“To hell with this life, we are worried about your soul”
9 June 2007 by Stardust
One concept I couldn’t ever quite accept even during my years as a Christian was that of a terrible place called Hell where even very good and kind people would be sent along with unrepentent criminals and murderers for simply not believing in an invisible god, or for not believing in the correct form of Christianity. (But, illogically they believe that murderers who say the magic words at the end of their lives will go up to Jesus when they die.)
Fundamentalist Christians and Christian extremists believe that non-believers, and also those Christians who do not take the concept of Hell literally are also going there when they die. So, even if I were to go back to my Presbyterian-type faith, I would still be going to Hell according to the beliefs of evangelicals and fundies (this includes a couple of very close family members) because I would still not be a “True Christian” who believes in the literal interpretation of some ancient book.
I have been going through very much grief lately because a very close member of my family has shut me out of her life because I openly reject her faith and openly speak out against fundamentalism on my personal blog, which is pretty mild compared to GifS, and isn’t even totally about atheism. (She even asked me to get rid of it, which, of course, I refuse to do.) As many of you know, I post a hodge-podge of subjects like astronomy, politics, biology, politics, and I also post a lot of “sacreligious” cartoons that even some Christians can’t help but laugh at. But I guess the religious posts I have written have somehow hit home because it really bothers this person, as well as other fundamentalists who take my words as a personal attack against them, because if you attack god, you attack them. This family member is so obessed in worrying about what will happen to me after death and the belief she won’t get to see me after I die, that she is throwing away what was otherwise a great relationship that we have had since birth.
I have never done anything to this family member directly, never told her to give up her beliefs, nor have I ever asked her to stop praying for my heathen soul in her church as if I were some kind of criminal who has done something terrible to her or others. It’s all so unnecessary as we have never had any disagreements on anything else in our entire lives. My heart hurts that I am being treated this way only because I do cannot believe in her god, her hell or whatever other fundamentalist fantasies that she says are “everything” to her. I was there to help support her through some of the most terrible and difficult times of her life when her god wasn’t enough, yet that doesn’t matter. It’s all about her, all about death and afterlife and to hell with the present.
If a person lives a good life, doesn’t kill, murder, steal…is kind to his neighbors, friends, animals. If a person is forgiving, loving and cares for others, is compassionate, helpful, and obeys the law, it is ludicrous to believe that person is still deserving of some kind of eternal torment, especially when this god is supposedly a “just” god, and also when this god is not making his/her/its existence obviously apparent. Here is an excerpt from ex-minister, Dan Barker’s essay For Goodness Sake
Theology has given us hell.
The threat of damnation is designed to be an incentive to right action; but this is a phony morality. Humanists think we should do good for goodness’ sake, not for the selfish prospect of reaping individual rewards or avoiding punishment. Any ideology that makes its point by threatening violence is morally bankrupt. (Hitler’s ovens, at least, were relatively quick. The torment Jesus promised is a “fire that shall never be quenched.”) Anyone who believes in hell is at heart not moral at all.
If the only way you can be forced to be kind to others is by the threat of hell, that shows how little you think of yourself. If the only way you can be motivated to be kind to others is by the promise of heaven, that shows how little you think of others.
Most atheists will say, “Be good, for goodness’ sake!”
Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister, is a staff member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
9 June 2007, on 10:31 am
Excellent post.
As someone who grew up in a fundie household, the concept of hell was paramount in my thinking throughout my childhood as well as my early adulthood. I remember having to sleep with the light on at the age of eight because I would have dreams of being in hell. I also distinctly remember a sermon about hell preached to me and other impressionable twelve-year olds in front of a raging bonfire at summer camp. The teaching of hell to anybody, but particularly young children who fear to go against the adults who tell them of this place, is as heinous an act as anyone could ever perform.
9 June 2007, on 12:51 pm
This is just so sad. There’s nothing you can do unfortunately. Lack of reasoning due to brain washing is really difficult to fight back
9 June 2007, on 1:41 pm
I also remember the fear of hell that was struck into me as a child. And I must confess, that even though I believe that I’ve killed off this fear of hell with healthy logic, I sometimes have weak moments where it comes back to haunt me.
