Destruction of self confidence

[Belacqua]

I was raised catholic. It's pretty mechanical, all about obeying rules and constant ritual.

Would you say that Catholicism took away your self-confidence, as the OP suggests? 

Or did being a part of that give you more self-confidence, since you were told that Catholicism is true and best, and God is said to love his believers?

[emjay]

Yeah, I know that, it just wasn't given the same emphasis, or at least not in the same way, in the sort of Christianity I was brought up in... I guess because it tended to focus on the positive side rather than the negative... for instance I don't think they talked about hell much... it was more focusing on your personal relationship with Christ and all that.

 I was raised catholic. It's pretty mechanical, all about obeying rules and constant ritual. Eg prayer in the formulaic way of the rosary. Rosary beads are divide into 'decades; 10 Hail Mary's and an our father. Say enough and you can earn a plenary indulgence, which is a get out of hell free card, Then there's confession and the other six sacraments. Central is the Mass. Catholics are taught that during the mass, the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus. Conveniently, appearance, texture, taste , does not change. That teaching was just one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation.

Protestants tend to be more Bible focussed. Each man is left to interpret the bible in his own way.  At my Catholic school, we were actively discouraged from reading the bible. The church interpreted the bible for us. That's why there's such a conflict between Catholic and protestant reformation about some topics. EG did Jesus have a brother? Catholics 'no', his mother Mary remained a  virgin. Protestants 'Yes',  he had four;  James, Joses, James and Judas. (according to the gospels of Matthew and Mark). Also apparently sisters,  but these are not identified in the Bible.

Thanks for the info... it's very interesting, and yeah, it's hard to think of two more diametrically opposed Christian belief systems - in so many respects - than Catholicism and Protestantism. I was brought up to despise Catholicism, as basically a cult full of idolatry... not least because of the seeming worship of Mary, and saints, in it, as well as the love of graven images and wealth.

[vulcanlogician]

 I was raised catholic. It's pretty mechanical, all about obeying rules and constant ritual. Eg prayer in the formulaic way of the rosary. Rosary beads are divide into 'decades; 10 Hail Mary's and an our father. Say enough and you can earn a plenary indulgence, which is a get out of hell free card, Then there's confession and the other six sacraments. Central is the Mass. Catholics are taught that during the mass, the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus. Conveniently, appearance, texture, taste , does not change. That teaching was just one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation.

Protestants tend to be more Bible focussed. Each man is left to interpret the bible in his own way.  At my Catholic school, we were actively discouraged from reading the bible. The church interpreted the bible for us. That's why there's such a conflict between Catholic and protestant reformation about some topics. EG did Jesus have a brother? Catholics 'no', his mother Mary remained a  virgin. Protestants 'Yes',  he had four;  James, Joses, James and Judas. (according to the gospels of Matthew and Mark). Also apparently sisters,  but these are not identified in the Bible.

Thanks for the info... it's very interesting, and yeah, it's hard to think of two more diametrically opposed Christian belief systems - in so many respects - than Catholicism and Protestantism. I was brought up to despise Catholicism, as basically a cult full of idolatry... not least because of the seeming worship of Mary, and saints, in it, as well as the love of graven images and wealth.

And let's not forget:

[The Grand Nudger]

I've always found the dim view that protestants hold of catholics strange. Were it not for catholics, there wouldn't even be a magic man to worship.

[emjay]

I've always found the dim view that protestants hold of catholics strange. Were it not for catholics, there wouldn't even be a magic man to worship.

Yeah, I know, I bring up the same point but the answer I get back is everyone was Catholic back then (when the Bible was compiled) so it doesn't count.

Basically if there's one thing religion's good for, or good at, it's forking and forgetting its roots. What starts as minor differences in interpretation snowballs in each fork, until neither side can recognise each other. That definitely looks like that's what happened here... think of it like Linux, they're just different distros of Christianity

[The Grand Nudger]

That's a pretty good way of putting it. Still..they don't recognize each other..but they also don't appear to be capable of recognizing themselves. Protestants gripe that catholics don't get their christianity from magic book, for example. Well..neither do protestants. What's the problem, right? I wonder if the reported lack of confidence might boil down to having too many principles and beliefs observed to be in conflict with themselves and/or with reality for a person to feel secure.

