(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?
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.
Absolutely not. In fact I never really felt that god was there. No matter how hard I prayed or how much I would sit up at night trying to 'feel god' (which I did do several times as a child) I never really felt that any god was there. Deep down I'm not sure if I ever really believed in god, so there's not much for me to miss. I do, at times, find myself trying to justify some of the things Christians say to defend their position, but I normally can't bring myself to do it. There's just no world where any of that stuff makes sense to me.
If you were a Christian for 25 years there is no wonder you still deal with these feelings at times. It's like if you were a drinker for 25 years then stopped... occasionally thoughts of ordering yourself a martini are going to pop up.
“Love is the only bow on Life’s dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher.
It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” - Robert. G. Ingersoll
It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” - Robert. G. Ingersoll
