How Bad Religion and Child Abuse Go Together

I found this on a message board, if someone knows the original source, please tell me, and I will cite it here. Childhood Religious Indoctrination often coincides with childhood abuse. This doesn't mean all religious parents are abusive, some will teach a "god of love". The less fundamentalist ones will allow some exploration and critical thinking. However often times religion and child-abuse go hand in hand!

Raised in uber-Catholicism, my religious training included a lot of fear, shame, guilt, fantasy and idealism. My uber-Catholic parents who allowed no freedom of thought, thusly prepped me for the fundamentalists.  In my case, I "rebelled" and deconverted the first time, considering atheism even by age 10, but extreme trauma, abuse and the circumstances of life drew me back into another flavor of oppressive religion.  Right now my deconversion and my no contact ACON recovery are walking hand in hand. It's strange how letting go of an abusive "God" who threatened me with hell, was only possible after letting go of a family that made my life hell on this earth.

This has given me the emotional freedom to even allow happiness to be possible. I think thoughts like: "You can be happy now." and "Enjoy your years left on this earth".  The fogs of endless guilt and shame have lifted. Love in marriage gave me a foundation too.  It's doubtful many therapists would go this deep religiously with their clients, but I believe ties to an abusive God, will keep one in the abuse matrix. In other words, you may free yourself from parental abusers, or they long ago died, but one big Kahuna remains in your head, with the pointing finger of God saying "You're bad!" 

Many of us who do leave Christianity, do arrive at the conclusion that God as presented in evangelical and conservative Christianity is another abuser who has filled the space in our heads. He becomes a stand-in for the abusive parents. Just like ACONS have to learn to avoid narcissists and abusers in day to day life, spiritual examination needs to come in too.

The spiritual does overlap the emotional. I don't believe in demons anymore in the classic sense but my parents often appeared in my dreams as "demonic". They'd show up with glowing red eyes, and always ready to do extreme physical harm to me. It's strange that they were beyond human in my dreams. This may tell of the extreme power I believed they had over me.  They'd cackle, laugh and chase after me. It's not a good sign when the Boogey-men and monsters of your dream life are your own parents and relatives.  Even when I was a staunch believer, it seemed I stood up more for myself in those dreams, more then any imagined or dreamed of deity. After no contact, my dreams were like the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon movie mixed with James Bond films in fighting my enemies.

I have a theory about conservative and evangelical Christianity, I've talked about on a few ex-Christian, atheist and other boards. I believe Christianity itself is based on a toxic parental paradigm. While this exists in other religions, Christianity seems to go the farthest. The religions that seek God more as a divine force of goodness, either allow for the negative aspects of life to be explored or insist on God being loving instead of wrathful and punishing. Even Jews have a tradition of arguing with God. For conservative Christians, God is an abusive, controlling father who is ready to unleash the whoop-ass on you for one broken rule.  You don't dare argue. Too much of humanity remains in infancy, while basing life on "punishment" instead of growing up. What else is hell for but the ultimate grounding, with "Daddy" setting up the system doing the worse that can be thought of?

The harmful childcare practices overlap with the toxic doctrine. Hell is the ultimate punishment, but more punishments are in store with God's "chastisements" and groundings. There was this constant feeling that bad things happening meant God had displeasure with you and the opposite was true too. Most churches today teach that God directs your life and if one is living a painful and hard life, there is that undercurrent, that "you are getting what you deserve". Add in the very foundation that to enter the religion at all in the "born again" sense of things, that one must admit they are a wretched sinner who has wronged God over and over. Self esteem is not grown in this system. It is diminished.  A punishment based life is an unhappy life. Us ACONs who were scapegoats grow up and take too much responsibility, we are mired in a muck of self-blame. Those who are in a Christian religion like this get it from both sides.

Hell is used to keep many an abused child in line. One is told, if you don't obey your parents, you will go to hell!  Some churches will inform young people, if you don't believe the same way your parents do, you will go to hell. The earlier the indoctrination, the more of an effect this will have. I was warned about the hot fires of hell and never being able to escape from an early age. Even to earn Purgatory you had to be "somewhat" good and holy.

Many abusive Christian parents use religion for isolation and control. This happened to me. The most extreme ones, practice separation from the world. I was separated from other people too. I was not allowed to go to parties or visit very many other kids. I was told their parents were wicked or they "drank" or they were "not to be trusted".  I was punished for going to a friend's United Methodist church after a sleep over.

