It could be some sort of irony. I used to believe in God. I was a religious leader in my community, had certification to instruct in a religious capacity, and found great comfort in the certainty that there was a giant, magical love cushion waiting to catch me when I fell. Until I got deeper into my faith and practice. Then religion was exposed to me as a hegemonic patriarchy designed to control sexuality and personal choice.
I remember realizing mid-prayer that I was serving a false ideology.
False in that I didn't believe it. I stood up and had a long talk with my spouse. He'd left the faith long before. I'd been trying to "save" him for years.
A curious thing happened: I decided to just let faith be for a week. I'd come back to all my practices and prayers after that time. And I did. But it was empty.
The emptiness hurt.
What do you do when that place inside you once filled with a belief in God is empty?
It turns out religion was a way for me to abuse myself. It was an extension of the strict regimentation of eating disorders and various other forms of self-punishment. When I let go of a belief system telling me how to believe, I was able to believe in myself. I filled that emptiness with love for who I am and who I can be.
Gone were the artificial barriers barring me from recognizing my sexuality and my value as a woman.
It's amazing to be free of that clutter. All the discipline I put into religion I now put into compassion. I believe in what we can offer one another, especially outside the bindings of prescripted faith.
Yet, I wouldn't say I'm an atheist. I believe in something. Maybe a common source. Anyone else here in the same boat?
Here's what I said on my sexuality ICYMI: [https://steemit.com/relationships/@honeyscribe/i-ve-never-had-casual-sex-and-i-want-to-open-my-marriage]
It's just about a gap between the church and religion or you mean that religion is supressing your sexuality?
Try Hinduism, maybe? They don't have problems with sexuality:
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Great image! I think it's about doctrine. When I do engage in spiritual enrichment, I head to a Buddhist temple. But there is more to it--this idea of there being one "right" way to practice. There is no room for individuality, only commonality.
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not anymore, India has a fundamentalist version of hinduism now which is sweeping across the country. it's a victorian prudishness coupled with hindu monotheism (pick one god and no one else), it's quite disturbing actually
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Really? But how about initial sexuality?
I'm shocked! How come it's victorian prudishness in India?
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Don't feel bad. You are in the same boat as most of the world's population - part of the great falling away that Paul says will occur just before Jesus returns.
"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first." 2 Thes 2:3.
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Love the image. Hahahaahhaaha. I do feel in good company.
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One of the Great Truths of life is this.
If you ever find your self in agreement with the majority, you are certainly wrong. :o)
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The irony of the quote.
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Aren't a majority of the people in this country Christians?
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Most people who claim to be Christians do not obey Jesus and therefore must not really believe who He is and are therefore not His true "sheep".
Jesus said, "But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.…"
But most people who claim to be sheep are in for a surprise. Two more Jesus quotes:
"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
"Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’"
So feel free to criticize false Christians. As you can see, Jesus also criticizes them.
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agreed. nice quote.
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You say that you had faith and then lost it.
Yet, lookit - all you ever had and described having - were the outside trappings of a religious life. Like so many women, you were and still are but a clown, a dressed up mime trying to ape and exaggerate the movements of spirit you've never had, because that was your job in the circus.
As an ordinary woman without any profound Jean d'Arc gifts or leanings, you never had faith to begin with, and were never supposed to clownishly pretend to have it.
Your prescribed path lay through love. Loving and unconditionally serving a righteous husband, one who has unshakeable faith, would ironically have saved you by connecting you to the Kingdom of God through the husband. Sadly, today's circumstance has inverted all this for you and left you stranded for good.
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This is . . . a comment for the ages.
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You're still breathing, so the life of spirit is not over for you.
If you ask me, you have been quite unlucky in your choice of husband. I know this because I've read your post about "open marriage" and the dead giveaway is that he tolerates the very idea of it from you. You simply cannot be a happy woman with a man like that, honeyscriber.
Meanwhile true happiness is right next to holiness (from the word "whole"), so how can anyone expect you to be spiritual without even being happy, whole?
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The belief in a god is a conforting delusion, no doubt.
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Like the magic of monster spray at bedtime. :)
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The raison d'être of all delirium is comfort
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Fascinating. I underwent a very similar transformation. There's something which you may not have considered yet, however.
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As some previous commenters have noted, religion is not God. I totally agree. As a Christian I can only speak from my years of studying the Bible, apologetics, hermeneuitcs, secular art history, and contemporary history. We have to realize that religion is also not the Bible. The Bible was spoken/written by people who had no intention of inventing the "religion" of Christianity. They were simply people who were trying to tell the stories of their lives and the lives of others that they bore witness to. They did this because they believed that God was speaking through them and that the whole world needed to hear what He had to say.
