I'm not refusing to bow to Jesus
Nothing I said (there) was about where I stand pertaining to my beliefs or perceptions about Jesus;
except to infer:
Christians are portraying him as unreasonable, unethical and imaginary.
Now, if I understood you correctly,
you admit that people become Christians for emotional reasons. But those reasons are eventually and gradually replaced as the relationship matures.
This seems like we've made some progress towards a common view on that.
We both agree on how it forms.
We don't (yet; optimistically) agree on what keeps is going later.
I suppose we could shelve the rest of that for later.
Now, just because Christians (even you) make him sound crazy, evil, and fictional, ... doesn't prove he is crazy, evil, and fictional.
But that's exactly like pointing out:
"Just because Hindus make their gods sound crazy, evil, and fictional ... doesn't prove their gods ARE crazy, evil, and fictional."
My point is "that's all the reason anyone needs
to think so".
To really understand me about all of this,
swap out your icons and dogmas with any religion in the world.
It's the same discussion.
A traditional Muslim does think Christians are going to the Islamic Hell for idol-worshipping the prophet Jesus,
and for rejecting the correct and true relationship with Allah, as defined by the Quran.
Per their religion, you are NOT safe as a Christian, because Christians have all rejected the true understanding that is necessary for a true relationship with Allah.
In their eyes, Allah is sickened and offended by the idea of a human sacrifice.
"Allah" is also deeply offended by Christianity's claim of exclusivity which denigrates Islam to the pile of "false and satanic religions".
Allah will not take this lightly, says the Muslim.
They say the same about everyone who doesn't adequately desire, seek, and find Islam.
They say even worse things for anyone who tries to leave.
We don't need to go down that rabbit hole today.
But every dogma-driven ideological group has ways of demonizing anyone who refuses to join
and those who eventually depart.
Muslims accuse critics and ex-members of rejecting Allah and "choosing Hell".
That should sound familiar to you.
Now, there are some new-ager Muslims with a more inclusive ideology. But they are basically like the liberal-progressive "Universalists".
Their ways of thinking are so different that they have no place in this specific discussion.
In any case,...
How are you able to ~reason it out~ that all the other world religions must be wrong?
You ~reason it out~ by noticing super-obvious logical fallacies, false-facts, and unethical teachings.
You also reason it out as:
Those religions (or "faith-narratives") have a MESSAGE and a PROMISE and an EXPLANATION for life ... that fails to adequately explain the matters that matter to you (and which you think should matter to everyone).
So when you point out the shortcoming OF those faith-path-narratives (Muslims, JWs, Roman Catholics, etc), ...
you are NOT saying "the reason I won't bow to that "God" is because he doesn't reason and behave the way I want him to".
No.
What you MEAN by offering those critiques is:
"Because of the X, Y, and Z" failings inherent to those specific faith-narratives and churches ...
this reveals to me that those faith-narratives are not credible in their claims to being "the truth".
It's the same for me,
when I examine yours.
I'm not saying "I refuse to bow to your Jesus because I don't like how he reasons and behaves".
No.
I'm saying "the same reasons you don't find other religious ideologies and God-concepts "likely to be true",
are the same reasons I find yours "unlikely to be true".
--
--
Just as importantly:
I care about you.
I realize how much damage Karan and Steve did to each of us kid's formative years of psychological development.
Christian-religious fundamentalism
hijacked their brains.
And then they spread it to us;
where it hijacked ours. <--- link.
Morphing those weeds into somewhat-different religious-fundamentalism ... isn't even close to the same thing as healing and recovering.
The dogmas and dogmatic-culture that you've been immersed in ...
are a big part of
what's preventing you from healing from what Karan and Steve did to our then-still-forming minds.
Please don't get mad at me for saying this.
You wanted honest help gaining clarity about that situation, and I hesitated because I didn't want to risk making you upset.
But now it's directly relevant, because you are now asking me why any of this matters.
