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noelie
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1# |
From:
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12/30/2002
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 1:23 AM)
Hey Dok,
I liked your post in the Lion's Den about fundy bashing so I'm a bit confused as to the last bit of your post here. I see your point (dimly as through a...woah!) but IMO I think it's a bit premature for this section. I personally can't handle that level of 'revelation' - I need to vent and rage and rant against xtianity firstly - I may have been "taken in by another man on the hill" as you say but I was born and raised an RC and brainwashed long before I had the opportunity to think for myself like so many others of the 95% RC population of Ireland so I think it's unfair of you to expect me to run before I can even crawl never mind walk.
I was physically and emotionally abused as a child and raised in abject poverty (less than $1 a day for my mother to raise a family of three at one stage) - I struggled and fought for everything including meaning in life and purpose and love - the xtians offered me all of that and now I've discovered that it's all a lie! I have to come to terms with how I spoke in tongues, prophesied, healed the sick, felt god's presence and cast out demons first. I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not chosen of god to change the course of world events and that I don't have a deity that 'know's the thoughts' he has for me 'thoughts to give me a future' yadda yadda - I don't have a destiny in life and a gurantee of eternal bliss and reward when I die - what the f**k and you doing here telling me that it's my own fault - that's really really going to help me NOT.
I'm down in the pits of depression and the last thing that I need is to be effectively told that it's all my own fault or that even half of it is my own fault - I don't want to argue with you cos I respect you but I personally think you're out of line posting that here in the support section.
Noel.
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Victoria-Escaped
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2# |
Rank:none
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Posts:21
From:
Registered:
06/16/2003
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 1:36 AM)
Dok,
My theory about Christian family members going off the deep end when one leaves Christianity is that they are suddenly very, very nervous. I suspect that they realize that there are actually other options in life -- scary choices to make. Choices that will cause them to catch a lot of grief. And, two, they're more than a bit envious of your escape. After all, now you can go out and do things and say what you want and enjoy a cocktail have premarital sex and all kinds of delicious pleasures not available to them -- as long as they're stuck back there.
I think your approach of not saying a whole lot is probably best. If nothing else, you can sit back and enjoy your fundy brother-in-law's methods for trying to get more info out of you and generally feeling uncomfortable. Did I write that? I must be in a bad mood today!
Cheers!
Victoria
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Dok__Too
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3# |
From:
Registered:
07/12/2003
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 1:02 PM)
nodolan and Victoria, get the fuck over it! Are you xtians now? No. So why continue whining about the past? God, this forum is full of a bunch of fucking whiners.
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I told you I could get away with anything. You people are dumber than George W. Bush's swollen balls.
I can get away with anything. Forum rules are for people too stupid to get around them.
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nologoboy
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4# |
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Posts:513
From:
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07/24/2001
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 4:32 PM)
Reply to : Dok
You have been taken in by another man on the hill, and your own predisposition to buy into the whole wise man with secret knowledge bullshit.?...............
?ou have been hurt by a major part of human nature, to seek deeper understanding that does not exist, and at least half of it is your own damn fault.
at least half of it was NOT my fault. i left god as a teenager under my parent's roof. i was married off to an eternal contract at the age of 5. i have known all along that it was people who screwed with my brain. i stopped shouting at god and started taking a hard, long look at myself. sure, i was the only one that could get myself out of the mud but i certainly did not lower myself into it and i don't think that is a fair implication to make in a general sense. i came to make an important realisation in my life. i left christianity because of issues pertaining to love and truth. purity of intention. in religion, i saw none. so, in taking account of my post-religious life, i realised that hatred, frustration and dissatisfaction were filling the void left by religion. not love. not truth. and it was beginning to kill me. somewhere down there in my inner being, i could feel myself dying all over again. love and truth. i don't want one without the other. you are suggesting that it is a healthy thing to appease a person's irrationality because you fear their negative irrational reaction and i can't buy that. i can relate to not wanting to pull the rug on the cherished beliefs of family but i also expect them to respect me as an individual with opinions. who is the fool, the person who fears a hellish eternity for their loved ones or the loved one that plays out the game of appeasement to that hellish fantasy? your model doesn't work for everybody. sorry. i don't have anything in my life to give me cause to examine my treatment of christians like you obviously have now. that's individual experience for you. your truth. for you. and good luck with it, it sounds like you have a wonderful opportunity for happiness.