Ok, you say, then which one is true and which are false doctrine? That's an extremely important question to ask and then seek to answer. If you believe in God, and if God loves us as His children and only wants the best for us, can we ascribe to a religion that promotes severe gender inequality? Hatred? Killing? As I've studied the Bible more and more through actual scholars instead of listening to pretentious televangelists, I've found our that these questions have answers. Not all religions can support the same one God or a version of polytheism. They're at odds in more ways than they align. But God is very real underneath all of that. Corrupt religions are also very real. You have to dig deep to find the answers you need, and these answers likely require reading/talking/listening to many different "scholars" (or equivalent in amount of time and effort spent studying the topic) or people who have had amazing experiences that corroborate God's existence. It's a little complicated, but absolutely worth it. If we could drop the materialistic delusion we would see an entirely different purpose for ourselves.
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as long as you believed and admitted that your made some mistakes, then ask God for forgiveness, he will listen to a sincere hearts of prayers. just keep believing, although, we are just humans committed a lot of sins, still God were able to save us and all we can payback to God, is to continue doing good into others and share what we can share.
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"He who has the Son has eternal life.
He who rejects the Son will not see life
for God's wrath remains upon him." John 3:36
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The real question is - how old are you? Young people think they believe lots of things and when life gets real and they face true struggles they find out what they really believe. It's easy to toss God aside when you're young and healthy and life is full of possibilities.
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I am definitely in the same boat lately. I grew up in an extremely conservative and religious home and had religion drilled into my skull from the time I dropped out of the womb. I had this ridiculous fear of hell fire and brimstone instilled in me to ensure I never questioned my faith or church. Once I cut ties with my parents and moved away from home, I was finally able to think for myself and abandoned my faith. Like you said, I still believe in something. I just don't what it is exactly. I'm studying more into other faiths, and I've found some I like and some I hate, but I'm happy I'm finally thinking for myself.
Thanks for the great article. :) It was well-written and thought provoking.
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I'm agnostic myself and I fully resonate with what all of your points. However, I would say that my feelings are rather muted, since I don't believe spending your days on philosophy rather than working is what put us on this Earth in the first place.
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If you don't let religion take away Jesus and His Word from you, you will be fine. Otherwise you were tricked and massively robbed. However, leaving religion and religious institutions doesn't force you to leave God. Religion is not God and Jesus is greater than all religions.
Your another trouble is you have unbelieving spouse which obviously also influences you this way. If you don't revitalize your faith and make it much more serious and stronger you're going to lose it completely. I wish you do well.
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Seems to me you found God after all.
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Religion is the root of many evils.
We don't need religion to believe in God or the universe or whatever higher power you want to believe in. I personally believe that we are all part of what God is....God is part of us. The bible and all of the religious books were written by people......some things in them are common sense, some others might be prophecies.....we don't know for sure. To blindly believe in what the bible or other religious books say, because the christian society tells you that you HAVE to.....naw....that doesn't work for me. But I do know that we as human beings are more special that we think we are and that within us exists a godly light of some sort. Just be a good person, think positive and do good things and your life will be much more pleasant that someone who is negative. No need to run to church....
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Hey honeyscribe, I recently read your post on 'open marriage' and unknowingly started following you. Speaking as someone from a different cultural background and what may be a younger perspective, just wanted to say that I think your doing the right thing. The greatest religion you can subscribe to is yourself, and you should do what makes you happy. Whether God exists or not, you need to find peace within yourself and religious discipline is not the answer; freedom and acceptance of who you are is. When you find you peace, you can find God within yourself.
I wish you the best in life! :-)
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Most churches are corrupt to the core. You're absolutely right, they are all about control and getting your donations, while remaining silent on social and political issues so they can maintain IRS 501c3 tax exempt status. The corruption and collusion with government goes further than that even.
Modern feminism likewise is a false paradigm. Has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with hating men and being mad at daddy. Demand respect but don't fight biology.
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Most churches? Proof? Evidence? Studies? Define corrupt? I love the internet. Any moron can dash off whatever baseless tripe they want.
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Ad hominem and name calling, but I will cast this pearl before you for benefit of others. Look up "Clergy Response Teams"
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The comfort of 'answers from divine authoritarians' is a false illusion. When at the end of life, my hospice experiences have taught me that primarily the more 'religious' a person is the more fearful and they are in their last breath. Be at peace within your Self, your heart, your own breathing awareness, meet the end as conscious isness...... after that? who knows? Thank you for such an honest and revealing share... oc
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When you have a realization dogmatic religion is not for you then you have the choice to do things because they are right, not because an angry god told you it's something you must do or suffer the consequences. Many people use scripture to decide who is 'good' and who is 'bad', in other words whom to treat well and whom to treat poorly. Perhaps along with the spiritual revelation you've also had a political one in that whatever informed, consenting adults decide to do amongst themselves is for them and them alone to judge. Perhaps 'Do onto others as you'd have others do onto you' is all the spiritual and legal law we need. If so, welcome to spiritual and political libertarianism.