Many focus on Christian fundamentalists and homeschoolers as the only culprit, but there's other religions where religious abuse can happen. I was not allowed to date in high school even as some of my classmates married and had babies by 20 and are grandparents today. There was no junior high dances for me, and before I was beaten down, even as an Aspie, I wanted to socialize with the few friends I had. I was given severe edicts about sex, and told by the nuns and my parents both, that only whores had sex or "boyfriends" and the people who "never did it" were the most holiest of all. When it came to sex and just about everything else guilt and shame ruled.

There's young people coming out of Quiverful and Christian homeschooling families who have told horror stories about their isolation, denial of educations, physical beatings and mental abuse. With some of the most public fundamentalist families like the Duggars, they seem to take a pride in not allowing their children to grow up and keeping them obedient into adulthood. There are extreme cases like the Turpin abuse and torture of their children being exposed.

 The churches themselves teach not only isolation for the parents who aren't supposed to socialize outside of the Christian bubble, but with homeschooling and more stress "isolation" from the "wicked world". During my time within the IFB and Christian fundamentalism,  I didn't like how most of the parents parented their children, they were far too strict. I lived in a small rural town where everyone I knew, even people in other churches all homeschooled their children. The public schools in that place were on the verge of collapse. Some were already experimenting with "courtship" in the way the Duggars do it, 15 years ago. Some of the more extreme people  did believe in patriarchy and women obeying men. They believed college was a waste of time for women and that they should only marry and have babies and focus on being "modest". Fellow progressives, realize where the USA is going. There's a lot of people who support this stuff out there, and I've seen it myself and it's growing!

God is a handy tool for all abusers to abuse. All of them claim God is on their side. God was used to abuse me. I was a "wicked child", and "on the way to hell". I've discussed some of my spiritual and religious abuse here, but there was more then a few times where I was told I would go to hell directly. I listened to some Mission UK on my stereo when home from college, and was told I was a "Satanist". My grandmother after my mother called complaining about finding that UU literature in my college things and told me I would burn in hell. My never questioning GC sister who obeyed all Catholic rules and never missed mass, was the "good girl" and remained so to the day I walked away. Hell is a handy hammer for abusers to use against anyone who dares to show an independent thought. Atheists and free-thinkers online today warn young atheists, to hide their true religious feelings from parents and relatives. I believe this is good advice, but it was too late in coming for me.

God is deemed always as being "on the parent's side" in many churches, Catholic school/Christian school classrooms, and Sunday school no matter how severe the punishments or life style. If your parents beat you, it is seen as God's will and "discipline". A child is always supposed to obey. People in American society under-estimate the danger we are all in from the Republican party and religious right, it's not the religion per se itself but the authoritarianism that comes along with it.

The focus is always on obedience to authorities with obedience to God and obedience to parents. Remember even the adult Duggars are taught they are under their parents authority until marriage, and then the young married women are under the husband's authority. Obedience is supposed to be forced via punishment. The majority of Christian conservatives all support spanking. Pastors world over preach "Spare the rod, spoil the child". The Christian run "Troubled Teen" industry and reform schools have been exposed for abusive practices and totalitarian rule over young teens. Read the book "Jesus Land"

Their love of spanking by the way is connected to their "lock everyone up" legal sense, and support of the death penalty. Their God goes all out to punish, burning people in hell, and drowning millions in the Old Testament. The lack of empathy there comes from the negative example of the God they follow. Everything is about control and punishment. Submission to authority and to God comes first. They do not value freedom or independent thought. There are religious elements as to why freedom in America is dying and some people are demanding a police state.

Add in the impossible expectations. When one worships a God that in conservative Christianity that demands perfection from imperfect beings, with punishment on hand for those who don't measure up, even if a proxy is set up, this carries onto parenting practices. Many narcissistic parents who use religion to abuse are perfectionists, they don't even allow children to be children allowing for normal development, mistakes or learning. Even if churches teach "grace" from God, I saw very little of that in evidence. Appearances were focused on and being perfect. Here too, this helps fuel the never ending shame and guilt.

People are set up for fantasy and magical thinking in bad religion. In my case, due to the extreme nature of the narcissists I was under, I was punished a lot for any independent thought. Being a creative and artistic child, they worked hard to squelch that as much as possible. My mother didn't just attack me physically, but she attacked my very soul, when I would ask questions about God and life.  This would earn me usually some form of physical punishment. I was punished for not conforming. Inside I often thought thoughts that I knew were "non-acceptable" to those around me.This takes a toll on ACONS, as while we deal with our narcissistic religious ideologues, our youthful expression of ideas, and examination have no where to go. We have no positive guidance.

My mother was a rigid Catholic, who lacked all introspection. Whatever the Catholic church said, was true. Many ACONS with religious parents, are trained to shut down their critical thinking facilities, and not to trust themselves. This leaves them more prone to abusers, and false messages and being taken in by predators. I realize the decades of being shamed and blamed, and even dismissed for the first deconversion into my first 12-13 years in UUism, set me up for the later religious Kool-Aid, and that abusive deliverance minister.

