Thursday, December 2, 2010

Bible study is essential part of the Christian experience. I have done it for many years and have come to many conclusions 'outside' of anyone's curricula. But I still believe God is who He says He is. What did you believe about the person of God/Jesus?

I believed that God was the Father of Jesus and the Creator of all things. I believed that God had a personal relationship with each and every part of his creation, and being omniscient and omnipresent, was able to commune regularly with each and every individual on the planet if he so chose simultaneously. I believed he was God, so he could do anything. However, without even questioning the logic of this, I often assumed he would be on my side of any issue, unless I was given evidence otherwise, which was also, often. So over time I observed that what I would want and what I would get were two different things. I'd desire to have my prayers fulfilled but they'd either be ignored or answered in the negative by events that occurred around me. So I became the butt of God's jokes, and I felt I was little more than a victim of his sick sense of humor.

I believed that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind and resided in a special place in my heart and was there for me whenever I needed a shoulder to lean on or an ear to bend. Prayer was like calling up your best friend on a cellphone. This was before there were things like cellphones. I wouldn't have to talk out loud. I could just think and he'd hear my thoughts. Listen to whatever my problem was and say he'd look into it. While God towards the end grew more and more vindictive, Jesus was always my arbiter. I saw these two as both the same guy and separate entities, and it wasn't until later, over time, that the sheer absurdity of that occurred to me. As for The Holy Spirit, after my dabbling in mystic stuff in my youth, I'd decided the Holy Spirit a gift that I returned like a pair of socks. Speaking in tongues can be really scary if you actually believe in it.

Many years later I realized how magic - all magic - doesn't exist. You can't pick and choose. You can't say well there's no such thing as unicorns but some ghosts might be real. You can't dismiss fairies but accept angels. If magic functioned in this universe, subatomic particles would be unnecessary. Everything would be made by mystic energy. Alchemy would have worked. It's all or nothing. Science or Magic. You can't have a reality in which both co-exist.

So when someone feels they've experienced magical events, there is ALWAYS a more rational explanation. I had to face the fact that every time I thought I was communing with ghosts or angels or "guides" or fighting demons on others' behalf, I was really talking to myself. That's sobering. It's a form of insanity, and it's disturbing to me now realizing just how many people walking around every day are as guilty of that as I was. We're talking billions of people worldwide who believe this stuff is real without any actual evidence. They believe because it's what they feel.

The other day I was at a restaurant and witnessed four people quietly hold hands and bow their heads and it made my skin crawl. I used to do that. It's very subtle, but when you see that there's literally nothing to that. That it's just people fooling themselves into believing something that's not real, that's sobering. Leaders of the free world talk to air & think they're communing with the creator of all things. People who operate heavy machinery from cars to airplanes honestly think a god is their copilot. It boggles the mind.

I used to believe all that too. Frankly I'm surprised mankind hasn't metaphorically driven itself off a cliff by now.

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I know very few Christians who would say that they feel or even have ever felt, the presence of Jesus (or the Spirit) in their lives. I consider you 'lucky'. When you experienced His presence what were you doing? How did it make you feel? Do you miss it?

It's not luck. You can experience this yourself if you want. At the time I was exploring speaking in tongues and other "gifts" and I was reading up on Edgar Cayce, ESP, meditation, dream interpretation, OBEs, channeling, automatic writing and before me and some friends scared ourselves silly I teetered over the edge of "the dark side" and for a time I had convinced myself I was able to communicate w/spirits by just holding a pencil on a pad of paper and putting myself into a light trance.

This is essentially a trick the mind can play on itself. Multiple personalities and schizophrenia are extreme forms of the mind convincing itself that reality is not as it actually is, but that there's layers delving beyond tangible reality that can be tapped via the unconscious mind. However, for a few years there, this sort of stuff was very real to me and many people around me. Family and friends. I looked into parapsychology and over time became frustrated that at every turn all I found was double talk and inconclusive evidence. Countless sightings but no evidence that scientists would take seriously, and back then I thought the scientists were the villains; that they were either arrogant, ignorant, or in some cases there must be some sort of conspiracy where the truth of this phenomena was being kept from people.

Now I simply see that there's no conclusive evidence, because none of it was real, but it took decades of convincing before I'd relent to that inevitable conclusion.

Throughout history mankind has uncovered ways in which we can alter our perception, and sometimes this is mistaken as touching the divine spark. It's all chemical imbalances and can be scientifically explained. In recent years scientists have been exploring something called The God Helmet which I recommend googling. Fascinating stuff. Drugs can also be easy ways to try triggering an apparent experience w/your god. Some athletes find adrenaline rushes akin to communing with their creator.