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Perhaps the compassion you now feel, is a remnant of the creation / creator which dwells within and without!!!
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That's a joyful idea. I often think, if there is a creator, it is compassion.
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I grew up Catholic and realized pretty much the same thing when I was still in elementary school. As the nuns and the priest daily told us we were all going to hell. I remember I'd had enough when after one Easter vacation, I'd visited my grandmother's Baptist church and the priest yelled at me in front of the whole class saying I was going to hell. I didn't understand how I could go to hell for going to another church that spoke about the same thing. Even though in words I said I'd let it go, it took much longer than that. We don't realize how ingrained Christianity or religion period is with our psyche. It's hard when you admit to yourself that there may be no one to catch you at the end of this journey. However, you realize there is something, even if you don't yet have words for it, but it's far more freeing than what you walked away from.
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I was brought up in a Roman Catholic household. I also turned away from the church. This happened during my high school years. I saw too many examples of people who I would see in church every Sunday exhibit very little of the goodness, fellowship, caring, and giving that Jesus asked of his followers during the other 6 days of the week. I currently call myself and agnostic. God may exist. I won't debate that he doesn't. But I don't think he/she/it is actively engaged in our day to day lives here on earth. Good things happen. Bad things happen. It's all a wash, with no apparent purpose or direction. People have tried to bring me back. But even some of the most devout people I've met still, from my perspective, turn out to be hypocritical at some level.
One example, a friend of mine who is reborn. Totally turned their life around. A person full of faith in Jesus and the word of God. But if someone ever threatened their family, they have told me that they would pick up a gun and end the threat. So, willing to break one of the ten commandments. Ignoring passages in the bible that refer to turning the other cheek. Ignoring passages in the bible that refer to "Gods plan" and that everything that happens is part of that plan. No, it is their clear intention to stop that plan.
And the big one that gets ignored every single day by what seems like the vast majority of Christians - Thou shalt not judge.
So I live my life as best I can. And from what I've seen, if God is real, when I get judged, I will fare far better than many, many, many Christians. Or i will have lots of company.
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God is the only one who does the Judging.
All that proper Christians should do is pass along how he says he will judge.
Behavior of people who say they are Christians is not Christianity.
Study what we are striving to do, not what we are able to do. We all fail at that.
That's why we need Jesus.
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I relate to the emptiness. Sometimes it feels like it would just be easier to believe in god, or have religious faith to fall back on. When I find myself struggling or anxious about something, I have to have faith in myself that I'll make it through. But sometimes I just wished I could unload that weight and just have faith in a higher power. At the same time, I like having that self reliance and not blindly subscribing to "the bindings of prescripted faith" as you explain. What I do like about religion is the community it provides, the traditions, as well as the faith in common humanity. I wish there was an easier way to replicate those aspects for agnostic or atheist people.
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I too had that same emptiness when I realised that all religion was a sham, but then I started to learn about the human brain and how its design presents a duality of mind that can be mistaken for god.
Also how we can't help seeing patterns in chaos (apophenia), and then trying to make sense from those "patterns". Then, I started to think about the universe outside of religion and god, and realised how amazing it is; and how beautiful that a myriad of chances had created a set of conscious minds that were sophisticated enough to contemplate their very origins.
Thoughts like these fill the emptiness, to know that I am alive in a very narrow timeslice of the universe, whereby it is able to support complex life.
Nowadays I don't feel empty, because I've shaken off the anthropomorphic illusions of religion, and that's just great :-D
Cg
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Call on God with all your heart and he will answer to you.
Living in the Spirit
…7because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s Law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God. 9You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.…◄ Romans 8:7-8-9 ►
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.◄ James 1:27 ►
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Can anyone be spiritual without belonging to a religious group ?
Life is not always that easy and there are moments of doubt.
We are just human beings and not gods. Our merit is in continuing our quest
by respecting and loving others whatever our doubts may be and even if we
have given up any religion. Seeking deep inside ourselves in the silence of meditation.
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There's a difference between God and any religion of this world. To me, any religion is a form of mass manipulation. Look at all the rules, the guilt they try to impress on people who can't fit the mold... The subject is too vast to be addressed in a mere reply. However, I'll say it's very liberating to find out, through one's own experience, that "God has no religion", as Mahatma Gandhi said.
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There is only one truth and that is Christ Jesus is lord everything else including so called religions and atheism are of the devil.Just like football or popstars etc invented by the devil so people will worship the lie and not see Gods Truth until its to late.
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