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RuggedAscent
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(Date Posted:10/25/2005 06:39:59)
Reply to : imZoe
These are some thoughts I've written along this journey out of fundamentalism.
Welcome imZoe Please post some more of your thoughts. Many of us here have struggled with letting go of the positive side of your post (the first paragraph). For me it boiled down to desiring truth, comforting or not. Others here still hold Christian beliefs, but have dropped the absolutist mindset that many evangelicals hold. Where are you at in your 'journey out of fundamentalism?'
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Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.
--Salman Rushdie
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snakechic
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(Date Posted:10/25/2005 14:12:22)
Reply to : imZoe
On the one hand it represented freedom. Total & awe inspiring freedom. The one true religion, the one true God, the one true belief. Saved unto life in Christ & no fear of hell's eternal fire. Lift me up, let me fly away. Security, assurance & the God of the universe. Can it get any better then that?On the other hand, it represented prison. Chained & shackled by rules & regulations. Saved unto life in the corporate church with an uneasy threatening fear of hell's fire. I can't get up. A hint of insecurity & a questioning assurance. The God of us & not them. Could it get any worse?These are some thoughts I've written along this journey out of fundamentalism. Been lurking since joining & finally decided to speak up.
Welcome
your journal noting is wonderful...............to me the two opposing hands are in some kind of struggle -
it feels like riding the wave and surfing ......woosh........then the dump into the undercurrent.
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In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince people that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy person living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, woman(man) is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.
-- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God
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imZoe
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(Date Posted:10/25/2005 17:32:26)
Thanks for the welcome you two.
I thought I'd share something I wrote back in July/05 & thought it might address the "where" on the journey & also the "struggle."
There is a sense of being torn between two lover's, feeling like a fool, loving both of you is breaking all the rules. (Kudos to the artist(s) who wrote & sang that tune. I should look that up.)
It's like having liked/loved say two men, but you can only have one & you chose, but it doesn't mean you didn't like/love the other & that you forget that like/love.
Did I ever in a million years think I'd ever consider walking away from Christianity? Not on your life. I liked/loved Christ/God as I knew & understood Christ/God.
I only knew Christianity in the context of legalistic, black & white thinking. I haven't found a comfort level in the other types of Christianity out there, so it's more honest for me to not be a "liberal, moderate or progressive Christian" just to keep other people happy. Funny, the very people I identified with in Christianity loathed the liberal, moderate & so-called progressive Christians. They were to be avoided. They were the back-sliders, the heretics, the carnal Christians...in danger of hell...and yet now to them, for me to be liberal, moderate &/or progressive would be so much better then a *gasp* ex-Christian!
The feeling like a fool part comes from not fitting into any specific religous or non-religous social norm right now & trust me, when you walk a tight-rope between the two worlds, the religious & the non-religious, you can easily be made to look like a fool, which then leads (for me) to feeling like a fool. The whole fool thing is my responsibility though. I can't do anything about the practice of someone making me look like a fool. I can do something about allowing them to make me feel like a fool. I'm working on that part. 
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RadioOne
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(Date Posted:10/27/2005 06:21:25)
Great thoughts! The cognative disonance in fundamentalism is a killer.
Welcome!
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"You must remember yourself--be acutely aware of yourself being present to yourself in this point in time."
--Dr. Quentin Dinardo, professor
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imZoe
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(Date Posted:10/28/2005 18:18:18)
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redzed
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(Date Posted:11/18/2005 03:04:34)
Reply to : imZoe
I only knew Christianity in the context of legalistic, black & white thinking. I haven't found a comfort level in the other types of Christianity out there, so it's more honest for me to not be a "liberal, moderate or progressive Christian" just to keep other people happy. Funny, the very people I identified with in Christianity loathed the liberal, moderate & so-called progressive Christians. They were to be avoided. They were the back-sliders, the heretics, the carnal Christians...in danger of hell...and yet now to them, for me to be liberal, moderate &/or progressive would be so much better then a *gasp* ex-Christian!
Seems retrograde to permanently label oneself as anything, whether a christian, ex christian, liberal, moderate or whatever. Taking those positions is IMHO the basic problem with organised/established religions. They seek to enshrine certain things as fundamental truths that are so for all time ,whereas the reality of life is that the only constant is change!
Welcome
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Albert Einstein: "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe" a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us."
Namaste
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