Something that I remember an atheist saying about hell really struck me. He said that many Christians will claim that although God is loving, he is also a just God, so hell is needed. This atheist said that that was bullshit, because infinite punishment for finite crimes is never justified.
And I agree. This has kind of become my motto about belief in hell.
9 June 2007, on 2:30 pm
I feel for your loss of a close relationship. I have cut myself off from family members (in-laws, so it’s not a great sacrifice) because they won’t stop pushing their insistence that I believe as they do.
That said, I have never, in many a talk with fundies, been threatened with hell. What I hear is their lament that I won’t go to heaven, which is an entirely different thing. Or, less often, that my world-view is sad in that it doesn’t include an afterlife.
Contrary to Mr. Barker’s view, I more often hear that you do good for the reward of heaven, rather than the threat of hell. You don’t SIN because of the consequence of going to hell, which again, is a different thing. Nor would I assume that the only motivation for a fundamentalist christian is the threat/reward strategy of religious behavioural control; because I believe in the humanist doctrine of goodness for the good of all, I am willing to give fundamentalists the benefit of the doubt that they sometimes act out of pure kindness.
9 June 2007, on 2:42 pm
Thanks, Stardust, for your usual, thoughtful, and interesting post.
“Here I go…again!”
The man-made NOTION of a deity with the implicit horrific characteristics attached to such unimaginable cruelty, is, in my opinion, a sort of PROOF of the non-existence of this so-called “God”. In essence, it’s a twisted god notion, tantamount to the worship of a “Satan” (or ‘Bad god’?). In other words, those who think they’re worshiping an all loving, infinite, almighty creator, are in essence…Satanists.
Anton LeVey’s charge about religion, comes to mind. [Wikipedia, anyone?]
If the supposed person called Jesus ever really existed, and actually pronounced those words in that quote of Barker’s; he was obviously a rather arrogant human, capable of conceiving immense cruelty; also showing a total ignorance of any rational thought processes. Or, as the godisimaginary.com Site calls him…
a “Jerk”!
Actually, I suspect that those cosmologically ignorant clerical tyrants who assembled, and selected, all the myriad gospel stories; picked out, or simply made up, whatever seemed appropriate to keeping the masses locked in total fear of their imaginary god. Yeah…Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!
Obviously, as we’re still observing worldwide in all the ‘hooligan-like’, brainwashed, Bronze Age mythologies; fear…and guilt…are major tactical, psychological devices which have more than succeeded in their original purpose.
Remembering, as a childhood Catholic, the phrase: “Be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect!”, linked with all that insidiously unjust “Original Sin” burden that is programmed into children, I’m not surprised how few people EVER manage to get de-programmed from such mental atrocity. For that matter, the notion of “perfection” has no real, or conceivable, content. It’s, in my opinion, semantic jargon invented more with the intention of “seeming” to encapsulate, or have a grasp of knowledge, about the extremes of various speculations.
One idea, I’m sure many of y’all have thought of…and I think it has been covered here at GifS…is…what kind of real “Choice” is there, regarding the supposed notion of “free will”, between Eternal punishment and some, vacuous, or empty of any real content, notion of a supposed, single…one size fits all…heaven?
At least the Eastern religions have seven or more heavens…or levels. [Seven, come Eleven?]
One possible comparison would be like some shyster-like invisible…and confusing…dork, mysteriously saying:
“Hi! [under breath: Ya dumb fuck!) ROIT! You can’t see me…I’m invisible…erm…like, I’m floating everywhere, in the ether..
BOO!…you were looking ‘up’…I’m down here! Hee-hee…Faked you out, huh?
Seriously…I have a wonderful gift I want to give you. You have abso-fucking-lutely no idea what it is; but it entails…Ooooh…let’s just say…the unimaginable joy…of just being with, and worshiping…erm…
ME…forever! No, no, no…don’t run away; you can’t, anyway! Now, if you choose to NOT accept my gift…for whatever reason…and by the way; stop looking for door numbers 2 & 3…you won’t really die, or even…perish the thought…go out of existence! NOooo…instead; I’m going to torture you…beyond anything you can imagine…with absolutely no mercy, whatsoever…ENDLESSLY. What’s that? WHY?…Hey! It’s MY plan; and I can do whatever I want! Yeah…but, similar to what that “Hellbound” dude…George Carlin said…
“I LOVE you!…I really…REALLY love you!”
