Hmmmm??? Now this peaked my interest…
http://www.spiritualatheism.org/
Power of prayer…??
November 5, 2007 — samanthamj 
That’s a damn good question, if you ask me. I saw the above pic on a website I recently found called “Losing My Religion“. Lots of good reads there and other stuff… like this quote:
“ [Fundamentalists] never wonder why, if herpes is sent by ‘god’ to scourge “adulterers,” whooping cough and measles weren’t purposely created to lambaste children.”
–Fred Woodworth
My mom prays for everything from world hunger to not hitting any red lights on her way to church. She sends those mile long prayer chain emails… to everyone… about everything… that are literally too painful to read. If I read them all, they’d have to add me on to it, asking folks to pray for my eyesight to focus again.
I am a big believer in the power of positive thinking, and affirmations, the laws of attraction… etc…. but, the power of prayer?? Maybe, it helps if you believe it… sometimes… but, if it does… I have to believe it’s the positive thinking that helped and that any God is personally answering prayers. Because, if it WERE God helping my Mom not hit any red lights on her way to church… ?? well then, I’d have a problem with his doing that, but not helping out the starving kid… ya know?
It also amazes me just how many people routinely say, “I’ll pray for you” or “I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayers”. I don’t mind when they say it to me… even though I don’t really believe in prayer. I know what they mean. I actually feel like saying the latter one myself half the time, only for lack of a common phrase to replace it that doesn’t include prayer. I try just saying “I’ll keep you in my thoughts”… but, that doesn’t really sound as caring, does it? So, I wind up saying, “If there’s anything I can do to help…”… and mean it… and then, I try not to wait for them to ask for help if I can think of anything to do to help. Ironically, if I DO help, they will most likely thank God for answering their prayers… ?
~smj
Greatest Love Story of All Time??
September 30, 2007 — samanthamjMy very good Christian friend that I was debating all kinds of things with had the following to say to me at one point in our conversations… She said:
“I think that He (God) totally understands the warped church that you were raised in (good intentions on the part of your Mom I’m sure, but still …), why you think what you think, and no matter what you think about him right now, or where you are with him right now, he loves you. Period. He knows what you’re going to do tomorrow, and even 10 years from now. He’s not frowning down on you because you aren’t reading your Bible every day. Does he miss you? Yes. But is he some unforgiving, mean, judgmental God who only loves you if you do everything “right” (by who’s standards?). No, he loves us “as is”. And forgiveness is what he is all about. How else do you explain Jesus. That is the greatest love story of all time if you ask me.“
I know she means well… and she is trying to make me feel the “love” of God… but, is it just me… or Read the rest of this entry »
My teen life in a musical youtube nutshell…
September 26, 2007 — samanthamjI was mulling over my last post…. and, my teenage years in my head.
My teen years marked the beginning of my dual lifestyle…
One one hand… I was starting to doubt and reject a lot of what I was being taught by mom and church in general.. but, I was still going to church 2-5 times a week and singing in the choir, where I’d basically be partaking in a lof of this:
(“Because He Lives I Can Face Tomorrow” )
Then, on the days I wasn’t playing the part of the good little Christian girl, I was skipping school, jumping out my window, and staying over my heathen friends houses a lot in order to sneak to rock concerts and parties, and banging my head to the likes of this:
(“Running with the Devil” – VanHalen)
Explains a lot, doesn’t it???
=)
~smj
Forgive me Father, so I can forgive myself…
September 24, 2007 — samanthamj(Do we NEED to believe in God in order to forgive ourselves? I hope not… but, maybe we do? Or at least, maybe MANY of us do???)
So, I mentioned that I had been going back and forth with a friend about religion, etc…
One of the many links/articles she sent me was a link to this article called “The Adulteress: A Stone’s Throw from Grace” (found here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2007/julaug/4.58.html?start=2)
Now, she sent this, because she was trying to explain how she is NOT judging gay people, or ANYONE… and, how GOD doesn’t want to condemn people to hell… how Jesus Saves, etc. As in the story, Jesus didn’t condemn the adulteress but says the old “let he who has not sin cast the first stone”. Now… of course I’ve heard this story, and this message a million times. Well, I finally read the article she sent me anyway… and, one part, towards the end, struck me. I felt a light bulb “ah-HA moment”.
It was this part:
“We hear you, Lord. What a relief to know that because of your grace, we can leave behind the past, as this woman did, and walk in a whole new direction.”
