habit.

Dont you belive in magic?

quote:Originally posted by Pat_Macrotch:

Dont you belive in magic?

No. I don't believe in none of the following: souls, thetans, xenu, personal Gods, Jesus, reincarnation, magic, and afterlives, etc. etc.

[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 12-11-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

I was indoctrinated into Christianity at a very young age, when I did not have my critical thinking skills and was very susceptible to parental influence.

At the age of sixteen, I easily shed Christianity. But now, talking to other friends (listening to these people, I fear for their sanity; read my other thread in this forum, these people's beliefs are quite disturbing) who are Christian and with this damn voice in the back of my head telling me the opposite of everything I believe, I catch myself thinking things like "the lord works in mysterious ways" whenever disaster happens, like I used to. I shake it off as irrational though. But it's like Christianity has an emotional grip, as opposed to an intellectual grip, over me.

Do any other atheists who used to be Christian have this and how do you shed it? This has convinced me all the more that Christianity is a dirty virus and it's disgusting watching the young be indoctrinated by their parents, who in turn were indoctrinated and therefore think that it's the "right thing to do".







I'm so looking forward to meeting apostates! I can almost smell the crackling.

Sogonafuqu.

I agree. I was raised in an ultra christian home, rejected it as teen and then came back to a variant of Christianity later in life.

However I always made sure i never forced it on my kids the way it was forced on me. They never had to go to church or crap like that.

To this day I don't know how much or what they believe. If they have questions then I answer them and sometimes if its relevant I'll explain why i believe certain things but thats it.

My kids faith is their problem, i have enough problems with God as it is. (He and I don't get on much).

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

No. I don't believe in none of the following: souls, thetans, xenu, personal Gods, Jesus, reincarnation, magic, and afterlives, etc. etc.



or syntax or so it appears...

quote:Originally posted by madamwench:

or syntax or so it appears...

What was the point of that post? Honestly, what a waste of server space. It wasn't clever. It wasn't funny. Just get the fuck out of my thread now, and take your shit to SG.

I deconverted less than a year ago (this spring, actually). I was 20 years old, and had been a Christian since I was 5 or so. Completely brainwashed into believing it. The deconversion took about a month or two, and it was painful. Alot of sleepless nights and such. Now I'm pretty well over it. I never think "the lord works in mysterious ways" (as a matter of fact, I find it one of the most pathetic explaination for anything, ever) or anything like that. I don't really know how I stopped. I know that after I deconverted, I still said things occasionally, like you do (Raw_Power). I got a bit pissed at myself for doing it, so for a time I would substitute another god in whatever phrase came to mind (for instance, "Poseidon works in mysterious ways", "Thank you, Thor", and "Be with me, Wotan"). Substituting the name of other mythical deities into my old sayings quickly exposed how rediculous they were, and it was pretty easy to stop after that.

Being a thread for ExChristians, I've got a question of my own: How did you break the news to your family? I've only told my mother and sisters. Noone else in my family knows. It sucks living in the bible belt. So many people are Christians, and most of them don't want to have anything to do with an atheist. http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif)

That's devil talk, boy! http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif)

-NS

quote:Originally posted by jackketch:

I agree. I was raised in an ultra christian home, rejected it as teen and then came back to a variant of Christianity later in life.

However I always made sure i never forced it on my kids the way it was forced on me. They never had to go to church or crap like that.

To this day I don't know how much or what they believe. If they have questions then I answer them and sometimes if its relevant I'll explain why i believe certain things but thats it.

My kids faith is their problem, i have enough problems with God as it is. (He and I don't get on much).

Good job.

That is how I intend to raise my children also.

It's basically how my parents raised me. I guess it's fair to say that I grew up Catholic but religion was never really a big issue in my family.

My father hasn't been to church since 1971, when a Catholic priest tried to make him pay money to get a crossed blessed before he went of to the Vietnam War.



[This message has been edited by AnAsTaSiO (edited 12-11-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

Do any other atheists who used to be Christian have this and how do you shed it? This has convinced me all the more that Christianity is a dirty virus and it's disgusting watching the young be indoctrinated by their parents, who in turn were indoctrinated and therefore think that it's the "right thing to do".