 I was prone to neglect "Reality" thinking-- testing things with fact based science and rational thinking and maybe even a good dash of personal intuition. Magical religious thinking increased and that came out of being told to believe that wafer really became the flesh of Christ, and that invisible spirits [demons] hovered around my head ready to do me harm. Bad religions set a person up for failure. We are taught to shut down our rational thoughts about these religions which shuts down our reality testing when it comes to our abusers and the gaslighting. Our minds are imprisoned. The mind control of abusers is enhanced by the mind control of religion.

My doubts about religion actually began 12 years ago, when I noticed the prayers were not garnishing results, I could have deconverted with only 4-5 years invested into a false religious system instead of 16.  I was too scared to leave due to the programming and "guilt" though I left the IFB churches ahead of leaving the religion. One technique they used was telling me Satan will make one doubt. There was a built in religious "answer" to every doubt. Religion did as much as gaslighting to me as the abusive parents.

In evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, Family and church authority are stressed. Conservative churches almost turn the family into an idol. Remember the group Focus on The Family?  Groups like that stressed severe discipline that was often physical. One's family is cited as a moral guide into adulthood even if that family is immoral. It's like one is never supposed to grow up and separate from their parents and find their own way. Church obedience was tied to family obedience. This was true in every conservative church I attended or visited. Family came first. This is one reason why singles and the childless did not fit into many conservative churches. For those of us who became estranged from our families or had to go no contact, we were shamed. The last IFB church I was in, the pastor did a sermon on how people need to "forgive" family members and go back to them. No contact, in this case would be seen as the ultimate wickedness.

The diagram is also correct about how many are denied REAL information. There is a reason that in evangelical and fundamentalist circles, education itself is being shut down. This is why they see science as a threat because science is reality. Science is making it clear that their child rearing practices are harmful and holding people back. I was told psychology was "wicked" and that secular counselors would lead me to harm. That's so another door on the way out can be closed. History was rewritten to support religious suppositions. Sex was deemed a giant evil. The internet is full of those who talk about how their sex lives were destroyed via religion. Like many young people raised in religious fundamentalism, I was taught sex was "evil" and "wrong". If I never had met my husband, my life path could have very easily ended up being life-long singleness and celibacy.

There are definitely developmental delays. Young people are held back by controlling religions. Their relationships, rational, critical thinking skills and intellectual skills are affected. They are emotionally crippled by religions based in shame and blame. Going no contact can be a growing up process making up for lost years when you were stuck in the mud of abuse and false religion. I hope more people realize how toxic religious systems negatively affect young people for life and enable abuse and abusers. 

Recovering from Bad Religion

Peep's Deconversion Articles

Air Pollution Discovered to be Connected to Diabetes

and the fat logic crowd says I'm nuts [and scientists too] when it's obvious toxic endocrine disrupters and environmental concerns ARE impacting diseases processes, health and obesity. The "personal responsibility" crowd wants to label every diabetic [especially type 2] as a sugar munching "fatty" who got what they deserved, the disease process are far more complex then that.

Type 2 Diabetes and Air Pollution

The List of Diseases Linked to Air Pollution Are Growing

Poverty in America

The United Nations says we are poor, Trump says we are rich, who should we believe, or how about we just look at our surroundings? I only have to drive down the road to see people living in shacks and to view all the abandoned houses and businesses. They can keep telling us how "rich" America is, some of us just have to look out the window. This guy is right that the USA is against social human rights.

My Lecture on the Transcendental Movement

                             [picture source]

My UU church is very interactive. They have us do readings or talks on the topic we are doing that Sunday. I have enjoyed my time there very much, even on an intellectual level it is quite wonderful. I was assigned doing a talk on the "Transcendental Movement". What's odd about this is I loved a lot about transcendentalism as a young UU, though Christians led me to temporarily reject it's precepts. I would feel some awe in nature and think "Oh no!" but there's aspects of it, I believe never left me. This was the short talk I wrote and gave. These are the notes. We are assigned 3-5 minutes for the timing and asked to make our examination of the topic "personal".

When I was young and in high school, I read Henry David Thoreau's book "Walden". This was probably my early introduction to transcendentalism. This book made quite an impression on me. His individualism while a negative to many people was not to me. I realized in some ways I resonated with his ideas and of wanting to go his own way. He was not the type to let the crowd dictate what he should do with his life. He taught following idealism and one's intuition. These were all things that appealed to me.

Here is a quote from that book.