Your religion (call it whatever you want to)
is also what made it so easy for a lowkey/low-IQ predator to manipulate your daughter.
All he had to do was pull the mental strings installed by your church.
I realize it's not that simple.
I realize your church had help installing those strings.
As a result,
she would have no way to differentiate (link) between what "God" is really telling him
or telling her "through him".
She'd also be reluctant to negate his "personal testimony".
Additionally (but directly part of the same larger problem)
having an "external locus of identity"
is a handicap specifically engineered and installed by religious-fundamentalist men.
That's not the only way someone incurs that handicap.
[a fictional but commonly-real example of it happening accidentally]
But in religious cultures, that handicap is quite literally engineered.
That vulnerability is baked into the very core of Christian dogma.
It's one of the most powerful ways to control and exploit the extra-vulnerable; such as children and emotionally-traumatized young adults.
For the same effect, they also created religious stories which culturally-enforce submission to entitled male authority figures (made-relevant to church leaders, husbands, prospective-husbands, God, etc).
These are only some of the backdoor hacks installed by religious fundamentalist churches
into vulnerable minds.
Just as importantly:
1.
That vulnerability is baked into the very core of Christian dogma.
It's one of the most powerful ways to control and exploit the extra-vulnerable; such as children and emotionally-traumatized young adults.
For the same effect, they also created religious stories which culturally-enforce submission to entitled male authority figures (made-relevant to church leaders, husbands, prospective-husbands, God, etc).
These are only some of the backdoor hacks installed by religious fundamentalist churches
into vulnerable minds.
Just as importantly:
1.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to worry about, listen to, or investigate any fallible human's claims about invisible or hidden Super-People.
2.
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to worry about, listen to, or investigate any fallible human's claims about invisible or hidden Super-People.
2.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to assume some such Super-People exist.
3.
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to assume some such Super-People exist.
3.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to play a High Stakes Game of Hide And Seek
with such entities, under the assumption such Super-People exist
and are playing any such games with my life.
4.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to have a random-chance-encounter
with:
a fallible human being
who DOES believe in such Super-People and believes-of-themselves that they've been sent to OBLIGATE me to listen to their ultimatum about it.
[completely accurate and fair illustrative parallel:
5.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to take the initiative and go religion-shopping
(or "totally not a religion" shopping).
6.
I never did (because nobody does)
ever wake up one day and think "You know what, self? I think I want to use my FREE WILL to be less virtuous than I'm capable of being."
7. I never did (because nobody does)
make myself blind to some "totally not a religion's" truth about some "totally real Super-People" as a result of free-will choosing to be (in any way) un-virtuous.
--
--
Nobody owes it to you
nor to some well-hidden Super-People ...
to make the assumptions you think they should be making about some Super-People.
And when your church told you that every adult in the world secretly knows your specific God is real but we all "suppress that truth" in favor of our "unrighteousness",
Your church lied.
They bold-faced lied to you about that;
as a way to legitimize their grift, and to legitimize their contempt for critics, and their contempt for the disinterested, and their concept for the differently-religious, and their contempt for the "luke warm", etc..
Every day you go to church, they lie to you about the reality of other people's lived experience.
They also lie to you about yours.
They even lie to you about what Bibles writers actually originally said (and didn't say) about all the hot-topic moral issues facing our society.
Nobody should be intuiting, worrying, seeking, investigating,
etc. about some Super-People.
It's optional.
Although, to keep it clean,
people "seeking God" should go no further than Deism.
Dogmas corrupt us.
It was not my duty to anyone
to figure out if there is some "ultimate truth"
or some Divine Ultimatum
hiding in some church or some book somewhere.
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to play a High Stakes Game of Hide And Seek
with such entities, under the assumption such Super-People exist
and are playing any such games with my life.
4.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to have a random-chance-encounter
with:
a fallible human being
who DOES believe in such Super-People and believes-of-themselves that they've been sent to OBLIGATE me to listen to their ultimatum about it.