I'm not an atheist in the classical sense, but when it comes to the god depicted by the orthodox christian church, yeah, I don't beleive in that! I walked away from that a lot of years ago, but what I see in your post and in so m any others is this correlation between orthodox(read Roman Catholic or Fundamentalst) xianity and "christianity" as a whole. It does not take much time to cross reference between the actions of the early church as mentioned in the new test. and orhtodox practices to see how far apart they are. For instance: when did you last attend a foot washing ceremony, when did you last see xians selling their goods and pooling the proceeds? What you are talking about is "churchianity" and it's as far from the message of it's founder as the pharisees and sadducees were!

I agree it's like we were brainwashed, infected with a meme - a mind virus, the way to get rid of it is with the 'truth'. And the truth(according to me lol) is that there is no organisation that can intervene or intercede between the members of a unity and that's what the universe is, and you and I are indivisable fractals. Here's a couple of links to other forums for those who have had similar experiences:

quote:

Walk away from Fundamentalism (http://www.aimoo.com/forum/freeboard.cfm?id=319472)

quote:

Out of Christianity (http://outofchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/04/your-invitation-of-welcome.html)

Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

[This message has been edited by redzed (edited 12-11-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

What was the point of that post? Honestly, what a waste of server space. It wasn't clever. It wasn't funny. Just get the fuck out of my thread now, and take your shit to SG.

The point is you critique Christians for not understanding something as complex as evolution when you cant even string a sentence together correctly...

quote:Originally posted by madamwench:

The point is you critique Christians for not understanding something as complex as evolution when you cant even string a sentence together correctly...

Well, Einstein was a terrible writer and he came up with the theory of relativity.

EDIT: And would you look at that, I strung a sentence together. Well I'll be.



[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 12-11-2006).]

good thread

ok heres my story, for all you boys and girls about how i became a heathen you see now. my family has been christian for all my life and so have i, i mainly lost my faith in military school, i was going through soi much shit and having to learn to rely on my self i just decided god didnt care so fuck him, i started dabbling in witchraft and studying some lavey satanism during the summer. after going back to a christian school my pantheist faith was tested and i did get in some battles with my old self about if i was going to hell or not, these usually ended by me burning the closest bible i could find. i now just look at all my christian buddys and kinda laiugh and same time kinda feel bad for them. so right now im constantly trying to further myself spiritually by exploring many different faiths and finding a great beaty in all of them. i've dropped the magick thing as a main thing in my life but i still read some book by crowley if just for his interesting views. so my message is to you to always reevalute why your douing something. is it cause you want to or is it cause other people make you??

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

Well, Einstein was a terrible writer and he came up with the theory of relativity.

EDIT: And would you look at that, I strung a sentence together. Well I'll be.



so you admit that just because people apear to be unintelligent you can never be sure?

I had a completely mental break down when I was 12 when I realized there was no God, and fell into the depths of nihilism.

I've always thought for myself, though, which is why I'm a Gnostic Christian now.

quote:Originally posted by Rizzo in a box:

I had a completely mental break down when I was 12 when I realized there was no God, and fell into the depths of nihilism.

I've always thought for myself, though, which is why I'm a Gnostic Christian now.

I did the whole nihilism thing too. And then I realized that it doesn't matter if there is no God and no objective meaning. If you only have this one chance to get in on the action, then do so and embrace life. And who cares if meaning isn't objective. Make your own meaning!

And it doesn't matter if morals aren't objective. So what if they're prescriptive, and merely man-made guidelines. I think that morals are subject to the universal standard of logic, making moral discourse intelligible and that they are useful, even if they're not objective.





[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 12-12-2006).]

i was brought up to do rational thinking and freethought my whole life, the most religion i got was telling me that heaven and hell existed. It was pretty much left at that, i dont remember even asking any questions about it. And never went to church once

once in highschool a few kids were going to the church to play sports and shit on friday nights and that, well i went once, played some sports, got high, had some beers then it turned out they pray at the end. well me and 8 of my friends laughed are asses of called them all idiots and left

Congratulations to you for breaking out of your parents shell and thinking on your own, alot of people dont get that chance, and are stuck in that imaginary world there whole life.

Recently i had to go to a funeral for my grandpa and its all religious and shit, i felt so out of place, the songs they sing and all that crap, fuck it was horrible. all i could think of is this is NOT how i want to say goodbye to my grandfather. FUCK!



[This message has been edited by boozehound420 (edited 12-12-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

I was indoctrinated into Christianity at a very young age, when I did not have my critical thinking skills and was very susceptible to parental influence.