“Now go…and sin no more!…
You little rude, vile, ungrateful pig of a human!”
Yeah…”Thus spake Zara-ChuckA-stra”…?
9 June 2007, on 4:49 pm
I think you need to tell her to just stop. Tell her there’s no need to worry because, if her god is as just, loving and forgiving as she thinks it is, then there’s no way it would do something as unbelievably evil as send you to Hell to be tortured for all eternity, simply for not believing in it. Tell her that, if that’s what she believes will happen, then the god she worships isn’t the god she thinks she worships.
9 June 2007, on 5:17 pm
Steve, the thing is that we have been around and around this already, and me saying that her beliefs, and what I write in blogland should not have anything to do with our relationship.
Most of my friends and family members, even other very close family members have some sort of god beliefs and it is never an issue…never comes up. And most of them know about my blog! But to this person of the fundamentalist side of xianity, she says when I blog about atheism and “disrespect her god” then I am also attacking her, which is totally ridiculous. People aren’t going to agree on everything, politics and religion especially.
I told her I am still the same person I have always been, though she says it’s me who changed (even though she just started going to a fundie church 4 years ago), I don’t care if she goes to church and prays for me. It is not a threat to me in any way. I understand that this is what she for whatever reason really believes and I can’t change that, nor do I have a right to tell her what to believe. However, she looks at me as the “antichrist” since I “diss” her god and her religion on my personal blogspace. It all boils down to that. If I give up the blogging against religion and live according to how she dictates, speak about only what she approves of, then all will be well (for her), and that is not fair. Accept me as I am, as I am willing to accept her. But unfortunately, with fundamentalists it doesn’t work that way. We are not allowed to be who we are and that is the whole point of having atheist blogs. We must hide in blogland and even then they want to censor us.
When I first started blogging I had one blog. Some of the things I blogged about disturbed her, and she said she felt bad because she wanted to read what I wrote. So, to accomodate, I made a separate blog (My Stardust Musings blog) and put general stuff on one and the atheist stuff on the other and told her to stay away. Like most fundies, she just couldn’t help herself and then gets offended by what she reads there. I have FIVE blogs, so to say that she wants to see my stuff she has four other blogs to look at that have nothing to do with atheism. But she zeroes in on the atheist one. I don’t get it.
All she had to do is stay away like I asked, pretend it didn’t exist and we could still get along great. This is making me hate religion more than ever. She is only proving that religion divides more than unites.
9 June 2007, on 7:54 pm
I’m reminded of one of Carlin’s bits. After talking about god and the horrifying concepts of Hell, he ends with, “But he loves you. He loves you. And he needs money.”
And how does the concept of Hell make any sense? Satan runs Hell, and tortures people in lakes of fire and such because… God told him to?
That’s ridiculous, considering that Christians and such believe that Satan is actively trying to subvert the will of God and win souls away from him.
So, why would Satan, who is as against God as any being could possibly be and who, supposedly, tries to mess with us here on Earth, go along with God and torture non-believers? You’d think he’d recruit us as demons and send us up to the Earth to wreak havoc or something. After all, wouldn’t we technically be on his side by then?
I mean, if Satan’s so hard-up to destroy God, wouldn’t he use the damned, not abuse them?
That just always seemed like a highly illogical concept to me, and something that no Christian bothered to think about.
9 June 2007, on 8:08 pm
Sad situation, Stardust, but it sounds like you’ve done all you can to save the relationship. From my distance it seems that all you can do now is tell her to fuck off and leave it at that. Harsh, but you must be getting frustrated. I am, and I’ve only just read about it!
Good luck with whatever happens, and don’t be discouraged from writing your blogs. Or contributing to Gifs.
9 June 2007, on 8:15 pm
The best way that I’ve found to deal with relations like this is to ignore them as much as possible and live a good, HAPPY life.
The few fundy relatives I have are forever having troubles with money and their children not following their exact and overly demanding rules. Whereas my children are content, healthy and able to use common sense in most situations (and know to get me when they are over their heads).
Its like that old adage; living well is the best revenge -granted you are not looking for any sort of revenge, but the sentiment remains the same. Besides, chances are pretty good that in the next 4-5 years she’ll be leaving the fundy faith due to disappointment and obvious hypocrisy of her fellow worshipers.