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”

Transcendentalism. Most people don't even know what the word means. I actually learned what it was, when I went to **********in ***********[my state] around the age of 18 and learned about the transcendental movement influencing the Unitarian Universalist church. Many of its values resonated with me, not depending on established authority, relying on experience, and seeking out meaning in things including nature.

It described in some ways who I was. Later my spiritual journey would take me another direction but I would definitely return to these earlier foundations. I was an art ed major in college, but also had an extreme fascination with spirituality. Some may have called me a "seeker". Maybe some would have called me pretentious, but during this time in life, I studied religion too on the top floor of the ********* [my college] library during rare free moments and read the Bhagavad Gita as well as other religious writings.

Today we live in a society that is very math and science oriented and I believe both have their place but I am no good at math. I went into art. Art was a huge part of my spiritual seeking, and of my life. While I rejected those who claimed to have all the concrete answers in religion leaving my family's Catholic church, the same can apply to life. We live in a society that is growing more and more "technocratic" and "materialistic". People just want to deal with the numbers. They think in a linear fashion instead of a big picture. The forest is not seen for the trees. Life is cut down into pieces of data and being a human and meaning is lost. The transcendentalists, provided an alternative kind of life. In losing what they were trying to tell us there has been a corruption of the human condition. There are things to live that go beyond what numbers and lab graphs can tell us. The transcendentalists were showing us a way that has been too departed from today.

Transcendentalists believe in individualism. They believed in thinking for yourself despite the rules of a society. Thoreau wrote on "Civil Disobedience". In going beyond human traditions and authority from on high, the transcendentalists opened the door for individuals to stand up for what they believed in. Even today our protests against racism and various oppression in society are centered in ideas of civil disobedience. Most of human society had always emphasized conformity but Transcendentalists paved the way for individualism. While some think they over stressed the idea of self-reliance, the power of the individual guided America at least in our earlier history to be a place where the rights of the individual became important. I was the type of person who always asked "Why". I didn't want to conform just for the sake of conformity.

 

Art was a way, I practiced a lot of transcendentalism. My foray into evangelicalism for a time did not help my art. I felt like doing art was rebellion always when it came to those who taught simplistic answers to life.  Romanticism in art was a movement that would become very connected to the transcendental movement and is where emotion, imagination, and freedom from social conventions would become important. In many ways this movement would pave the way for modern art as we know it today.  Transcendentalists sought to seek out the soul in art.

Another way was nature. Transcendentalists believed in living close to nature. Thoreau definitely advanced this in his book Walden. That was another way that book spoke to me. I came out of a family that rejected me for all these ideas, they were people only interested in business and the here and now.

Spirituality and nature were intertwined for the transcendentalist. Emerson wrote about finding the sublime in nature. All my life, I had this attraction to nature and the outdoors. I worked at a camp and liked being outside as much as my health allowed. The nature center is a place of peace for me, and I like to collect rocks, especially geodes

Transcendentalists believed in seeking out life as it really was outside human social constructs, in nature and finding meaning there. During my time in evangelicalism, I noticed how nature was just an instrument for man to control and dominate, it lost beauty in that realm. I felt divided even in my early years in evangelicalism as I used to do some environmentally based volunteer work. I had a lot of cognitive dissonance in this area. Fundamentalist preachers would always go on about nature-worshipers and how "bad" they were. What did they mean? Why were they bad? Even while in I had thoughts like, "Aren't we part of nature?"

I was made to feel guilty for my propensity for it, now I am not of course. There was a narcissism to those who felt it was man's job to destroy the earth and that God would just give us a new one. I couldn't tolerate that anymore. When I filled some holes in my science education and read a book called "The Ends of the World" by Peter Brannen, and learned of the 6 epochs scientists had studied, I realized how limited the evangelical world view was on multiple levels. Mankind was simply one form of life that had arose, the earth itself had been filled with what many would have seen as "alien" life right here if they went back enough millions of years ago. 

 

Star Trek's theories of life in the universe seemed closer to reality then a 6,000 year old earth or one that had been created for only man's benefit and usage. To be frank, study of science can bring more awe, in many facets. Learning the sheer number of galaxies out there showed me how limited evangelical answers were for the world. The Hubble Space Telescope showed scientists there were at least 100 billion galaxies out there in space. They knew this number would advance with technology, we were only seeing a certain percentage of the galaxy. One astrophysicist named Christopher Conselice,  University of Nottingham, in 2017 estimated the number of galaxies to be around the 2 trillion mark.

Keep in mind transcendentalism arose, as natural sciences came to the forefront and discoveries were being made. There's a reason this philosophy arose as human knowledge increased past what scripture and written ancient revelation had described the world.  In  a way the transcendentalists were attempting to express the human poetry and art of science discoveries. One can ponder the fact and number of 2 trillion galaxies, but think about what that means in a transcendental sense, the sheer vastness. Emerson said, "But if man would be alone look at the stars."