At the age of sixteen, I easily shed Christianity. But now, talking to other friends (listening to these people, I fear for their sanity; read my other thread in this forum, these people's beliefs are quite disturbing) who are Christian and with this damn voice in the back of my head telling me the opposite of everything I believe, I catch myself thinking things like "the lord works in mysterious ways" whenever disaster happens, like I used to. I shake it off as irrational though. But it's like Christianity has an emotional grip, as opposed to an intellectual grip, over me.

Do any other atheists who used to be Christian have this and how do you shed it? This has convinced me all the more that Christianity is a dirty virus and it's disgusting watching the young be indoctrinated by their parents, who in turn were indoctrinated and therefore think that it's the "right thing to do".





It's a corrupt defense mechanism: it's how you handle intense insecurity. Over time, as you grow in personal strength, you can handle facing the fear directly, with no insane beliefs necessary; or you can take the alternative route of creating your own defense mechanism to handle your insecurities in life. (And there are about 7 billion causes of insecurity for each of us...if you catch what that means)

Quick method of deprogramming: Salvinorin A

Careful with this shit though - all the bullshit we humans delude ourselves into...suicide is guaranteed to look like a REALLY good option when you see just how shitty the world is.

Want to know what my take on the world is after deprogramming: every last motherfucker on this planet is going to be tempted to do something that will harm me - some will resist, some will give in, and I have no control over that. I can influence their decision through my own behavior, but I can never know what point in their decision-making process they reside, what the temptation is, or what their choice is. And ultimately, someone's choice is going to kill me, possibly directly, possibly indirectly.

Now, taking this truth into consideration, I see a few options:

a) Use irrational defense mechanisms to hide this truth from myself, living in the delusion of metaphysics and theology.

b) Live in fear of people.

c) Attempt to control people as to prevent harm to myself.

d) Continue life, aware of this, but not afraid of this.

Now, obviously, 'd' seemed like the best choice to me; I'm not big on belief in possibilities for the sake of comfort; I'm not afraid of my ends; and I'm not controlling.

Accepting this harsh truth without resorting to defense mechanisms is quite the challenge...it is easy to grasp in text and theory, but when it's happening in reality, it is VERY difficult to keep your eyes on the truth. And more than that, it's damned near impossible to not feel mad, sad, or hurt; knowing that whatever it is that went wrong was partially, if not entirely, human error.

Who fought in WW2? Nations? No. Ideologies? No. Good? No. Evil? No.

Several million individuals, each chose, either willingly or through blind compliance, to engage in the murder of fellow humans. Each one of these men played a small part in the greatest war on Earth - yet it happened because men chose it to. There was no devil that made that war; no God that decreed it so - millions of men deciding, each as an individual, that something was worth murdering for - even if it was their freedom or life.

And higher up, there were men that decided to press for this war over something they decided was worth it - millions of lives for something they prescribed value to.

And even higher up, there were men that decided to give the go ahead for this war, over something they decided was worth it - millions of lives for either materials or a construct of the mind, both tools to mask themselves from the very truth they are participating in.

Our world is hell because more choose it to be so than choose it to be heaven; people starve because more choose them to than choose to feed them; people are raped because people choose it to be that way; murder, theft, war, rape, starvation, diseases...all of these propagated by the choices of individuals.

And how weird it is, that it's believed in psychology that much of these deeds are attempts of individuals to mask their insecurities.

I tell this truth to you, totse, for the simple fact that it is the truth. This is what we have made the world into. The same choice exists that always has: Act of fear and contribute to hell on Earth; or love, in spite of fear, and contribute to heaven on Earth.

The blue pill - delusional masking of the truth to avoid yet contribute to fear.

The red pill - passionate love in spite of the truth, so that reality may be bettered.

If you entirely disagree with this, I'm sure it was at least fun to read.

Really, nobody has anything to say about that?

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Really, nobody has anything to say about that?

lol... owned

quote:Originally posted by pipedream:

lol... owned

Haha, I guess so.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Want to know what my take on the world is after deprogramming: every last motherfucker on this planet is going to be tempted to do something that will harm me - some will resist, some will give in, and I have no control over that. I can influence their decision through my own behavior, but I can never know what point in their decision-making process they reside, what the temptation is, or what their choice is. And ultimately, someone's choice is going to kill me, possibly directly, possibly indirectly.



Hex it seems paranoid, hydro? Or are you feeling fatalistic?



Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

P.S. What's the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?

I pretty much knew it was bullshit from the beginning, so maybe I don't belong in this thread. But I do know that one of my worse fears is turning into a christian later in life. Or at least I did, until I blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. Now I'm damned to the christian hell (as though there is one, haha) and there's nothing I can do, according to Mark 3:29. "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." So I've pretty much protected myself from conversion.

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

Hex it seems paranoid, hydro? Or are you feeling fatalistic?



Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

P.S. What's the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?

I'm neither; the glass isn't half full or half empty; it's completely full - part air, part water.

I'm not smoking weed - quit doing drugs a few months back. Not feeling fatalistic, either. I just don't see a point to ignoring that truth, it's not like it depresses me to think about it.

And it would be paranoid thinking if there was fear attached to it - I see the upside of the situation along with the downside, and understand that both are true. That prior post was the downside, btw, here's the upside: I get to be surprised in every interaction because I simply don't know what is going to happen - either by my guesses being right, or by them being wrong. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif) The ability of humans to choose freely is what makes life interesting...hell, one day your best friend might come over and randomly slit your throat. Or maybe some hot chick could walk right up to you, fondle your nuts, lick your earlobe and demand your dick is thrust inside her. People are fucking weird, and it's awesome.

On the fence..

Read the bible and then Mythology or something and it sounds just as far fetched.

Started around age 12 then I realized God really doesn't play a role in anyones life even if he exists.

So I'm sort of a deist agnostic, if it makes any sense.

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

What was the point of that post? Honestly, what a waste of server space. It wasn't clever. It wasn't funny. Just get the fuck out of my thread now, and take your shit to SG.

What was the point of this one? His post took up roughly 29 bytes of storage for just the message (not counting the poster's name, etc.) while yours took about 5 times as much (not bothered to count letters, seriously). Why are you bitching about that? Servers have tons of space for little shit like this. Just because totse's servers use old software doesn't mean they have no storage space. Learn what the shit you talk about means before bitching at someone else.

quote:Originally posted by DaedalusOwnsYou:

What was the point of this one? His post took up roughly 29 bytes of storage for just the message (not counting the poster's name, etc.) while yours took about 5 times as much (not bothered to count letters, seriously). Why are you bitching about that? Servers have tons of space for little shit like this. Just because totse's servers use old software doesn't mean they have no storage space. Learn what the shit you talk about means before bitching at someone else.

Congratulations, now you've wasted server space complaining about me too. My point was that his argument wasn't valid and therefore a waste of space. It was nothing but an ad-hom attack, a logical fallacy.

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

Congratulations, now you've wasted server space complaining about me too. My point was that his argument wasn't valid and therefore a waste of space. It was nothing but an ad-hom attack, a logical fallacy.

My point was that you should belittle his argument, not try to indicate that we need to conserve server space.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

It's a corrupt defense mechanism: it's how you handle intense insecurity. Over time, as you grow in personal strength, you can handle facing the fear directly, with no insane beliefs necessary; or you can take the alternative route of creating your own defense mechanism to handle your insecurities in life. (And there are about 7 billion causes of insecurity for each of us...if you catch what that means)

Quick method of deprogramming: Salvinorin A

Careful with this shit though - all the bullshit we humans delude ourselves into...suicide is guaranteed to look like a REALLY good option when you see just how shitty the world is.

Want to know what my take on the world is after deprogramming: every last motherfucker on this planet is going to be tempted to do something that will harm me - some will resist, some will give in, and I have no control over that. I can influence their decision through my own behavior, but I can never know what point in their decision-making process they reside, what the temptation is, or what their choice is. And ultimately, someone's choice is going to kill me, possibly directly, possibly indirectly.

Now, taking this truth into consideration, I see a few options:

a) Use irrational defense mechanisms to hide this truth from myself, living in the delusion of metaphysics and theology.

b) Live in fear of people.

c) Attempt to control people as to prevent harm to myself.

d) Continue life, aware of this, but not afraid of this.

Now, obviously, 'd' seemed like the best choice to me; I'm not big on belief in possibilities for the sake of comfort; I'm not afraid of my ends; and I'm not controlling.

Accepting this harsh truth without resorting to defense mechanisms is quite the challenge...it is easy to grasp in text and theory, but when it's happening in reality, it is VERY difficult to keep your eyes on the truth. And more than that, it's damned near impossible to not feel mad, sad, or hurt; knowing that whatever it is that went wrong was partially, if not entirely, human error.