[completely accurate and fair illustrative parallel:
5.
I never had
any duty at all (because nobody does)
to take the initiative and go religion-shopping
(or "totally not a religion" shopping).
6.
I never did (because nobody does)
ever wake up one day and think "You know what, self? I think I want to use my FREE WILL to be less virtuous than I'm capable of being."
7. I never did (because nobody does)
make myself blind to some "totally not a religion's" truth about some "totally real Super-People" as a result of free-will choosing to be (in any way) un-virtuous.
--
--
Nobody owes it to you
nor to some well-hidden Super-People ...
to make the assumptions you think they should be making about some Super-People.
And when your church told you that every adult in the world secretly knows your specific God is real but we all "suppress that truth" in favor of our "unrighteousness",
Your church lied.
They bold-faced lied to you about that;
as a way to legitimize their grift, and to legitimize their contempt for critics, and their contempt for the disinterested, and their concept for the differently-religious, and their contempt for the "luke warm", etc..
Every day you go to church, they lie to you about the reality of other people's lived experience.
They also lie to you about yours.
They even lie to you about what Bibles writers actually originally said (and didn't say) about all the hot-topic moral issues facing our society.
Nobody should be intuiting, worrying, seeking, investigating,
etc. about some Super-People.
It's optional.
Although, to keep it clean,
people "seeking God" should go no further than Deism.
Dogmas corrupt us.
It was not my duty to anyone
to figure out if there is some "ultimate truth"
or some Divine Ultimatum
hiding in some church or some book somewhere.
--
--
Nor is anyone who bothers with any of that ...
morally obligated to reach your same conclusions.
Reaching your same conclusions about "God" is NOT a valid litmus test for moral character.
Nor are you being honest with yourself
when you say you're not judging anyone.
Nor are you being honest with yourself
with you deny thinking that makes you better than anyone else.
You think that's what it would take
for a GOD to be able to justify allowing me and my kids to be not-killed and thrown away like trash forever.
What more powerful claim
of personal and comparative WORTH
could there be,
than to say
"I've made sure Father can justify not throwing me away like trash forever.
But you haven't.
And there's really no other way he could justify letting you live much longer, unless you start thinking, living, and BEing more like me.
Because that's the only way he can feel rightly valued and submitted to.
If you refuse, then you're basically choosing to be trash. So now ask yourself what happens to trash on trash day?".
Now, Karan is a diagnosed clinical Narcissist.
So all of that makes sense.
It's exactly how those people always reason.
Abrahamic authoritarian god-people-groups
simply provide a religious premise for how Narcissists already reason.
That's how Steve and Karan both became so quickly and permanently superglue-bonded to it.
But if you or I do not have that Major Personality Disorder,
then why emulate it?
To justify that, you victim-blame (your god's would-be victims).
And to justify that, you make huge-and-wrong assumptions about why we aren't interested in becoming Christians.
And to justify that, you defer to the ~say so~
of mere fallible men;
men
who merely claimed to "know" how outsiders really think and feel.
And to justify that,
those men site a poorly preserved collection of ancient folk stories;
stories
which allege (without good evidence)
that they heard from some guys
who heard from some guys
who had a private conversation with the Creator of the UNIVERSE ...
Nor is anyone who bothers with any of that ...
morally obligated to reach your same conclusions.
Reaching your same conclusions about "God" is NOT a valid litmus test for moral character.
Nor are you being honest with yourself
when you say you're not judging anyone.
Nor are you being honest with yourself
with you deny thinking that makes you better than anyone else.
You think that's what it would take
for a GOD to be able to justify allowing me and my kids to be not-killed and thrown away like trash forever.
What more powerful claim
of personal and comparative WORTH
could there be,
than to say
"I've made sure Father can justify not throwing me away like trash forever.
But you haven't.
And there's really no other way he could justify letting you live much longer, unless you start thinking, living, and BEing more like me.
Because that's the only way he can feel rightly valued and submitted to.