9 June 2007, on 8:34 pm
Sad situation, Stardust, but it sounds like you’ve done all you can to save the relationship. From my distance it seems that all you can do now is tell her to fuck off and leave it at that.
Angie, thank’s for your supportive words, and yes, it does make me very angry to be treated like this. But, though I am very hurt right now, I could never tell this person to fuck off, not ever. I can go on with my life, and try to get along without her in my life, but I could never tell her those words because I love her dearly and hope someday that she will snap out of it.
The best way that I’ve found to deal with relations like this is to ignore them as much as possible and live a good, HAPPY life.
flame821 – I think that is what I am going to just have to do. Just go on and leave her be and hope her god who is “everything” to her can keep her from being sad and lonely.
9 June 2007, on 10:50 pm
Has anyone ever seen that Robot Chicken sketch, where a character gets run over by a car and goes to Heaven, and meets four characters (one of them Hitler) who all say that they slaughtered for gawd?
It always made me sick to be told all this bullshit, especially how a child rapist/murderer can (according to them) repent right before death and go to Heaven, yet I can live a good life without harming a single person and yet I’m going to Hell because I’m an atheist.
And yet I actually found a book that attempts to JUSTIFY (!) the concept of Hell.
9 June 2007, on 10:53 pm
Star, for your relative, your atheism blog brings to mind the famous line about Seinfeld’s Kramer:
“A loathsome, offensive brute, yet I can’t look away.”
I recounted in one of my “What About Bob?” posts, when my alcoholic brother Bobby was in one of his AA born again phases, he once said to me “It’s too bad I won’t get to see you in heaven bro.” I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
People that believe in this nonsense long for simplicity in their lives. It is easier for them to embrace an either or belief. “I accept Jesus as my savior so I am saved, you refuse to accept him, so you’re going to hell. The Bible says x, y or z is a sin and that’s all there is too it.”
My retort to theists who warn us that we risk eternal damnation if we do not believe in god or, as Dani the Homophobe says on her blog, “live in fear and admonition of the Lord,” is to ask why such an immensely powerful being requires us puny and insignificant creatures to pay it homage? Do we expect microbes and other lower life forms to worship us?
10 June 2007, on 1:43 am
The older I get, the more I realize there is absolutely nothing I can do about changing anyone else’s beliefs regarding the cosmos. I arrived at my cosmological views through a long process of experience and self searching; using whatever rational faculties are an inescapable, albeit, natural part of my individual consciousness.
It seems to me, it’s impossible to even fully explain to another person your rather unique combination of ingredients that go into your almost “snowflake-like” view of the universe.
Yeah, I know the snowflake routine has been a joke with some comedians…Lewis Black?…but, we assume we all live in the shared ‘Greater Universe’; however, we each have our own unique combination of phenomenal images, experiences, etc., which we can’t really directly share, or compare objectively, with anyone else. If not snowflakes…”I’m melting!”…maybe “monads”?
Bottom-line; I have a kind of lifelong similar experiential ‘divide’ with my older sister; which, the older I get, seems to get wider. These days, I keep in touch very occasionally…mainly at “Winter Solstice”…and pretty much avoid those unchangeable differences. It’s not a huge religious difference, like Stardust’s situation, so much as “life choice” stuff related to my ‘career’ choice, economics and politics.
As a former AA member, I’m reminded of “Let go, and let gawd!” (Ugh!) which I now would revise to something like: “Let go, and do…or not…whatever seems right for YOU.”
I never really dug those somewhat obnoxious cliches; but another one, needing no revision, is perhaps more universal:
“Live and let live!”
I prefer to make up…or not…my own variations; something like:
“Let go; and try to just Live and let live!”
However!…NEVER accept anything from ANYONE, like:
“Sit your evil ass down, or go away…or…get thee to a nunnery/monestary?…brothel? (Ooh!…Mustang ranch?)…whateva…just, shut the fuck up!”
“The Rev. Jenner J. Hull”…regarding Satan and Gawd…
For believers…Theologically speaking…everything in existence is “dreamed up”, dependent on…and SUSTAINED IN EXISTENCE by “Gawd’s Will” and supposed continuous “Infinite Power”. The whole Universe, and “NO being”, whatsoever, has any power that is not granted…every moment; and willfully…by the “Creator”.