First Sewing Project

It was going to be a dress but I made a tunic out of it. It's a nicer material then what appears in the picture. My next project will probably be a skirt. I am learning to sew to make new clothes. The cost of clothes for supersized people is very high.

A kind friend donated me lots of nice material and another good friend, sewing supplies and thread. Learning to use the sewing machine was a big deal for me and figuring out how to re-thread the bobbins. This shirt took me 1-2 days to make and I had to hand draw the pattern, they don't make patterns for people with my measurements at least on the retail market. I put the shirt over a purple dress I was wearing to take the picture.

Happy 5 Year Anniversary Freedom Day....

I do mark the date. June 28th, 2013. My friends on Facebook know what Freedom Day means. You change even 3, 4 and 5 years in. It's strange, sometimes I ponder that stuff. How it even changed me during the 4th year.

I was hoovered too a few months ago even this deep in, it's strange to ponder how they keep trying in the "same exact way".  They are like robots who always revert to the same default program. They think the same person is there, of 5 years ago. She's not.

They never do change while normal human beings do learn, and grow and change. That's one of the creepiest things about narcissists, they don't change with age like normal people, even the fact they are aging doesn't occur to most of them. I am aging myself and want to make the best use of the life I got left.

I have been meeting more nice people lately too, so that's one advantage of clearing the narcissistic decks, it leaves more room for the good people. It leaves space. The world will think you are crazy for ditching your whole family but the freedom on the other side of the door is worth it. I can't say it's always easy. I still get that pang when I see happy and loving families, and still imagine the people that should have been there, but no contact did open a door out of the cage. I no longer had to be what they labeled me as, I could become my own person.

The Regret of Religion

                                    

Since the deconversion, I've pondered the wasted 16 years, in Christian fundamentalism.I suppose, that I did learn a lot. Ask me what is in the Bible I can tell you. I can quote off the differences between almost every church in the USA. However I do have a lot of regrets. I literally do feel like I left a cage escaping Christian fundamentalism.

 I am fortunate unlike other people deconverting from Christian fundamentalism, that I am married to an agnostic, I am already no contact with the family. I had the past UU roots to return to. There was no bad homeschooling nightmares to recover from. I wasn't left empty handed without a direction to go. I drew a map to escape in my youth and re-found it. First no contact matched the first deconversion. Second no contact produced the second deconversion.

However I have cried over the lost time. It's hard to explain.  Even if I understand how trauma and religious abuse in my youth took me into fundamentalism and realize that I really truly moved to one of the most extreme rural and conservative places in the nation, I have mourned the time spent within. I wasted a lot of time, believing and studying things that simply WERE NOT TRUE.

I noticed another blogger wrote about my religious deconversion. I won't link to her blog. I still don't agree with a lot of her world views on narcissism or "victims" but decided to post this because there's a few truths in it. I have major regrets about where fundamentalist religion took me:

"A few years ago, I had a falling out with another blogger who wrote about narcissistic abuse.   We are still not on speaking terms, and probably never will be again, but recently I started to read her blog again, not just because she happens to be a good writer, but because during the past few months I’ve actually found her blog inspiring.   I won’t go into all the details of what led to the falling out, but one of the reasons was because of the woman’s religion.   She had made some critical — even cruel — comments about and to me, using what I felt to be her fundamentalist Christianity as a weapon of judgment and intolerance.   From what I could observe from her older writings, she appeared to be stuck in a victim mentality, unable to move forward in her recovery due to her tendency to judge others harshly because of her fundamentalist Christianity.   I saw no evidence of any real self awareness or willingness to self-criticize.   So, at the time, I dismissed her as a covert narcissist masquerading as someone with “only” C-PTSD.

But apparently I was wrong.  It seems like Trump’s election changed her in a positive way.     She wrote about what she saw happening with politics and the religious right, and became increasingly critical of both.   She began to realize that her fundamentalist church was infested with malignant narcissists who judged her negatively for her poverty and health problems, believing, as they did, that wealth and good health were proof of God’s approval.   It wasn’t long before she ditched her fundamentalist church and began to seek answers outside religion.    

This actually didn’t surprise me, since I always got the impression her religion was a bad fit and she was miserable within its confines.  This woman was clearly intelligent and well educated, but it was almost as if she had been trying to force herself to adapt to a restricting mold that didn’t allow her to grow as a human being.   She was telling herself lies that she knew were lies, because of the fear of Hell and judgment.   Freed of that, suddenly she was exploring and seeking answers in secular fields like science and psychology, and her mind seemed to blossom.  At the same time this happened, she seemed to develop more tolerance and empathy toward others.  Most impressive of all, she began to develop an ability to self-reflect and as a result, began to make changes to herself.   Her writings indicated a new insight into herself I hadn’t seen while she was under the thrall of toxic religion.  

