The deconversion road has continued. I've been able to return to the Unitarian Universalist church. I was able to talk to them about how I was UU for most of my young adult hood and how I left and came back and get understanding. That helps a lot. I have noticed they treat my husband with a lot more respect then as the lost "hell-bound" soul. They are nice people. Class issues may still be rough ones in the UU, but I have noticed since I left, there was discussion about classism and more education along those lines in the churches. I can't believe in the God who throws most people in hell, that's long over with. We have been happier being back, the UU fellowship we attend is very interactive and friendly.
I spent 16 years of my life thinking there was a God that would care. I didn't believe in the prosperity gospel and didn't expect him to bring me suitcases of 50s and 100 dollar bills or even total healing, but I expected that instead of being ground down by stupid things of no meaning and years of poverty, there would be some meaning, focus and comfort to life. Maybe compared to my human narcissistic parents, I wanted a loving God the father. Well the treatment wasn't much different. Lots of silence and withholding. I noticed those characters were all merging together in mind. I had my own cognitive dissonance in that area. Any solace I did find or happiness was based in "breaking the rules": activist causes frowned upon by the religious right, art, music, and nature.
There's a lot of people I know calling out to God for hope, help and comfort. I feel for them. I am still technically theistic instead of total atheist and I hope "beyond the veil" so to speak there is a God or higher power that cares and can't or doesn't intervene for reasons we don't understand, but the idea of a God who demands blood sacrifices to have sin appeased, that's totally gone for me now and the evangelical lines of dividing humanity into lost and saved with the greatest percent going to hell. There's no God finding a parking space for you or sending down magic fairy dust to fix any of our lives.
I had one aunt my sociopathic family destroyed, and I prayed for help to change things for her. NOPE. Some who have read my blog long enough know that the seeds of the deconversion were spread long ago. The evil just grew more evil and got richer, while Mr. Yahweh sat back on his lounge chair and said "I am too busy." I think of others who have died, all good people I who cared about and had conscience and empathy who the evangelicals and fundamentalists would consign to hell based on their rules because they were not "born again" like my war protester friend who was not Christian and died 7 years ago. It is a relief to no longer live in the world of "hell" and end-times Doom.
My husband made a joke about God is was based on a cartoon I did during my youthful deconversion atheist days where I draw God with a Bart Simpson head, saying "Eat my shorts!" while watching struggling people. We still joke about this every time something bad happens like our car breaking down or other mishaps. One of us will joke "EAT MY SHORTS" which is code for God giving us the middle finger and laugh. Hey you have enough dark stuff happen, sometimes you have to learn to laugh. We both have been sick most of this winter. He goes out in public to run errands, and gets the latest flu or cold and then I get it. I'm in bed with another one, and all of December was spent being sick too.
I was going into the pharmacy a few days ago to get 60 bucks co-pays worth of medication, had to go in since they screwed up an order, and husband had stomped back to the car and sent me in on my walker, and I walked in and saw all these signs they are selling in there. The pharmacists had ignored our called in order three days before. I call this the "Middle Class and above Smug Christian Woman decor", those signs they slap on their living room walls always painted usually on barn wood that say things like...
"Thankful, Grateful, Truly Blessed"
"Truly Blessed"
"In All Things Give Thanks"
Well you get the drift. If I see someone with signs like that on their living room walls, I will know not to pursue a friendship not too heavily. What kind of people put things up like that on their walls? Do they feel really blessed or is it to brag about being blessed? They fill living rooms of all my old church members, and some people around here. If I get in any pain I can't hide or can't wear the mask, they would dump me like a hot rock. That's someone to keep in politeness land and weather talk.
Hmm you mean like God? Think about a relationship where you are promised this figure will help you, and he simply chooses not to. Or refuses over and over to help people you care about. One reason I deconverted was so many friends died without "being saved", I figured heaven was going to be empty anyway, if there was one.
I can't wear the mask. And yeah the preachers will preach, "Oh God loves you" but all I know is when the pedal hit the metal, and when it was time for a God to step up. He didn't. Many people who deconvert, and I have seen this on all the deconversion boards, because I know we prayed and asked this God for help, and we also saw many loved ones and others suffering then we start to question.
One thing I think about, humans would probably help each other a hell of a lot more, if they didn't think there as a magic genie in the sky that was going to fix everything. I also believe a Cruel God makes for Cruel Men, and this is why the religious right has become so hypocritical and cruel too.
