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Date Posted: 09:27:40 02/02/02 Sat
Author: DJ
Author Host/IP: 216.89.129.58
Subject: Here are some personal feelings expressed.
In reply to: Manda 's message, "Thanks for your openness DJ" on 07:54:43 02/02/02 Sat

I can relate to these gentleman, it may help if you read them. And after reading this last message from you, I'm questioning your motives. I don't believe you are a peaceful person. I sense you are an evil person. Most christians are evil. All the way to the core.



Hi Charley
Thanks for that. I identify with all the feelings you relate.
One of the main things I found so difficult, as I started to face my doubts,
was my loss of personality. I was repeatedly told both from the pulpit and
in the Bible that I was nothing apart from Christ. "He must increase and I
must decrease". God was in the business of creating Christs likeness in me.
God would not be happy with me until He could look upon my worthless form
and see His son Jesus. He wants Jesus clones. He is not interested in ME
because without Jesus I am just a piece of shit, fit only for hell.
So as a result of these ideas, my identity became, as a Christian, bound up
with Jesus - to the extent that as I started to lose my faith, and my Jesus
began to fade, I had no idea of who I was, and felt totally lost. I went
through years of daily suicidal urges. I almost ceased to function, and
suffered (I think) a sort of nervous breakdown. But freedom came rapidly as
I began to realise the utter fallacy of the Bible and rejected the
destructive Christian message.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Do you think that such neurosis as
I suffered could explain why there seems to be so many neurotic Christians
around? Does Christianity breed this kind of self-loathing and psychosis?

Rob


----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 12:03 AM
Subject: [exitfundyism] Grieving My Religion


> In my introduction to the group, I mentioned my deep sense of loss and
> grief which has come to light for me recently. I actually "de-converted"
> at least 5 years ago, but it is only in the past few months that I have
> begun to grieve this loss in a healthy manner.
>
> Make no mistake, it is a real loss I feel. Jesus, as my literalism
> imagined him, was a powerful presence in my thoughts, conditioning
> everything I did. I talked to him, cried with him, and promised to
> change the world for him.
>
> It is now commonplace to discuss grieving as a process having distinct
> stages. I want to take a model of these stages and work my way though it
> as a way of gaining insight into my "de-conversion" and into how I might
> reach closure. In my experience I repeatedly cycled through these stages
> and sometimes felt all of them at once.
>
> Stage One: Shock / Anger
>
> My anger was largely aimed at my father, a Pentecostal preacher. When I
> began to question my faith, it was first of all his specific doctrines
> that I challenged. Even from an early age, I thought something was wrong
> with my Dad's religious integrity. One by one, over almost 15 years, I
> knocked down one Pentecostal dogma after another, often with great
> effort, but often with anger driving my quest to get to the real truth.
>
> Stage Two: Denial
>
> I often did not want to believe that my inherited literalism was wrong.
> This was particularly strong in relation to Creationism, Inerrancy, and
> the Resurrection. I simply ignored the strong evidence for evolution,
> the many inconsistencies in the Bible, and the likelihood that the
> Resurrection was not a physical event.
>
> Stage Three: Bargaining
>
> Early on, the tension with my father set up a sort of competitive
> impulse where I tried to outdo my father's Christian faith. At its most
> psychotic this took the form of imagining myself as a radical reformer
> in the mold of Martin Luther King, Jr. I was going to become a perfect
> Christian leading a church of perfect Christians following my own
> version of Jesus, purified of all the evils of established Christianity.
>
> Step Four: Depression
>
> When it became clear to me that Inerrancy was false, Creationism was
> ridiculous, and that the Resurrection was at best a vision, I went into
> an emotional funk that lasted for years. I had banked my whole life on
> perfecting my Christian ministry. Without it, I had no direction for my
> life. I couldn't return to it, but I had no clear sense of what to do
> with all that grand ambition.
>
> Stage Five: Acceptance
>
> I have begun to find a new sense that I still have the chance to do
> something good with my life. I can also accept that I also did some good
> things in the past, even if they were not the sort of miracles which I
> once dreamed. I have raised my kids with love and a minimum of
> mistreatment, a huge improvement over my family of origin. I am working
> on renewing my marriage, even though my wife has not herself
> "de-converted." I am accepting the "smallness" of life after fundyism,
> even as I now realize how truly it is precious.
>
> Do any others on the list have experiences they want share of how they
> dealt with feelings of anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and
> acceptance as they made the journey beyond fundyism?
>
> ===
> Charley Earp
> Northside Friends Meeting, Chicago
> [All statements and opinions are my own and not the responsibility of
> NFM]
>
> http://community.webtv.net/Charley63/
>
> "Where divine love takes place in the hearts of any people, and they
> steadily act on a principle of universal righteousness, there the true
> intent of the Law is fulfilled, though their outward modes of proceeding
> may be distinguishable from one another."
>
> John Woolman - _Plea For The Poor_
>
>
>

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