So Satan…and his Gawd created, damnable “Hell”…is tantamount to Gawd’s handy, kept in existence, SCAPEGOAT (”Na-a-a-ah!”…Aflac commercial?); for doing all those nasty things, which ultimately are part of the “Strange, Mysterious, and Unfathomable Ways” Ooooh…very scary!!!
Of course, if any of us, atheists, were to imagine being gawd; what’s the ‘foist ting’ WE might do?
Ummm…How ’bout putting that nasty bastard, Satan, permanently out of existence; as well as the psychopathic notion of a totally cruel and unjust “Hell”. After all; the concept of an almighty deity who never had to answer any questions, or critiques…or be judged, or tested…or…ANYTHING…is rather absurd considering the ramifications of “Its” humongous, psychopathic and unjust actions. Not to go any further on this all too silly, logical “tail chasing”…it all goes endlessly round and round in ridiculous logical circles in a totally made up by humans…
“Bullshit Conundrum”!
It does get rather tiresome rehashing so many things that are…and have been…probably better said, here at GifS, and elsewhere…all across the Internet.
Alas; more and more, as I age (gracefully?); I’m, shall we say…”humoring the idea”…of completely retiring from the “Debating Society”! This cosmology stuff takes a lot of mental energy!
Do I smell smoke?
10 June 2007, on 5:18 am
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No, you have got it wrong.
What you are doing is trying to negate the whole concept of Christianity by creating a strawman argument that you feel safe in knocking down. Your viewpoint is just as one-eyed, and myopic as that you claim the christians is.
Hell is real. But hell is in layers, its not heaven or hell = lake of fire. There is a mid point where good people go that is not the hell as you say it.
Just like Heaven is in layers (cf paul talking about the 7th heaven)
That entry point to hell is “hades” a grey place of nothing, like being in a giant empty warehouse in a overcast winter day.
Nothing bad happens to you, but nothing good happens either, Nothing happens at all, you are left to your own devices with the others there. Its an absence of God, a non heaven.
The worse you are the more you decend into black, and eventually to hell as you imagine it.
But that hell is only for the worst, as Jesus talks about it being for the worst people.
How do I know?
Its well documented int he bible for a start, but I have had experiences over my life that have shown me its reality, and this is very real.
Even if you end up in the grey holding place of hades, you are not in heaven, your spirit will never grow, you will never have the connunon and spiritual growth that people in heaven do.
In the end its almost as bad as being in the place of fire, as all you have is your memories.
Drop your conceit and pretentions, this is not some intellectual discussion but the truth, I have seen it and experienced it.
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10 June 2007, on 10:46 am
Sorry to hear about your trouble with one of your relatives. I come from a very large family, and we are all theist of one strip or another, some liberal (me), others fundie. Once years ago my sister told me that the family was persecuting her for her faith. My answer was, no, you are, you keep preaching. We know what you believe, now drop it. She did and everyone gets along fine.
I don’t care what others believe. I have deepened my faith through years of study, as well as experience and the so called debate between theist and non theist gets very boring very early on…..so I just stopped doing it. Though I like visiting blogs like yours from time to time.
Hope things get better for you.
Mark
10 June 2007, on 1:38 pm
Only in the imaginations of men, according to their own vindictive desires towards others who think differently. No evidence exists for any such place except on the pages of ancient mythology books and texts.
Documented by ignorant ancient people who lived in a time where little was known about the world. Nothing is proven by citing pages from a book. And “experiences”? Maybe in a symbolic sense we can say that Iraq is hell, starvation is hell, little children being abused and neglected is hell…but to believe in a literal place called hell is absurd.
The Catholic church recently did away with the “Limbo” concept, or don’t you keep up with the news? All you Christians and god botherers make up your own rules and ideas about your religion as you go along according to your own desires as how you want or think things should be. You all can’t even agree amongst yourselves.
Heaven & Hell concepts are human imaginations.
And nc, you missed the whole point. Fundamentalists are fanatical and divisive, and their religion is often the only reason for hating or dismissing someone from their lives.