  She seems happier than she ever did, and a lot less angry in general.   She’s exploring old interests and talents that she had neglected while she was in that church, and more positive things seem to be happening to her now too.    I’m sure being happy and using one’s mind to question and explore the world aren’t sins, and God is not judging us harshly for doing so.   If God didn’t want us to ask questions or think critically about things, he would not have given us brains!

I won’t link to her blog here or even name it, due to the fact we stopped speaking several years ago, but her most recent article about the religious right’s war on science was one of her most enlightening and insightful.    It was also very dark and unfortunately all too true.   In it, she criticized the religious right’s scorched-earth mission of squelching all independent thought and critical thinking, which has led to an all out war on secular education itself and an accompanying celebration of ignorance and superstition."

 This blogger is right that I chafed within the confines of Christian fundamentalism. One thing odd about me, is I retained some liberal views while I was in, still protesting war, and refusing the Republican party which earned me a lot of ire in my IFB circles. I realized though that the religion itself was narcissistic, confining and as I tried to reconcile my religious beliefs and more liberal outlooks I was failing, and getting swept up into a morass of cognitive dissonance.

Fundamentalism did make me too judgmental. I am thankful that they didn't take me into full blown hate, I broke a lot of the church's rules, and kept all my non-believer friends. This actually got me rebuked twice in fundamentalist churches. I refused to treat gay people badly or adopt other nationalist and negative attitudes.  However fundamentalism preached to me against heavy rock concerts, tattoos, new age spirituality and I followed accordingly. It separated me from others dividing the world into "us vs. them".

It is hard to explain how Christian fundamentalism makes one afraid of everything. Now I feel like I can breathe. It's possible I rudely called the Catholic church, the "whore of babylon" or said my church taught it was a false church since she was a recent convert in, or something along those lines. I still don't like the Catholic church but my view of Catholics is far different today. Remember I used to be one too. Our main disagreement was about narcissists and their ability to "reform". Even that depends on the spectrum, if they are malignants, society already gives them more then enough leeway. They already have the majority making excuses for them.

Fundamentalism doesn't bring out niceness in people. I do believe I am a better person today.  I have major CRINGE moments from being a fundamentalist:

1. Once some people in my old town directly asked me, "Do you believe homosexuality is a sin?" It is a topic I usually kept my mouth shut on. I should have kept my mouth shut. Prompted on in my head by the pastors telling me not to be a cowardly Christian, I turned and said to this one lady and her gay friend, "Yes, I believe homosexuality is a sin" but then tried to soften the blow, saying there's lots of other sins and tried to drop that topic in a hurry. My views of homosexuality are completely different today. The UU is a LBGT affirming church.  I feel horrible by what I was led to believe about gay people in fundamentalism. Even as a Christian, I used to wonder why they had to be constantly harassed and talked about by preachers and Christian websites.

2. Speaking of homosexuality, one cousin of mine I am sure will forever hate me. It may not matter because my mother had turned him against me long ago before I was a Christian or deconverted later. I told him some Christians were cruel to homosexuals but I believed it was a sin because of what the Bible said. Problem was he was gay himself but was still in the closet then, and came out later. Both his children are gay [well one is trans] though they were younger at this time and I didn't know this either. Knowing that my secretive mother probably KNEW, put the whole no one is allowed to talk about certain topics battle in new perspective, but that's just more of the usual games in my family. I don't get that cousin, my mother is/was extremely homophobic, abusing me for being gay when I was not, and mocking me for it when I was in my early 20s. His whole entire family has come out as LBGT, I knew before I went no contact he was friendly with her.

2. I told some people in a ghost hunting club in my old town, that they would be messing around with demons, and needed to be careful lest one followed them home. The me of today remembers their pictures they got really excited about, and there was a lot of dust orbs in them. People probably thought I was a nut. An episode like this one when I met a schizoaffective woman with hallucinations, repeated itself, I said, "Take your medicine but look into the spiritual factors too, maybe they are demons."

3. One day getting very eager to witness and save all those non-believing friends I had kept from hell, I put up a "Jesus is the only way" banner on my Facebook that said all other religions led to hell. That created a bunch of social media fall out. I was fortunate that Aspie and other friends still stuck by me. They knew I was just sharing sincere beliefs at the time. However it was a fast way to piss off a whole lot of people. The me of today, now is horrified that I was even in a religion that taught almost everyone goes to hell, and it kind of depresses me and makes me angry too. Hell was used to be make me afraid from a very early age.