Who fought in WW2? Nations? No. Ideologies? No. Good? No. Evil? No.

Several million individuals, each chose, either willingly or through blind compliance, to engage in the murder of fellow humans. Each one of these men played a small part in the greatest war on Earth - yet it happened because men chose it to. There was no devil that made that war; no God that decreed it so - millions of men deciding, each as an individual, that something was worth murdering for - even if it was their freedom or life.

And higher up, there were men that decided to press for this war over something they decided was worth it - millions of lives for something they prescribed value to.

And even higher up, there were men that decided to give the go ahead for this war, over something they decided was worth it - millions of lives for either materials or a construct of the mind, both tools to mask themselves from the very truth they are participating in.

Our world is hell because more choose it to be so than choose it to be heaven; people starve because more choose them to than choose to feed them; people are raped because people choose it to be that way; murder, theft, war, rape, starvation, diseases...all of these propagated by the choices of individuals.

And how weird it is, that it's believed in psychology that much of these deeds are attempts of individuals to mask their insecurities.

I tell this truth to you, totse, for the simple fact that it is the truth. This is what we have made the world into. The same choice exists that always has: Act of fear and contribute to hell on Earth; or love, in spite of fear, and contribute to heaven on Earth.

The blue pill - delusional masking of the truth to avoid yet contribute to fear.

The red pill - passionate love in spite of the truth, so that reality may be bettered.

If you entirely disagree with this, I'm sure it was at least fun to read.

Damn, that was enlightening. Mainly the part about free choice.

I'm surprised the fundamentalists haven't crashed the party yet. Well, I haven't believed in a god for I don't know how long. It was especially hard to pull that off making it through scouts and becoming an eagle. There were a few times I had to sit through a church service, discuss things, or even say grace. One time for scouts I had to write a letter to a senator or congressman. The leader decided to help us with the topics for the letter. It was the first time the Atheist guy wanted to get "Under God" taken out of the pledge. He tried to push me to write about how bad this was. I had to explain to him about separation of church and state, as well as the first amendment. He was agog. In the past few years I have become aware of things I never cared or noticed before. Politics, Religion and whatnot. It was the people like Falwell and Robertson that motivated me to become knowledgeable and more militant, for a lack of a better word. The concept that there could be millions of sheep who follow these people and listen to their scripturally backed hate absolutely pissed me off. Christians embrace the metaphor of the sheep and the shepherd. I find it ironic, and almost hilarious. Lets just settle and call the 10% tithing stupid tax. I am done with my rambling.

I tend to agree with Hexadecimal, although I have alot of what could be considered 'humanistic' views. I do not belive in the soul, but I belive in people's power to do amazing things (and horrible things, let's be realistic) should they choose. I guess I sound like a hippy, but I do generally hope that one day people will stop shitting all over each other in order to get what they want.

i know what you mean. i sometimes catch my self thinking that.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Who fought in WW2? Nations? No. Ideologies? No. Good? No. Evil? No.



I like this part especially. Reminds me of a book by Stephen E. Ambrose on WW2 I was reading - he portrays it more as the great struggle between democracy and totalitarian nations.....yet he fails to mention that without the totalitarian nation of Russia, the tide of war would have been very much changed.

I also escaped christianity, when I was about 12 years old, but to me, it was not such a "vicegrip". It was relatively easy for me, I knew that when I died that's the end, no magical asshole up in the sky to protect me (Hell, whenever I'd asked for help he hadn't given it to em), and I was pretty fine with it. It was easy for myself to handle, easy for my dad to handle (as he is an atheist too), but my mum was still pretty sure that I was a catholic, and she still chooses to conveniently ignore than I'm not one. I think she kind of got the message when I stubbornly refused to go to church, a couple of christmases back.

After discovering the book "The Denial of Death" I realized why this whole God thing had been bothering me so much recently, and it's starting to fade away. So... I guess this thread is kind of irrelevant for me now, but still, it's a good thread.

I don't believe in God and wasn't slipping back into Christianity, I was just freaking out over my own mortality... more than regularly.

[This message has been edited by Raw_Power (edited 12-14-2006).]

Eh, I do believe in a God...but it doesn't do much to deter the sense of mortality for me - I don't believe in any sort of an afterlife.