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"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught." -Baba Dioum
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Dok
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5# |
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Posts:584
From:
Registered:
06/28/2001
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 7:28 PM)
As far as my saying it is at least half your fault, at some point, whether indoctrinated as a child or converted as an adult, some culpability rests on every believer for the time they CHOOSE to stay in the fold and follow the divine orders to do this and that and all that. This is one of the things that made me the angriest, but somewhere along the line I had to accept my own responsibility for the part I played. Even though I had the seeds planted as a kid and believed as a kid, and later was assimilated into a fundy church, there was a point where I was operating on my own, perpetuating what I have for years bitched about here, proselytisers, witnessing, and other moderate plain ol' jesus freak behavior.
This is a MAJOR causation of my own rage, that my own integrity was so compromised by the lies fed to me. But I can't blame others for it entirely, I wasn't a mindless automoton, I made choices. I have to own up to that and get past that. I tell you seriously it has always been a "triggering" experience (I hate that fucking term, it is so passive) when I play BORG here, because I slip into the character way too easily, even if it was to make fun of neanderthalesque bible pimpin. It used to scare the shit out of me until I realized it was part of the doorway out. Acknowleging my own part, that it was ME, not the people who pulled me in, not the people who wrote the bile, (err I mean bible, forgot a b), not the preachers, not the culture, it was ME! Everyone here has some point where they can look back and be disappointed in themselves for their actions as a christian, even if it was during childhood.
Hell I could be wrong. Not the first or last time.
Yes this is my personal journey, I posted it in case something might make sense to someone in their process. Yes I can understand not being ready to stop raging, I have my days/weeks still. But somewhere along the line the anger will lose it's momentum, it will lose its energy. It will probably come along when someone gets turned off totally by your anger, and a bridge is burned that you didn't want to burn, or you hurt someone you didn't want to and you realize your anger is spreading the damage further. (Then you get crafty, heh heh) What happens when you finally lose your precious anger? When it fades? And I guarantee it will, it's like some physics thing, that energy will dissipate and eventually not have enough spark to even rile yourself up. Your own anger will bore even you. What then?
That is what I am talking about, it may be far down the line, I have been raging for the better part of 3 years, and I still have my days, but... I have better things to do than be pissed off at a fiction writer who died 1900 years ago, nor his endless stream of historical dupes, including myself...
If you come to that crossroad, then that is what I am taking about, you have a choice to make when you get there.
As far as my new family, I know eventually it will come to a head and I will state my case. Probably sooner than later , because indeed I do feel like I am hiding something big. I wait for timing and appropriateness. I do not want to make a useless stance and be an atheistic apologist. That is the same fucking game I played before as a christian. It is a useless game. I think it will have to do with when I think the people around me are ready to hear something like that, I don't want to lose members of my newfound family over something as stupid as my paradigm vs theirs. If they aint hurting anyone, and they arent, they are very tolerant and loving, (there is only one I have issues with, and I will pop his bubble someday) then what is the reason to try to rock the boat so I can push MY truth? Besides, as I used to be a hardcore fundy, how fucking hypocritical would that be of me?