4. I told one woman, that I didn't believe in the Eucharist [she was a Lutheran in this case] and quoted Baptist bible verses at her. This was a friend of mine that is now an ex friend. We didn't fight that day, it was a friendly disagreement and obviously I don't believe in Eucharists now, or sacrifices for that matter today, but I am kind of embarrassed over this one too. Delicate religious exchanges are a minefield for Aspies.

5. I was visiting my brother years and years ago, there was some show on TV which brought the Rapture up, I was more post-mill so didn't believe in a Pre-Trib Rapture, but said to my brother, that I believed we were in the last days, and he laughed and laughed at me. That was a time of making myself too vulnerable. He still considered himself a Catholic though he never went to church except maybe on Christmas. Being mocked was no fun, but it just added to the overall disrespect.

6. I told two friends, I could not go to a casino, I was kind of smug about this. "Gambling was a sin too!" I play the Lotto now.

There were other moments like this. Unlike my IFB church members I wasn't living like them in a bubble of people who all believed the way they did.  I don't think most of the time I was a jerk about being a Christian. I was the type that left the tract on the public bathroom sink instead of confronting people to their face. I didn't bible bang with people or the family: they detested me just as much during my early deconversion and UU years as the bible believer years.

I had doubts that started some years ago before I deconverted. I am not sure why I stuck it out, fear of hell, fear of being wrong again. I had thoughts like "Well you already didn't believe, how can you circle back?" The usual progress is that someone deconverts when young and leaves their family church and it's left at that.

This blogger is right the religion was a bad fit. There were many years even when I wanted to "Do God's will" and follow the Bible, that it was like trying to hammer a round peg into a square hole. The intellectual freedom within the UU has been a life-saver. There was no such freedom in Christian fundamentalism by people telling me they had all the answers and saying that freedom itself was a danger.  Sometimes I wonder if all those threats I got from my family upon the first deconversion played themselves out where I thought I was being "punished" for the first spat of disbelief. Religious programming of a child can have life-long effects. Children who are spared the horrors of hell, probably are far happier people. I know fear took me in.

As I wrote before my abuse history led me in. It made me sad reading in my old journals about how I "had to improve my life" and how God was going to provide me with answers to life and living and improve things. I cried seeing the part where I wrote about how I would now find love and acceptance among my new "Church family". They always say people who are looking for love and acceptance most often find themselves in cults. I didn't end up wearing orange pajamas, handing my social security checks to a guru or minister, but ended up in a religion that claimed to have all the answers and was a cult in it's own way.

At the time I saw myself as fleeing endless horror, to enter into a bright and new existence. I had massive PTSD, and had just witnessed the poverty and severe crimes in a job with violence that I had written about many times on this blog in Chicago, and had just escaped. It was like running to safety.

Extreme religion was my new SAFE place. I moved from a city of 10 million to the most rural remote small town, of under 8,000. One friend I had years ago challenged me, saying I had moved to that small town to HIDE. She was right. I did. I guess that describes my mentality and I went from the UUs, to the IFB cult. I remember some people saying to me, that my philosophies and religion had become FEAR BASED. I did not heed these warnings.


The religion itself is constant fear fear fear. I never felt safe around a God who threatened me with hell. Even all the begging to him not to be squished, more impoverished, homeless, or not to let more medical horrors happen to me just increased the fear factor. Yahweh was just another stand in for my abusive parents. I am happy to be finished with him too. Think about this, think about how the evangelical and fundamentalist world is the most AFRAID and how we are suffering under their fear based politics NOW.

So I got tired of being afraid. I regret those years spent in fear. I got tired of being told I was in control of everything and everything was my fault and I had to beg to be "kept safe". There was part of my mind that said screw it, I'll try and do what I can, but there's only so much I can control. I got sick of this religion that wants me petrified every minute. I even had thoughts about the conspiracy and bible prophecies about mankind's end, if the world is that damn dark, screw it, I don't want to know.

That stuff is bad for people's minds too. It hurt my mind, and emotions. I do believe the economic decline and rapid changes in society are leading people to severe right wing religions and philosophies, they will be like me  looking for safety but they won't find it there. They will find pain, and regrets. The blogger is right, I am happier. I am happier being freed from this cage. In the UU, there is happiness via art, nature, poetry to be found again.


Christian fundamentalism and evangelicalism, I believe teaches a lack of empathy for others. One blogger wrote about How Faith Breaks Your Feeler. She is right.  Just look at our religious right today who has no empathy for immigrant children, I almost unfriended a bunch of people from my old churches this week, on Facebook for defending the children being put in cages. I was and remain disgusted.