There's a related phenomena, called intentionally confusing dogma. You read about it in cult studies. This is where the dissonance a person feels when apprehending their religious ideology is a feature, not a bug. Sometimes...in an effort to produce insight that might otherwise evade our conventional thoughts, but more commonly, as a lever of control. Insecure people seek the permission of authority.

What's fun, is that when we say it's to do x, or do y, we're describing the intent of the cult progenitors...but it's not necessary for anyone to do this on purpose. Identical circumstances can be arrived at through composite construction of a faith tradition - as was the case with abrahamic theology. When a person considers their religious parents, it may also be the case that producing insecurity wasn't the intention, merely an effect, but that the effect is so useful to parents as authority we let it slide. Better that our son worries about going to hell for smoking meth - than smoking meth. Better that our daughter feels insecure in her decisions than that she feel completely sure of her soon-to-be mistakes.

[emjay]

That's a pretty good way of putting it. Still..they don't recognize each other..but they also don't appear to be capable of recognizing themselves. Protestants gripe that catholics don't get their christianity from magic book, for example. Well..neither do protestants. What's the problem, right? I wonder if the reported lack of confidence might boil down to having too many principles and beliefs observed to be in conflict with themselves and/or with reality for a person to feel secure.

There's a related phenomena, called intentionally confusing dogma. You read about it in cult studies. This is where the dissonance a person feels when apprehending their religious ideology is a feature, not a bug. Sometimes...in an effort to produce insight that might otherwise evade our conventional thoughts, but more commonly, as a lever of control. Insecure people seek the permission of authority.

What's fun, is that when we say it's to do x, or do y, we're describing the intent of the cult progenitors...but it's not necessary for anyone to do this on purpose. Identical circumstances can be arrived at through composite construction of a faith tradition - as was the case with abrahamic theology. When a person considers their religious parents, it may also be the case that producing insecurity wasn't the intention, merely an effect, but that the effect is so useful to parents as authority we let it slide. Better that our son worries about going to hell for smoking meth - than smoking meth. Better that our daughter feels insecure in her decisions than that she feel completely sure of her soon-to-be mistakes.

Interesting. Well if we're talking about cognitive dissonance, that's actually what brought me out of Christianity in the first place; I wish I could say it was because of critical thinking like you guys, but that only came after. At school I was an insufferably stubborn Christian with an answer for everything and none of it good, I imagine. I can still picture the look of frustration and rolling of the eyes of one of my atheist friends, or friend-of-friends... he wasn't particularly close... at the time. Since then I've always wished I could meet him again to tell him 'you were right about two things; Nintendo is better than Sega, and there is no God' As for actually coming out of Christianity, I still remember exactly where I was and when (in a certain classroom at college, age 18) I had the light bulb, and unprovoked, realisation 'there is no God' and everything changed after that, and all cognitive dissonance was gone.

As to the rest of my family, if I had their purported beliefs, I'd have a lot of cognitive dissonance, but they don't seem to... or they hide it well... or it's just them being stubborn like I was. But then I doubt whatever cognitive dissonance they have would push them over the brink, because they can easily suppress (ie not think about) the contentious issues... like questions of evolution vs creationism etc... the power of compartmentalisation... but that wasn't possible for me because my main conflicting issues - ie being gay on the one hand vs being told I was evil for something I had no control over - were not something I could just push to the back of my mind.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh, I didn't critically think my way out of christianity. Common misconception, lol.

Have you ever had the apprehension that dissonance in the context of your being gay and your parents purported beliefs manifested itself in the status and content of your relationship with your parents? I know that alot of people have a similar experience to the one where you described where they can't reconcile their nature with their deontology and so they find it more difficult to believe that deontology. I'd say that a parent having the same problem and finding it difficult to believe in or accept their child's nature..instead..is the same process, just forked the other way, as you put it earlier.