The main reason though is this; I love poking fun at stuff, I am as always a sacreligious person at heart. Naturally I draw stuff on those lines that have the quality of being very provocative. Even non-christian friends tell me I am going to hell.  But the christianity bashes are now not as personal as they once were, but there is such a wealth of idiocy to draw from there. But to be fair, I cant just pick on that stupid ass worldview and leave the other equally stupid ones alone. So this part of what I am writing about is a serious quandary I find myself in, how to go forward with something I enjoy the hell out of, without destroying some very important relationships? Not being a christian is one thing, this is an entirely different issue. Me and my fuckin pencils can cause a lot of damage, depending on how far my scribblez get seen. One day I am on one side, fuckit, goferit, the next I am on the other side and am trying to find a way to do it secretly under an assumed name, so the fam don't find out. Then there is the whole, what if a religious maniac with a gun comes looking for me like they did Larry Flynt, or my family? Maybe I am giving myself too much credit to think I could make such an impact...
what to do...
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Every time you lay off an American worker you also lay off an American consumer.
When you export jobs you also export the ability to pay for goods manufactured for the American market.
Let's not vote for Bush again this year.
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katseye
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6# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:159
From:
Registered:
10/04/2002
Time spent:
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 9:02 PM)
Reply to : Dok
As far as my saying it is at least half your fault, at some point, whether indoctrinated as a child or converted as an adult, some culpability rests on every believer for the time they CHOOSE to stay in the fold and follow the divine orders to do this and that and all that. This is one of the things that made me the angriest, but somewhere along the line I had to accept my own responsibility for the part I played. Even though I had the seeds planted as a kid and believed as a kid, and later was assimilated into a fundy church, there was a point where I was operating on my own, perpetuating what I have for years bitched about here, proselytisers, witnessing, and other moderate plain ol' jesus freak behavior...
Hey Dok. I can see that your post is mostly a think-aloud rambling, so I'm not taking it as anything more than food for thought. And there's plenty of that in it, so I'm enjoying the provocation. I believe this observation that there was a point where you chose to join the fundy party line and therefore carry some blame for your own suffering (and maybe the suffering of a few others) is true for you, and I respect the fact that you can see it. I can also see that it's been helpful for you to take on that perspective. It goes a little far to extrapolate your experience to each and every one of us, though. It may be true that there's more than a grain of truth in it, but it's still short sighted to think you know how things are for everyone. I was raised in the fundy faith, and I mostly hung on because it was made blatantly clear that if I didn't I would be cast off from the family and community. So you could argue it was my choice, just like you could say that someone that does something because a gun is being held to their head is choosing to do it. As long as I could convince myself that no one was being hurt, I was ok with that. I was so determined not to see myself as a victim that I didn't see that believing something in order to keep my family was pretty friggin' harmful for me. I believed with all my heart that my needs didn't count. It wasn't until my brother was committed for schizophrenia and my parents weren't the least bit interested in helping him that I saw how toxic our situation was. In the end, I lost all my connections with family and community, and I had to strike out completely on my own to rebuild my life and find new connections. At this point, I'm not very interested in identifying who exactly is at fault. There were lots of things I did wrong, and there were some other people involved too. But placing blame doesn't really solve anything, because no matter who did the damage, I'm the one that has to find a way to heal myself. There are plenty of things I need to take responsibility for. Like I need to learn how to find healthy connections. I've known this for a long time, but the problem is that I don't exactly know that "healthy" is. So I'm making lots of mistakes and getting burned and starting over and over and over, and it's pretty fucking exhausting. So yeah, I still get angry and frustrated, and I still whine and bitch. And I also know how to support myself, how to have fun, and how to connect with people. It's all true at different moments. kat
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Cyranothe2nd
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7# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:794
From:
Registered:
07/29/2001
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 9:26 PM)
Dok~
I completely get what you are saying. I've been there for a while myself. I'm TIRED of bitching. I want something more constructive to do. And yes, I know that I bought into the whole thing out of naivete or stupidity and stuck with it against my better judgement. It IS half my fault and that's the bitch of it...I don't want to hate myself so I hate the Fundies instead. And I know that that is unjust and I have no right to that anger because they are just suffering dupes too. But the anger is protection. It keeps me from pointing the finger back at myself.
