For those of you who have a history in a particular religion and moved away from it, I mean do you ever miss the feeling of believing you had a personal relationship with god?

A few weeks ago, to my surprise, I went through a period of nostalgia. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Twenty-five years of indoctrination and programing in fear and guilt, joy and gratitude don’t just go away just because I realize intellectually that Christianity isn’t true.

If I shared those feelings and the dreams I used to have of being left in the rapture with a Christian, they will have an explanation for it. This is why indoctrination is so important in religion. We’re programmed with the strongest emotions and religionists know the feelings won’t go away—not permanently. All it takes is a trigger, a song, a memory. Then the Christians can say aha, in your heart of hearts you know god exists. And if I don’t know better, I’ll have to believe their interpretation of what I feel.

But I do know better and I resent being played with. To program me to believe something and then use that programming as proof of my belief is disingenuous. Of course, now they can interpret my resentment as proof that I hate god.

I 100% do not miss this. The one thing Christianity did best in my life is hold me back from happiness. Depression is a far better companion.

I did periodically. It is hard to give up having magic in your life as well as eternal companionship with the long view on life that brings. But I don't think I have in at least 30 years now. I'm over it. Funny but I still have 'magic' in my life in so far as I admit I am a mystery to myself. Not everything is locked down and settled, nor is it all up to me. There is much about me that must be discovered, not decided upon. So it/I am a mystery.

The only thing I miss is the idea that I will see loved ones again. I understand death now and I accept it but sometimes I wish I was naive enough again to think I will see those I lost in heaven. Otherwise I don't miss anything to do with being religious or any relationship with god.

I still get a church lady apple pie on occasion so there isn't anything I miss.

And liturgically, they've watered down everything I remember from growing up in it, so I wouldn't be missing out on good fodder to bring back here either. And as for the slacker and scripture cherry picking shit they're into now, we get that delivered directly here to AF, so we're good to go!

I miss the mainstreamishness of everybody in their Sunday Best, keeping up with the Joneses at the church. 

But I can do that anyway. No bible required.

Nope, not a bit.  In fact, there is nothing that I miss about Christianity.  Believing a lie is pointless, I'm glad I don't do it anymore.

No i couldn't miss something i really never really believed in from the start.

I would really like to say no, but there are some aspects I do occasionally miss.  Meeting with acquaintances who you wouldn't normally go out of your way to see was kind of nice, for instance.  They weren't actually "friends", but I could still enjoy their company on those rare occasions when their company was actually enjoyable.  Probably the biggest things I miss, though, is how easy it is to "be somebody" in a church.  In real life I'm never going to be the guy who invented the faster than light drive or cured cancer.  But in the church I was somebody.  Even a kid in a fundamentalist church can be someone everyone looks up to by just being crazier than everyone else, believing more than anyone else.  Anyone who doesn't look up to the nuttiest kid on the block is looked and with suspicion, so they aren't important anyway.  But when you get right down to it, it's a little sick.

(February 13, 2017 at 10:29 am)Rhondazvous Wrote: For those of you who have a history in a particular religion and moved away from it, I mean do you ever miss the feeling of believing you had a personal relationship with god?

I would say no.  My father is a practitioner of Judaism (though he was never really strict with me about it, nor is he a strict practitioner himself) and he brought me up in that faith via Sunday school and various Synagogue services on Friday nights (the Friday night services were a requirement for my Bar Mitzvah along with some after school Wednesday classes).  However, during this entire experience, I could never really say that I felt a special relationship with some other life-form in our reality.  At best, I observed a community of people who seemed to derive happiness and meaning from something they believed in, which gave them a unique path to follow in their lives; however, this path was not my own and by continuing to practice it, I was only letting others think for me; I was not being myself.  Hence, I do not miss my religious upbringing and the god concepts associated with it: if this chapter in my life had any meaning, then that meaning was brought forth via social conditioning and norms, which were not a true reflection of how I felt or thought.