"Middle Class and above Smug Christian Woman decor" LOL! You nailed it, Peep! :) There's something so Orwellian about these ubiquitous, cheerful slogans shepherding us towards right thinking! If "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" hangs on your bedroom wall, your relationship is fascistically f&#$@d, as displays of affection are decreed mandatory! It's been my experience that women who decorate with elegantly "scripted" signs, IN LIEU OF ART, are indeed pastel control freaks who throw over the top toddler birthday parties to confirm their socio-economic status to mommies in attendance. Turn over a splintered faux rustic sign, conveying American agrarian values and discover it's Made in China! What had been the pursuit and arena of philosophy has been dumbed down to "Eat Pray Love." Eat My Shorts! LOL
ReplyDeleteLOL thanks anon, I am glad you get my joke. That stuff is worsening around here. Yeah there is something Orwellian and repressive about it. I am surprised they haven't gotten people to put up OBEY signs yet, oops saw those on some T-shirts. Yes it is all indoctrination about "right thinking", I'll think what I want thank you. Christianity turned into a mind control cult. Yeah these signs for me are a red flag to keep a "friendship" an acquaintanceship or polite social interaction. Yes they are control freaks where one bad thought gives them the vapors or who gripe about "negativity". Sure it's an agarian "country" sign, kind of funny how they always print this crap on faux barn wood that some sweatshop slaves put together over in China. At least "Eat my Shorts" had a little verve to it. I can see them all with zombie eyes as the nation falls and their work hours or the man of the house's expand or get wiped away, and Republicans make life even more precarious, repeating to themselves "I am so blessed, I am so blessed, I am so blessed." LOL
DeleteWhen I was very young, just right out of high school, I thought God played cruel jokes on certain unlucky people and me. I used to tell people that my life was a joke and some people were angry when I said it. I did not understand why some people were mad at me for feeling that way about life in general except that some people wanted to hold onto their offensive philosophy of life that I did not embrace.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in my thirties, I watched a scene in a movie where a customer services representative of a company that dealt with vacationers said, "You've been fucked!" I felt God has been telling me that I have been fucked when bad things happened to me. The phrase "Eat my short" is a children-friendly message while a statement "You've been fucked" is offensive to moralists.
I never cared for "I am blessed" or "blessed" messages or logo. What I never cared for people who insisted on living in a delusion that they are blessed or would get blessed by God when they make decisions that negatively impact others. It is too superficial, fleeting and empty, as platitudes are empty and meaningless. Some people, especially narcs want to drill these mantras into their heads over and over until it is "embedded" inside their heads, or they are completely "brainwashed."
These people who need to drill the word "blessed" in their heads have nothing exciting about their lives, so they need platitudes and "positivities" to survive. I used to house a woman who claimed that she psychologically needed to "think positive" and have these words drilled into her head; otherwise, she would get angry and depressed. She implied that if I did not go along with her "positivity," I would have been emotionally and mentally abusive to her. It took me a year to get rid of her. She turned out to be a malignant narc who hustled me for free housing and foods.
As a Christian, I started thinking God was punishing me all the time since many bad things had happened. It made me vulnerable to the spiritual abuser that came along. I remember trying to talk to some people about life and what had happened to me but most got angry. I learned the hard way during the early years of no contact, that many people just like to kick someone when they were down, and they seemed to enjoy my misery like that ex-millionaire friend and flying monkey family members. It got weird all these people told me I had to be positive and "thankful" to God about many things. I had thoughts inside like I didn't ask to be born and I had tried my best in my life so why did I get constantly "punished". God became just another narcissist judging me for having emotions and not toeing the line. I don't think much of a Being that wants eternal worship from humans like a human being would demand of a colony of ants. Do any of us want the ants bowing and scraping before us, for our glory? It still makes no sense. God has far more power and might supposedly like a human has over an ant. Now I think a truly enlightened being would find being worshipped boring, they would know they were already mighty and powerful they would want friends instead.
DeleteLOL "You've been fucked" is far more offensive then eat my shorts but I guess there's many in this world who realize the promises of a God as presented in the Bible looking out for them does not pan out. Like they picture God giving them the middle finger and slamming the door in their face. I think more of religion as a control mechanism, self policing behavior to keep us all in line. Don't ask too many questions it's "offensive" to God.
I get tired of the "I am blessed" mantras too. If I wore a T-shirt saying "I am blessed" would be it be a mockery as I woke up today dry heaving from the flu, and spending days in bed? I suppose I could plaster a fake smile on my face and be some disability inspiration as I limp my way down the street, but I;m just not interested. I find it superficial too. I am sick of empty platitudes and being told to be this certain kind of person that bores the hell out of me. Let "God" and his followers be bored to death with each other, color me uninterested. LOL In fundamentalist Christianity there was this perfect woman they always put forth, meek, mild, ever baking her own bread, living in her white picket fence house, with many children who were all healthy and obedient. It's not my reality. I feel like narcs want this crap drilled into our heads over and over. Why do so many want to police our thoughts now and to tell us we better be grateful "or else"? I had enough of the fake smiles under narc demand, I'm not interested in it.
Yeah some have adopted "think positive" like a religion and it seems worse among evangelical Christians. I admit to myself now some months into deconversion, there's a reason I got bored among some of them, they had adapted this mode of thought where they never talked about anything real. The weather was safe to talk about and all these nice events. That reminds me of this one ex friend [the project] who sought to reform me in all the card making. She could tell me her problems, but I was not allowed, I had to be disability inspiration, I had to be "positive", I was not allowed to be sad for feel. I don't want people like this around me anymore. I am glad you got rid of that woman. She lived off of you for free rent while chastising and judging you. Some of them project like crazy.