I find it difficult to believe in and accept my own child's self professed gender issues, and do something similar...it's entirely accidental that the focus of my own firmly held beliefs isn't as shitty as people who belong to a hate group by any other name. Still, it seems like a ting that we can apply to any party in either situation and even in comparison, despite the difference in and between parties in the two situations.

That's more the kind of thing we're talking about when we talk about dissonance. Not things pushed to the back of mind - things which can't be, and so, create discomfort which might manifest itself any number of ways until it's resolved. The last parts the tricky part. What genuine resolution can be arrived at when, for the sake of argument, reality is in conflict with a firmly held belief? Not all of which can be in the box of shitty beliefs, not all of which are absurd, not all of which are poorly argued for or poorly justified.

[emjay]

Oh, I didn't critically think my way out of christianity.  Common misconception, lol.  

Have you ever had the apprehension that dissonance in the context of your being gay and your parents purported beliefs manifested itself in the status and content of your relationship with your parents?  I know that alot of people have a similar experience to the one where you described where they can't reconcile their nature with their deontology and so they find it more difficult to believe that deontology.  I'd say that a parent having the same problem and finding it difficult to believe in or accept their child's nature..instead..is the same process, just forked the other way, as you put it earlier.

I find it difficult to believe in and accept my own child's self professed gender issues, and do something similar...it's entirely accidental that the focus of my own firmly held beliefs isn't as shitty as people who belong to a hate group by any other name.  Still, it seems like a ting that we can apply to any party in either situation and even in comparison, despite the difference in and between parties in the two situations.

That's more the kind of thing we're talking about when we talk about dissonance.  Not things pushed to the back of mind - things which can't be, and so, create discomfort which might manifest itself any number of ways until it's resolved.  The last parts the tricky part.  What genuine resolution can be arrived at when, for the sake of argument, reality is in conflict with a firmly held belief?  Not all of which can be in the box of shitty beliefs, not all of which are absurd, not all of which are poorly argued for or poorly justified.

I would never have guessed you had or were having these sorts of issues yourself.

Using your definition of cognitive dissonance - things that can't be pushed to the back of the mind - I guess you could characterise my relationship/dynamic with my parents, particularly my dad, regarding both atheism and homosexuality, as avoiding cognitive dissonance... since everything gets swept under the rug. I feel uncomfortable talking about my dad directly like this (and therefore preferred to keep it vague), because I do love him and I know he does love me, and outside of these issues we get on very well, but we just know that it will always end in tears if we confront these issues head on... so for the most part, we don't, or if we do, only in little steps. Put it this way, nowadays we can watch a comedy together which covers a gay issue, and unlike before, the whole room doesn't get unbearably tense and awkward.... so I see that as progress, small, but I'll take it; I don't see his overall view ever changing but he has mellowed a little at least.

And on the issue of atheism, oddly enough I get more resistance when I talk about Buddhism than atheism, which doesn't even involve the concept of a god - or at least not the type I was interested in... there the potential cognitive dissonance seems to stem from the massive difference in philosophy, ie of Buddhism teaching you to be self-reliant and Christianity teaching you basically to be reliant on God. Vs with atheism (I know the Buddhism I'm talking about is also atheism, but you know what I mean) I guess that's just another thing that can easily be swept under the rug in the sense of saying, 'one day he'll get it' (I guess both of us are hoping that of the other). Another oddly enough, is that this whole interest in the Five Ways has actually acted as a little bit of a bridge between us... allowing us to talk about religion on a fairly neutral ground, without the attendant defensiveness or whatever, since his faith is not based on or reliant on those sorts of arguments.

Anyway, as to you, how did you come out of Christianity then, if it wasn't critical thinking? And with your child do you have the same sorts of issues of sweeping things under the rug? It's always been a bit of paradox for me, on the one hand, confronting things is possibly a good thing, but on the other, neither me nor my dad are people who like to fight for the sake of fighting. I don't think there's anything I could ever say to change his mind, or vice versa for me, so in that sense, what's the point? Because on the issues of atheism vs Christianity, we just speak a different language and have no common ground... ie psychology vs superstition... albeit with a new potentially common ground coming through the five ways, ie logical rather than emotional arguments for God. Not saying I'm trying to argue for that, but it's just a welcome change to be able to actually discuss these things.