There are many messages in the bible, how we are supposed not to faint, how we are supposed to never give up, the demands to be blameless and holy, and to be strong in affliction and distress, and I wonder if this limits empathy among Christians.Think about the religious right, they have some of the least empathy of any people when it comes to the disabled, gay people, poor people etc. Hell is pretty damn un-empathetic. If you divide the world into the few special people who go to heaven, while everyone else burns, empathy burns up along with it. I often felt that Christianity chafed against my inner human compassion and empathy. I didn't want to cast off people like Yahweh seemed so eager to do for "not conforming" after all it had happened to me!

One thing extreme Christianity is very attractive to people who have been traumatized or otherwise broken or facing hardships. That's exactly how I got sucked in and I regret it. While I am happier to be standing outside the religious jail-house, I've cried over this stuff.

We were told and I know I bought into this, that Christianity would provide answers to us in improving our lives or if we had problems that were not solvable in dealing with those said problems and getting to a better place. Christianity with this idea that God will 'fix your life" not even in the direct prosperity way sets people up with false expectations which brings in disappointment, self loathing, anxiety and more as time progresses. There is the constant insistence that one "lives God's will for their life" and "seeks daily guidance via the Holy Spirit". Truth, Wisdom and power are promised.

There is this idea of love, that you will be loved automatically--most of the Christian relationships to me seemed the most superficial and uncommitted. One thing they told me, is God would change my life and give it great meaning, and a "legacy" even for a childless woman, with the things done for God stored up in heaven. It's all so heady. I can see why I got sucked in. I was eager and excited. The high lasted for years in my case until I noticed...

Life was continuing on the same before I was a Christian with still many meaningless troubles. In fact some troubles worsened. As I aged much of the health stuff got harder. The relationships I was promised in Christianity never panned out. God was as absent as the church members were. Christian fundamentalism destroyed my social life too via repression. Appearances and status is still what mattered.

While I bitch about God here, leaving that ABUSER behind, it's like I have become a happier person in general. I am still sick and disabled, but I made the decision even if I am broke and poor and chronically ill, I want my later years on the earth to be happier ones. Severe religions do bring misery to people. I don't have to be blamed anymore for stuff going wrong.

I don't have to try to fit in and please people anymore. Trying to be a "good Christian" was exhausting. Where I had to work to try and please the giant Celestial Boogey-man. He was just like the narcissists I left behind, I went no contact from my whole family and when I removed narcissists from my life including some toxic friendships, as a recovering ACON [adult child of narcissists], Yahweh had to go too. He wasn't nice to me. He didn't respond to my phone calls [prayers] He never voted for me or had any loyalty, so BYE BYE.

Kicking the monster Santa Claus/Big Brother to the curb, opened the door for me to feel human again. I no longer have to worry about narcs judging me, and hurting me, I removed them all from my life and I removed this giant narcissist too. [don't believe anymore that a God exists in this way] I gave him 16 years to show me some love, or kindness and all he did was hurt me, so good riddance. Some people who read this may believe in God, if you do, I am okay with that, but try and find a nice God, not the cruel God of Christian fundamentalism.

Too much of Humanity is imprisoning itself with this mean cartoon character. When I think of religions now or any kind of higher power, I am going with the UUs in going where the love or kindness is. I am working on finding some happiness and doing what I can on earth for whatever time I got left. Leaving Christianity has taught me some happiness is now possible, while I am here despite endless challenges.
 
As I have deconverted I have assessed some of my own needs in life, for improvement of it.
I don't want to worry about being "holy" or "acceptable" anymore. I am sick of worrying about people liking me or trying to please them or a God. I want some people in my life, who don't give a shit, if I or God fix my life or not. I want to be accepted and loved for who I am TODAY. I am tired of fake shit.

I don't want to have to worry about always measuring up. I am tired of a God I was never good enough for, who matched the family who told me I was a piece of crap, and with the church's expectations of total conformity. I just want to be me. I will do my art work and do what I want for a change. Some Christians can call that selfish, I call it survival. I couldn't be who these people wanted anyway and I got tired of crushing myself into their box.

I have several old classmates and acquaintances on Facebook, some who have mental health disorders and one who faced severe abuse and homelessness, and they are new to the Christian conversion game, and I fear for them. They are traumatized people reaching for the Christian rope of "hope" thrown out to them. Little do they know it could pull them under the water to drown some more.

I feel more hope then I have in years. Does this sound strange to anyone. I am disabled and sick, but at least I don't have to prove myself to anyone else anymore and I don't have to impress or cajole or beg an uncaring silent deity anymore either. With this blogger, we still don't agree on many things but she was right about a false religion and it's chains around my soul. 

Deconversion