To the person who made this video:
I am a student of the human experience.
I'm always interested in knowing more about the way people's minds work, and what experiences have shaped their character, perceptions, and values.
I was raised in a conservative, Christian-religious environment.
I've studied (and studied with) people in the same religions and religious philosophies you have.
That's not my complete list. But I realize it's probably not your complete list either.
I never fully embraced any particular religious narrative; except for very general notions about "God", bibles, redemption, and eternal reward.
Meanwhile, all of my programmed religious beliefs were a heavy burden to me.
My entire life really would have been better without any of it.
At age 41 (about 9 years ago),
I accidentally de-converted, from the entire idea of a literal "God" and bibles as his messages to humanity.
That happens as a result of:
accidentally discovering that a literal interpretation of the Noah's Ark story
is, in many ways, literally impossible to have happened.
I don't mean a literal deity *couldn't do it*.
I just mean:
For certain, it *did not happen*.
Even that "God's" alleged feelings, thoughts, observations, and decisions ... turned out to be fully unreasonable.
After that, I started to critically re-examine everything I'd been taught.
None of it held up to rational scrutiny.
I hadn't noticed that before, because I was trained not to look to closely nor think too carefully about any of it.
Eventually, I also realized the same thing you realized, about basing my sense of identity and worth ...
on what people external-to-me (aka: aren't me) think I am, and what/who they think I should be.
But unlike you,
(and I promise this isn't meant condescendingly) ...
I didn't keep doing exactly the same thing, by switching to a "Jesus" as an external-to-me (aka: is not me) person ... who tells ME who I am, who I am "supposed to be", and tries to get me to base my sense of worth (even my worthiness to even exist; or my worthiness to not be tortured) ...
that it should all be based on his feeling sufficiently sought, and found, and known, and loved, and respected, and understood, and flattered, and obeyed.
I really shouldn't base all my identity and worth on (any) larger-than-life parent's validation;
worse yet:
as a forever-dependent child.
But to hear Christians tell it,
it's as if the writer of Genesis was RIGHT! ... when he said that's the situation we're all really in,
and that:
we should actually see that as a good thing.
But I don't think it really is the situation we're in.
Neither do historians.
Neither do biblical scholars.
Neither do scientists.
With the exception of a tiny fringe religious fundamentalists, ...
they all say:
Much of what bibles claim to be literally true
is not literally true.
But setting that aside, ...
If you really read the story carefully, you'll see the writer did not accuse the serpent of lying about "will come to be like god".
Both "God" and the snake ... say the same thing.
The snake-person says:
If you eat this, you will become more like god ... in regards to your ability to understand right and wrong.
The story later tells us:
they did become like their "God" ... in that specific way;
even that "God" said so.
So in the context of the story, that was not a lie.
Now, I'm not defending Mormonism.
Their stupid religion is just as nonsensical as all the others.
And yes, they take the idea of becoming "like God" to non-biblical extremes.
But we can't rightly fault them for the less specific notion of becoming more like "God".
All Christians seek to become more like their God, in some ways.
So no Christians can justify equating that general idea with evil.
Although, ironically, atheists can justify it.
I'll say it readily, when asked.
I really do think becoming more like the "God" character in bibles ... is a bad thing.
But it's bizarre to hear a Christian saying it.
Meanwhile, the story never even raises the issue of them becoming "like god" in any other ways.
---
Moving forward, ...
I came to understand that a good parent wants their children to outgrow their dependencies.
And yet,
the Genesis story was written by someone with a very toxic, clinically narcissistic concept of:
how the parent should be,
and how their children should enable that,
and how children should function as *flying monkeys* (aka "missionaries"), for the sake of the parental narcissist.
But I've grown enough to recognize how dysfunctional all of that is.
And yet, even if some religion's special book of stories portrayed an actually admirable "God",...
I still wouldn't wouldn't base my sense of WHO I am, or base my worth ... on that external person;
because that would be the exact same mental mechanism that we both realized wasn't good.
Although,
in the situation of a Christian doing that, when it comes to Jesus,...
it's not merely "Jesus",
or a larger-than-life parental figure
who I would be crutching my identity and worth upon.
It would *actually* be the fallible, iron-age nobodies
who claimed to *know the mind of God*, and claimed to know what any Super-Beings really were, what they really said, what they really did, etc..
They're the real people I'd be crutching my identity and worth upon;
because they're the ones defining "God" for me.
That doesn't make it better.
It makes it worse.
It would mean giving fallible men WAY too much power and say over my journey, my identity, and my values.
It would mean letting them decide who "God" is for me, and who I am to God.
They'd be literally dictating the nature and terms of that relationship.
So then I'd actually be lying (super-lying; with a cape) to then say that my relationship with "God" is just between me and my God";
because:
(again)
in that case, THEY are the people who defined that for me;
- Even if there really is a God.
- And even if those men got a lot of the details right.
-Or, even all the details right. Although, of course, they didn't; because they couldn't have.
---
Meanwhile, it sets a terrible precedent, and encourages anti-social behavior,
to promote religious evangelizing in settings where it hasn't been invited by everyone present.
People (even young people) have a civil right to gather peacefully, for specified non-church purposes; without someone:
taking church to people
who didn't choose (at that time) to take themselves TO a church.
The fact that you are so glad someone did that to you,
doesn't justify (anyone) doing that to others.
---
Lastly, I understand you had a burdened sense of identity, based on feeling like a soiled, horrible person for past mistakes.
So yes. It makes sense that anything (anything at all) which cleanses and releases you from that burden ... is going to be deeply transformative.
But that same mental mechanism could have come from any religious narrative which offers it, and even from non-religious narratives which offer a different premise for a fresh start with a clean slate.
It just-so-happened that your mind was already culturally primed to be receptive to a Christian-themed release-mechanism.
But it's important to recognize that different people have different needs, and have been wired uniquely by their own life's exposures and experiences.
With the way I'm wired,
no version of Christianity is going to resonate for me.
So even if I want to re-invent myself, I'd have to do it some other way.
But that's not a moral failing.
It doesn't mean I'm "bad".
It doesn't mean I am "rebelling" against anyone's deity.
It doesn't mean I don't deserve to exist.
It doesn't mean I'm "choosing" (any) hellish afterlife.
It would be morally insensible
for any religion, or any religious book, or any "God" to hold that against me;
- worse yet to decide I'm worthy of death,
or eternally discard (like trash),
or horrible and prolonged suffering ...
for not finding such religious claims to be decent, rational, or credible.
Comments
Post a Comment