[The Grand Nudger]

I didn't come out of christianity at all. I went to a catholic school for socio-economic reasons. In my formative years, in a widely mixed faith family, I was given the advice "you want to worship something? Worship that tree [actually pointing to a specific tree]..it was here when we got here it'll be here when we're gone and we're only here for so long as it bares fruit". In retrospect, that was probably one of the most formative piece of religious instruction I ever received.

I think that the intent was to make me, as you would put it, a critical thinker. To micro-aggress against the prevailing narrative where I grew up. A component of familial identity even as we navigated and benefited from those things which we did not ourselves believe. Still, the advice came from a person who would go out of their way every single day to put me into and familiarize me with the sorts of narratives they opposed.

It worked out in a weird way, as I was more actively involved in the actual nuts and bolts of american christendom than most of the faithful (and I still am, I spend a significant amount of my time organizing christian outreach events and efforts for my own reasons), and as a consequence I appeal to and sought out extremely faithful and traditional women. The people who raised me resolved their dissonance by teaching me to be a chimeric subversive specifically equipped to exploit christian faith to a better end...at least as we see it. That made me The Wifes antidote to her overbearingly evangelical father who on the one hand she wanted to please, and on the other..reject. Created a situation where a very faithful christian woman genuinely desired for her own children to be raised "in my manner"...as she always puts it. Granted, she thinks my way is character building but that....also...anyone of character will eventually come to believe what she does. My own self excluded. Do as we say!

I only once managed to attract the attentions of a pagan, and despite her being a more natural match for me on those grounds she was completely unsuitable on every other. I remember one of the big divides being that she wanted me to make a clean and open break from all that I came from even as she herself hoped to benefit from it. It was never going to happen, no matter how much I wanted it to..and I did...I powerfully and painfully did. I wanted what I couldn't have, and she's better for the break since. I only know this..because, like a fucking common christian creeper..I keep tabs on her to keep tabs on my estranged daughter.

The closest thing I can think of to what you went through was, likewise, a societal conceit. We knew we weren't what we presented ourselves as, and I was under immense pressure to conform to a standard that wasn't even the private standard of virtue within my own family, in house. So that we could become what we wished to be seen as. It didn't work out, and it caused a huge rift, on account of how nobody told my dick...and even if they did..it's not like it has ears.

A rift that probably wont ever be resolved. I'm packing all the kids up friday afternoon to go see the people who made me for what is entirely likely to be the last time. We'll get there saturday morning and by monday morning we'll be there (and leaving to go somewhere else, to visit equally fading people) with baited breath, hoping the chemo went well..knowing that we leave that day, either way, to visit the other half of family for the holidays that we dont celebrate at home.

We'll be there with all of his greats, and....realistically, there wont be any time to resolve these things..and...... realistically, I'll never see either of them again, alive. Even though it will all be immortal on some shelf in my house some day. Do I tell them what my daughter is going through? With what time, and why would it matter? They're far less in the loop than I am. There wont be any come to jesus moments before they breath their last.

The last time I distanced myself and my family we put 1k miles between us..and that was just rehearsal. We'll do it again in the next year or two and the distance will be larger. Empowered, in a sense, because they will be no longer and all that they ever were will be subsumed by what I am and what they made me. I wont explain to them, for example, that their great grand dottir is going through what she is. I wont rehash my own shameful conflicts with gender and other things in a context they palpably and intentionally created.

Fighting or disagreeing with my children, upon whom every action I've taken in my life depends as it play out....when my own parents are gone, wont be a departure for me or for my family. I cant comfort him, a man who only had dottirs, himself, with the fiction that the son he had, such as it it is, such as I am.....has come into his own authority.

-and that, with all of my traditional upbringing outside of contemporary tradition...is facing a situation circumstantially identical to what your family faced with respect to your own situation, exists.