10 June 2007, on 1:52 pm
Mark, thanks for your comment. You have illustrated how fundamentalists can cause problems even amongst other family members who may not believe in the “correct” brand of Christianity.
10 June 2007, on 5:56 pm
Stardust, (love your blog, love your “name” HATE playing it on my guitar!) I have found with my fundie relatives, that like your aunt, they identify with this alleged entity. It’s part of who they are, they regard each as a reflection of the other, so yes, they actually see it as a perdonal affront if you discount that essential part of them. It’s reality. Like, when I look in the mirror in the morning and that tough young twenty year old looks back at me. What’s looking INTO the mirror is a sixty year old, pear shaped, gray haired, facially disfigured guy. They see this thing as part of themselves, don’t want to think it isn’t there and are very defensive about it.
Have you noticed that the more defensive people are about their ‘belief’, the less secure they seem to be? The less they tolerate what might make the whole thing tip over? I’ve seen them fight mentally to keep it.
There’s another thing, i’ve heard a very religious but unpleasant person say that maybe her diety was TOO lenient, so she wanted to be sure that there were penalties for people. Acyually, she’d spent most of her life avoiding enjoying it, and it wasn’t fair (so she thought) that people could “sin” and then maybe get away with it.
10 June 2007, on 6:53 pm
I have found with my fundie relatives, that like your aunt, they identify with this alleged entity.
Sarge, I wish it was an aunt, it would make it easier, but this is my sister who has always been a part of my life until she followed her fundie daughter and her daughter’s youth pastor husband in the Baptist “faith”
I didn’t want to say that in the post in case she happened upon this blog and read what I wrote. It would make things worse, for certain, and I really don’t want to hurt her. I posted about this because I really needed to discuss it with others in similar situations. She would only see it as an attack against her and would not see how I am sad about all these whole unnecessary circumstances with her religious beliefs. I have no problems with my other friends, they all know I am an atheist, most of them are theists…who cares? It’s the here and now that matters. This life.
Have you noticed that the more defensive people are about their ‘belief’, the less secure they seem to be?
Yes, it seems that she is extremely defensive when it comes to her beliefs even to the point of feeling threatened by just her knowing that I don’t agree with her on the subject of religion even though we hadn’t discussed it. We had agreed to disagree way back when she wasn’t going to a church, but she still had belief in a god.
10 June 2007, on 7:52 pm
Sorry, Stardust, I guess my “advice” wasn’t really practical. I come from a completely non-religious family and am in Australia, where the fundie problem is small. (I actually don’t know any.) So I can’t empathise, just sympathise. Seems the best course is to go about your life, let her go about hers, and hope she sees sense one day. Soon.
And if she does read this, maybe she will understand your pain and modify her attitude. Again, good luck.
10 June 2007, on 9:21 pm
the wackiest stretching of this belief in saving of one’s soul by far takes place in the mormon temples, where they actually baptize dead people. they have a giant research center that comes up with names of the damned and they perform this fucked up ceremony where they dunk a fellow mormon in water and read off the names of the unholy…
by the way, just finished “A Devil’s Chaplain” by Richard Dawkins, loved it, a must read for any person of reason.
10 June 2007, on 11:39 pm
Ha. Two bogus arguments in one paragraph! The circular “the bawble says so” argument, and the “argument from personal experience”.
Sorry, your personal experiences mean nothing to other people. It always amazes me that people actually buy this stuff. Anyone who has studied anything about the human brain at all knows how easily it can be fooled.
That’s why eyewitness accounts of a crime always differ so much.
10 June 2007, on 11:45 pm
Also, Stardust, I want to say how sad this is. And so stupid. Simply because you don’t believe in the specific religious fairy tale that your family member does, they think that gives them the right to treat you like crap.
Another fine example of what being a Christian truly means.
As far as the hell thing… the fundie cult I grew up in actually believe that hell is death, without ever waking up. So that’s interesting.
11 June 2007, on 12:08 am
As far as the hell thing… the fundie cult I grew up in actually believe that hell is death, without ever waking up. So that’s interesting.
Michael, it sounds as if they halfway understand reality?