But sometimes when the anger burns off I have to face the facts...that it was really my own self-righteousness that kept me a Fundy far longer than my family or my church or peer pressure. I did it to myself. I've been through all the blame and guilt and anger at me and I'm just tired anymore. I need something better to do that bitch at how fucked up my life used to me. I need to build and go on.
I sometimes feel like I simmer too much because of this forum. Not to say that I don't appreciate it and love it but when I come here I feel like I have some right to that anger and I feel myself holding on to it in a way that is ultimately destructive to me. That's why I went away the first time and that's why I don't hang out here as much as I would like to. I love everyone here ( and I'm not condemning or making judgements on anyone) but I sometimes feel th at it is more of a detriment for me to be this angry for so long.
I need to get past it.
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"After all this time?" Dumbledore asked sadly.
"Always," said Snape.
***Trust the Prince***
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katseye
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8# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:159
From:
Registered:
10/04/2002
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(Date Posted:07/12/2003 9:41 PM)
Reply to : Cyranothe2nd
I sometimes feel like I simmer too much because of this forum.
Wow, that's interesting. It's really making me think. I'm thinking of cases where I've observed other peoples' anger. The times when I get caught up in it are the ones where I have similar issues that are unresolved, and I start to feel my own feelings. If I don't have any unresolved issues relating to the anger I'm observing, I may feel empathy and compassion (depending on what the anger is about), but I don't tend to get angry. But that's what it's like for me; I'm not implying anything about what you're going through, Cyranothe2nd. I have been in a place where I needed to rant, and I have been in a place where I was tired of it, so I can relate to both sentiments. Right now I'm not feeling the need to rant, but I'm pretty sure there will be a time in the future when I will again. I don't want to place any particular value on it. It just is what it is. What we do with it, however, is crucial. I prefer to use my anger to propel me out of situations that don't work for me. Using it to justify attacking other people isn't cool. But these are actions that are in reaction to the anger. The actual emotion isn't either righteous or evil. kat
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nologoboy
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9# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:513
From:
Registered:
07/24/2001
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(Date Posted:07/13/2003 2:24 AM)
Reply to : Dok
This is a MAJOR causation of my own rage, that my own integrity was so compromised by the lies fed to me.
and so the rage continues, or at least all the familiar triggers. people continue to lie and deceive, in or out of church. religion's just a great vehicle for false-bottom truths. while i realise that it is only one cog in the machine, i do pay particular attention to it's function and i hope to be a part of influencing a change in the way it is required to operate. religion has it's own brand of abuses acted out on the vulnerable and i feel a responsibility and a desire to instigate a positive change in people who have had a bad experience while living in the religious bubble. as for your own story and situation, i completely understand your position, i don't think i made that clear in my previous post. i can't fault your logic, when applied to your circumstances. i also don't feel a need to speak up in opposition to religion all the time. sometimes the quality of conversation (or the intellectual reach of the minds involved inthe discussion) just isn't worth punctuating with your own remarks. as for your art, i think it would be a shame to not at least try to take over the world.  i like the idea of picking on a variety of sacred cows, not just christianity. i also agree that atheism, buddhism, environmentalism, political right/leftism have a bunch of silly nuances to pick on. all of your artwork can be directed at the one cause, to highlight what happens when humans think they are god. i like the idea of any artwork that makes a person look at an established paradigm from a different perspective. for example, the blonde-haired blue-eyed jesus is a great target because it represents the racist side of human thought. anyway, enough said. i like your art. i would buy your merch. it doesn't matter if it was a coffee cup lampooning jesus or greenpeace, if it was funny. if you can't laugh at yourself once in a while, then i thinkyou are missing the point of the human experience. that issue of religion will be solved in your new family. i applaud your sensitivity and seflessness in that potentially sticky situation and i haven't forgotten to factor in the children on that one.
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"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught." -Baba Dioum
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