RE: Indoctrination and how it has severly effected me.
February 4, 2016 at 8:31 pm
(This post was last modified: February 4, 2016 at 10:33 pm by Jenny A.)
Hello,
Everyone has a different experience. I knew I didn't believe from about the age of five or so. I couldn't figure out why all the adults I knew did. I didn't hate church though. It was mildly pleasant, and I liked Bible camp. The sticking point came at adolescence with confirmation classes. I finished the classes but was unwilling to stand up and be confirmed. It required publicly professing things that I not only didn't believe in, but didn't even think plausible.
We didn't shout in my family. We just had endless forced discussions. It's the pastor who brought the matter to an end. He agreed that no one should stand up before his alter and lie. He said he wouldn't let me do it until I told him I believed. He was actually rather kind to me.
The mistake the poor man made was to suggest I read the whole Bible with commentary. Previously I had felt guilty about not believing because it hurt my parents and made me feel like an outsider. The Bible is great for relieving guilt for not believing. The god and morals in there are heinous. I suggest actually reading the thing. As you do, ask yourself if god is fair or moral. Think about things from the point of view of non-Hebrews. Pay attention to descriptions of the natural world. Notice the sacred importance of writing and how late writing appears. Ask yourself about the sanity of the OT laws. Mixed fabrics are a sin? Compare the Jesus of the first three gospels to the Gospel of John. Read what Jesus actually said about when the kingdom of heaven is coming. Trust me, the more you actually read that book the less you will believe it, and the better you will feel about not believing.
I make no promises about your parents. Mom has been willfully forgetting that I don't believe for a good thirty years now. But we still love each other. (Yeah I'm as old as your parents or more so). My girls are in their late teens.)(
Everyone has a different experience. I knew I didn't believe from about the age of five or so. I couldn't figure out why all the adults I knew did. I didn't hate church though. It was mildly pleasant, and I liked Bible camp. The sticking point came at adolescence with confirmation classes. I finished the classes but was unwilling to stand up and be confirmed. It required publicly professing things that I not only didn't believe in, but didn't even think plausible.
We didn't shout in my family. We just had endless forced discussions. It's the pastor who brought the matter to an end. He agreed that no one should stand up before his alter and lie. He said he wouldn't let me do it until I told him I believed. He was actually rather kind to me.
The mistake the poor man made was to suggest I read the whole Bible with commentary. Previously I had felt guilty about not believing because it hurt my parents and made me feel like an outsider. The Bible is great for relieving guilt for not believing. The god and morals in there are heinous. I suggest actually reading the thing. As you do, ask yourself if god is fair or moral. Think about things from the point of view of non-Hebrews. Pay attention to descriptions of the natural world. Notice the sacred importance of writing and how late writing appears. Ask yourself about the sanity of the OT laws. Mixed fabrics are a sin? Compare the Jesus of the first three gospels to the Gospel of John. Read what Jesus actually said about when the kingdom of heaven is coming. Trust me, the more you actually read that book the less you will believe it, and the better you will feel about not believing.
I make no promises about your parents. Mom has been willfully forgetting that I don't believe for a good thirty years now. But we still love each other. (Yeah I'm as old as your parents or more so). My girls are in their late teens.)(
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