11 June 2007, on 12:52 am
I really don’t see what the big deal is. We’re all going to die anyway. In the end it makes no difference. Not one bit of difference. It really doesn’t matter what I believe. In the end it all comes to nothing. No memory, no knowledge, no mind. My life was a waste of time trying to live and to love. It was all for nothing. The ultimate goal of life is just that. Nothing. So, I guess I will delude myself into believing life really does have meaning.
11 June 2007, on 7:24 am
My life was a waste of time trying to live and to love. It was all for nothing. The ultimate goal of life is just that. Nothing. So, I guess I will delude myself into believing life really does have meaning.
Then why don’t you just end it and be done with it? Just don’t spread death beyond individualism.
11 June 2007, on 7:53 am
Stardust, Sorry I got it mixed up. I guess it’s tough if it’s a sib. My wife of thirty nine years now, she goes to church and Sunday school when her work and other activities permit, nary a word out of her about my lack of religion in the forty three years we’ve known each other. Most of us deal and interact with more churched people than not, I suppose.
I read an obituary the other day, a woman I used to know. I was surprised to hear she had died, I thought she would have just meaned herself to nothing. Very talented woman, I admit that, excellent painter, photographer, and musician. Thought herself to be a ‘good’ person because she was ’saved’ and ‘knew the lord’. She was a mean person, a selfish bully, she hated people of other races (one of the last things she ever said to me ten years ago was that it served me right for having raised my sons godlessly to have daughters-in-law who weren’t caucasian. My wife and I embrace and enjoy this difference, she would have abhorred it. She hated unbelievers, delivered herself of opinions of those different, loved money, and if someone was a step above her in the socio-econic area (or you had something she wanted) she’d kiss your ass. If you were one step below (or were of different race or creed or worldview) she’d feel honor bound to kick it.
I read the obit, figured well, she’s not been in your life for the better part of a decade, if you didn’t like her, there are people who are actually mourning her, and then I read about how she went on to “be with her lord” (she wanted mercy for herself, stern justice for me and my ilk) and ended with the words that she was “a friend to all”. Couldn’t keep a straight face. Should have been entered that one in fiction of the year. Perceptions.
11 June 2007, on 9:49 am
ChuckA Said
Who are you! And what have you done with Chuck!!
11 June 2007, on 10:47 am
Stardust
Sorry to hear of your situation. Sadly, I agree with those who say there is not much to do about it now, but grin and bear it. And wait.
I hope your family member will realize that as she digs in her heels, she is wasting what precious time she has with you now.
I don’t expect it to, but I hope this blows over soon. :]
11 June 2007, on 6:48 pm
I don’t know why some can be atheist, others theist, agnostics etc. I know some atheist who cannot fathom the reality of God, others like me can’t understand how one can be an atheist. I think the divide is too wide for anykind of dialogue of any real merit can be had. A common human weakness is to believe that what they feel to be true, is simply that, true; others false or misguided. I think we bring to bear our thought processes to somehow back up what we believe. Some men of science are theist, some theologians are atheist, no easy divide.
Acceptance is the only way throught this. When communication breaks down, acceptance helps to dilute the will to power so much at work in our spieces.
I have doubts, and am comfortable with those who think differently than me. To say that I don’t at times feel discomfort would be a lie, but my goal is to simply respect others and their beliefs.
One point. Religion or the lack there of does not do away with personality disorders, which are common, and which do a great deal of harm and pain to others. Faith or lack of matters nothing at all.
Ok nuff said.
Peace
Mark
11 June 2007, on 7:15 pm
Mark, that is an interesting point to consider.
11 June 2007, on 10:56 pm
Oh, no. You wouldn’t believe some of the crackpot beliefs they have. That particular one just happened to be out of the norm with most fundie beliefs.
It was a terrible, terrible place to grow up.
11 June 2007, on 10:59 pm
Sarge, I can totally relate to this. It’s kind of infuriating. People like her actually believe they are “good” because they go to church.
Why is so hard to comprehend that being “good” means not causing harm to others?
12 June 2007, on 10:46 am
Mark, a great philosophy. Unfortunately so many religious people want to force their bogus beliefs on everyone else.