As Charles Dickens once wrote, "there's more gravy than grave to you spirit." Turns out in that fiction, Scrooge was wrong. However, in reality, the ghost of Marlowe really is just something we ate.

Ask me anything

Religion does make people afraid. But even Jesus says to question, even question Him. People should always ask questions and seek answers. What was your most pressing question as a believer?

I don't recall Jesus saying to question him. That's certainly not a tenet of any Abrahamic cult of which I'm familiar. Generally knowledge outside accepted dogma is deemed sacrilege. Fear is a tool that leaders in churches use to manipulate and control their flocks. As for the most pressing question? I don't know if this qualifies but perhaps the first question I recall having which stumped the youth director and began to set me apart from others in our Wednesday bible classes was how did Joseph take all this? Mary has a meeting alone with one of God's angels. God himself doesn't even make an appearance. it's one of his angels that appears before Mary and the angel tells her she's gonna have God's son, and she tells Joe this. She's got a baby on the way and Joe knows he had nothing to do with it. How's he supposed to take this? How did Joe know the kid was god's? There are other explanations. That got a laugh in the room that night, but I was seriously curious. I mean how do we know this wasn't some normal human who somehow convinced Mary he was an angel, so she'd sleep with him? Maybe that's how date rapes happened two thousand years ago. I'd think Joe would go on a murdering rampage hunting down any guy hanging out at bars talking up girls about how he's secretly an angel sent from heaven.

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Children are indoctrinated into the belief systems of their caregivers. So your experience as a 'christian youth' is typical of humanity. Now that you are an atheist how much of that indoctrination remains in your daily life?

Probably more than I'm consciously aware, but I'm too close to it to really properly diagnose or identify much of it in myself.

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Bumming 'girlie smokes' is a funny story. What else did you do because others were doing it? And more importantly, what didn't you do when they were all 'doing it'?

What I didn't do when everyone else was doing it? Well apparently there was a lot more homosexual behavior happening around me in high school and college than I was aware. I found out years later that people were gay and I didn't know. My gaydar is for suck.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

You told me to 'examine the historical evidence.' I agree this is important. But right now, not really relevant. I want to know what happened to you. Before evidentiary expulsion of God occurred. What was your fav bible verse?

John 1:5 "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out." It's still my favorite quote, but for different reasons. Now what had been in the shadows is lit also. Religion only works so long as it keeps us afraid to look in the dark.

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If you are old enough to know better...then why do you do it?

cuz it's fun, and life's too short.

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How deep was the rabbit hole for you? As Christians, we are called to a personal relationship with Christ. Would you say you had that? What was it like?

I went in pretty deep. We referred to ourselves playfully as Jesus Freaks back when I was a teenager. Church every Sunday & Wednesday. It was a social & cultural thing and I was surrounded by like-minded individuals who never questioned our beliefs so it was like we were in a social bottle. Bible study was a natural part of life and I seriously felt JC was like a big brother always there when I needed him, spiritually speaking. It didn't occur to me at the time, but we never really read the bible in any sequential order. The leader of the group would take a passage and we'd discuss just that few verses or just that chapter, and wouldn't delve or venture outside preset plans of the instructor. I started reading on my own and I'd come back with questions but either the instructor wasn't prepared to answer the questions because I was venturing outside the preset curriculum, or the answers they could provide left me with even more questions. And reading the bible just made me uncomfortable. I'd be told I was interpreting from a modern sensibility and should see things more in context, but I distinctly remember reading Paul's letters on my own and coming away from the bible thinking he was a ripe ass bastard, in any time period.

Even after I moved away from that environment to live in others that were less conducive to reinforcing a religious belief structure and lifestyle, I still prayed & felt JC's presence in my life until a few years ago, when I realized that as intense as his presence sometimes felt, there's objectively no difference between that and daydreaming or otherwise using my imagination. It's a lie Believers tell to themselves, but it's very convincing. I didn't choose to stop believing. When objectively confronted with real life, unenforced by constant conditioning, the truth will out. I just woke up one day and realized I could no longer lie to myself. Reality doesn't support the fantasy.

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Why did you smoke?

I started in college cuz all my friends smoked & I was a stressed out freshman. Smoking calmed me down or so I thought. I started by smoking girly cigs like Virginia Slims cuz I was bumming off girls I was hanging out with until they told me to start buying my own. LOL Never understood Capris. Damn toothpick cigs.

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