If you refuse, then you're basically choosing to be trash. So now ask yourself what happens to trash on trash day?".
Now, Karan is a diagnosed clinical Narcissist.
So all of that makes sense.
It's exactly how those people always reason.
Abrahamic authoritarian god-people-groups
simply provide a religious premise for how Narcissists already reason.
That's how Steve and Karan both became so quickly and permanently superglue-bonded to it.
But if you or I do not have that Major Personality Disorder,
then why emulate it?
To justify that, you victim-blame (your god's would-be victims).
And to justify that, you make huge-and-wrong assumptions about why we aren't interested in becoming Christians.
And to justify that, you defer to the ~say so~
of mere fallible men;
men
who merely claimed to "know" how outsiders really think and feel.
And to justify that,
those men site a poorly preserved collection of ancient folk stories;
stories
which allege (without good evidence)
that they heard from some guys
who heard from some guys
who had a private conversation with the Creator of the UNIVERSE ...
in their head.
--
The result?
It dramatically lowers your ability to rightly value and respect me,
and my kids,
and however-many of your kids will end up being ex-Christians,
and billions of other people.
It uses an insidious fiction
to devalue us (unequally)
and to separate us.
--
The result?
It dramatically lowers your ability to rightly value and respect me,
and my kids,
and however-many of your kids will end up being ex-Christians,
and billions of other people.
It uses an insidious fiction
to devalue us (unequally)
and to separate us.
However,
because I grew up surrounded by that nonsense,
and because some unscrupulous "messengers" did manage to "plant seeds" (of pernicious weeds) into some younger-ME's psyche,
and because I've always wanted to understand the "human experience" as widely as I can,
I did get caught up in the whole mess.
From there,
I struggled and grew;
at first within it,
and eventually beyond it.
--
--
I'm not some super-wise guru.
I'm not "meta" in my philosophizing.
Nor have I done anything great with my life.
I also freely admit that there are some later-in-life things which I have not yet healed from.
But I healed from what certain religious-narcissist-predators did to me;
after I de-converted.
And that's the only way I ever could.
Christian fundamentalism is modeled on the relationship paradigm between malignant Narcissists and their vulnerable supply.
There is a tragic limit
to how much we can heal and grow
within any such system.
Christianity is bad for you.
You imagine that I'm refusing to bow to Jesus.
But the reality is:
I'm refusing to bow to you.
And the reason you can't tell the difference is because:
There isn't one.
"God" is the alter-ego
for people who can't recognize that part of their own mind.
This is true ~even if~ some super-Being(s) created the universe, humans, and nature.
The voice you're calling "God" is not coming from them. (<<link to an older article, where I explain where that voice is coming from; and why it matters)
because I grew up surrounded by that nonsense,
and because some unscrupulous "messengers" did manage to "plant seeds" (of pernicious weeds) into some younger-ME's psyche,
and because I've always wanted to understand the "human experience" as widely as I can,
I did get caught up in the whole mess.
From there,
I struggled and grew;
at first within it,
and eventually beyond it.
--
--
I'm not some super-wise guru.
I'm not "meta" in my philosophizing.
Nor have I done anything great with my life.
I also freely admit that there are some later-in-life things which I have not yet healed from.
But I healed from what certain religious-narcissist-predators did to me;
after I de-converted.
And that's the only way I ever could.
Christian fundamentalism is modeled on the relationship paradigm between malignant Narcissists and their vulnerable supply.
There is a tragic limit
to how much we can heal and grow
within any such system.
Christianity is bad for you.
You imagine that I'm refusing to bow to Jesus.
But the reality is:
I'm refusing to bow to you.
And the reason you can't tell the difference is because:
There isn't one.
"God" is the alter-ego
for people who can't recognize that part of their own mind.
This is true ~even if~ some super-Being(s) created the universe, humans, and nature.
The voice you're calling "God" is not coming from them. (<<link to an older article, where I explain where that voice is coming from; and why it matters)
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