12 June 2007, on 2:12 pm
Stardust, that really sucks. Thankfully, my family only has deists and atheists in it. We already drove off all of the fundies. However, I had a very good friend in college that had to “quit” being my friend because his family found out that I was an atheist. His sister, and mother would not stop telling him that I would drag him down with me to hell. Eventually, he began to believe it. One day, he told me that if I wanted to be his friend I would have to change my ways. I told him to fuck off, a true friend accepts you for who you are. Your sister is listening to her narrow minded daughter and son-in-law. They are the real problem. However close you were, most mothers will choose a relationship with their children over their siblings. So it goes.
13 June 2007, on 7:21 am
Yeah, Michael, I wonder about that. I think (in my experience among the more fundie segment of the population) that they are now ’saved’ and are now in a favored status, and also have a sort of king’s X. They are Daddies favorite and what with an often displayed immaturity, sometimes behave like like spoiled brats.
This woman would pray at the drop of a hymnal, and she just loved “Thuh LOR-duh’s…PRAY er.”
I once asked her about that, the way she treated and thought of people. I asked if she didn’t think about the fact that she was asking for forgiveness and treatment on the same par as she gave it to others. I was informed that she was already ’saved’ so she didn’t have to worry! She thought she got one over on her diety, really.
I can’t remember which figure of the early church it was who said it, but one of my grandmothers also believed it, hell was a sort of entertainment in heaven. When you needed a break from praising and casting down crowns, you got to go and look into hell and see what you missed by being ’saved’. Yep, got to see your friends and loved ones getting what they deserved, but unable to help them. Un WILLING to help them. Sheesh.
14 June 2007, on 9:03 pm
Sad but beautifully written post, Star; it’s so eloquent and true, not just in your individual case but for so many others. Thank you very much for sharing (sorry for the est-ism!).
B80vin, I have been in talks with fundies in which I was threatened with hell. They were very insidious about it: what they would do is call a school assembly (I attended an American Protestant evangelical missionary school in the Dominican Republic), which of course none of us kids had the power to get out of. Then they would lead us in a group prayer that leaned heavily on the if-you’re-not-a-born-again-xian-who-has-accepted-jesus-into-your-heart-you’re-in-trouble shtick.
Next came a short not-quite sermon on “what we are about to see is real/true,” followed by a short film, usually the same one about a young woman who’s a sort of liberal, lukewarm xian married to a fundie. She wakes up one morning and the Rapture has occurred – and hubby’s been “taken up” and she’s been “left behind.” The rest of the movie is basically the bare bones plot of all of Tim LaHarm’s (intentional misspelling) Left Behind series of novels, culminating in her death by falling off a dam.
At which point she wakes up, relieved to find it was only a dream – until she realizes hubby’s not in bed with her. When she finds the tea kettle whistling in an ominously empty kitchen, it dawns on her that now this is the Rapture. The End.
A real sermon would then ensue full of fire and brimstone; god is just/cannot tolerate sin/we’re all born sinners/yadda yadda yadda. But because he loves us horrible undeserving evil sinners sooo much, he’ll save us – if we only do exactly as the preacher says and repeat his words to the letter: “I confess my sins/accept jesus christ into my heart/blah blah blah.” Otherwise, guess what: it’s waking up and finding out you’ve been Left Behind in an apocalyptic world, and going to awful awful pain forever and ever and ever afterward (funny, they never made it clear that they also believed that you could convert even after being Left Behind and before dying; I guess they didn’t want anyone putting off their conversion).
To round it all off, an intense, more-fire-and-brimstone group prayer followed, with a call for anyone who wanted to be born again to step forward and do so in public. I can’t recall a single one of us who ever did, although I know I for sure would desperately but silently say all the things they were telling us we needed to say in order to be “saved”). A few personal testimonies to conclude the ritual, and we were sent off to fear, doubt, and nightmares.
It was fear-mongering, psychological/emotional abuse, and non-physical torture of the worst kind wielded by experts upon a helpless, captive audience who had no idea they were being grossly manipulated. I never suffered nightmares, but I would go through periods of free-floating anxiety in which I would worry so much about the Rapture, End Times, and hell that I would go sleepless for days, not eat, and be unable to let my parents out of sight.
That is what fundamentalist/evangelicals do. And when it doesn’t work, they turn their backs on you.
Now? I’m pretty much free – finally!
16 June 2007, on 2:34 am
Wow. Just wow. What if we all just refused to have anything to do with people who disagreed with us on perhaps the most divisive topic ever known to mankind?