Now, like I said, this message is nothing new. What clicked was how it pertained to judging, and guilt… and “forgiveness”.
What suddenly became really clear to me, is that many people feel awful guilty about some past mistakes. People beat themselves up over things – for years. People want to change… desperately sometimes. They might not want to “be” that person that made those mistakes. They try to say, “that wasn’t even really me”…. “I wasn’t myself then”. They don’t want to accept it WAS themselves that did whatever it was they feel guilty about. But, no matter they try, they can’t shake it. They can’t accept that the “good person” they want to be, would make the “bad” mistakes they’ve made.
I think, finding “God”, and believing that he could love them… in spite of their sins… allows people to love themselves again. Forgiveness, gives back respect…. allows us to start over for real… and believe we can to do it… that we are worthy of it. Just like the adulteress in that story. After all, if GOD could forgive her and love her… of course we can forgive her, or ourselves too, right?
I don’t know why this is all so interesting to me all of a sudden. I’ve heard countless stories from folks with very checkered pasts, who become born again… starting their lives over… the new and improved versions of themselves. They can go from the biggest axe-murderer low-life – to being a preacher – just like that – because they found God, and he forgave them. It actually was a pet peeve of mine when I was a teen. Heck, my teen leader was one of them (and he was pretty creepy). I didn’t think I should listen to him when a month ago he was a big drug addict and loser, just because now he’d “found God”.
I’ve also realized for years that religion helped people cope… period. With whatever. And, maybe they needed it, for whatever reasons. In my mom’s case, because of her illness and to deal with how she grew up. Or to deal with loss… grief. I’ve even envied others at times because I couldn’t seem to get any comfort myself from religion with all my skeptical views. So, the “needing” religion isn’t a new idea to me either.
But, I am getting a different side of this now… I’m having trouble explaining what I mean, though. I‘m not even sure it’s the forgiving ourselves aspect that I’m finding so interesting here. Surely, this is not a new concept either? But, I’m seeing it with a new twist. Maybe people need religion in order to live with themselves? Maybe, it really does “save” us, but not from hell… but, from our own guilt?
Maybe sometimes, we just can’t accept mistakes we’ve made. Maybe we can’t except the fact that we are HUMAN and WILL make mistakes? We create our own prison… Trapped in our own personal hell… And, then, maybe we need God, or the idea of God, to be able to forgive ourselves and find the strength to free ourselves of guilt so we can move on. ?
Is it so bad to admit that we are just human? Can we not admit when we make a mistake… and say, “yeah, I fucked up. Bad!”, and just try to learn from it? I don’t mean shrug it off, and not care. I’m all for owning up and accepting responsibility. But, can’t we do that and try to understand how it happened? Try not to let it happen again? and, try to move on? Of course we all make mistakes. Do we need to have a God to forgive us and love us, in order to love ourselves?? Maybe some of us do? Maybe all of us do?
Which leads me to my bigger light-bulb feeling.
Do I need this???
Is that part of my problem?
That I can’t forgive myself for whatever terrible things I’ve done? Including things that were not even my fault?? And, I don’t have enough faith to believe in a God that can forgive me either?
Would *I*, or any of us, even have felt THAT kind of guilt if we didn’t have religion and God shoved down our throats in the first place???
I don’t know…
Talk about vicious circles…
This is not really coming out right and I’m having trouble explaining my “ah-HA moment”. Sorry if I’m rambling incoherently. 😉
I am going to have to mull this one over a bit…
~smj
I’ve been on a Mission (not from God)
September 23, 2007 — samanthamjI’ve been on a mission.
And, now, I have a reeeeeeally strong desire to now say, “We’re on a mission from God”, but I won’t because it is totally off base here… It’s just that I love that line from one of the all time best comedy movies – the Blues Brothers. (See bottom of my post for details =)
But, no… my mission was definitely not “from God”… and, it was also pretty futile anyway. I found myself in an all out email war with a good friend of mine. A friend I grew up with… and we are still friends… remarkably… because we have almost nothing in common. This has always been true, but has been amplified the last couple years. Read the rest of this entry »
All is fair in love and conversion…
August 4, 2007 — samanthamjAnother post at “de-conversion” got me thinking. The post is called “My life of proselytization“, this time from HeisSailing…
In his post, he said:
“I witnessed the Gospel of Jesus Christ for most of my adult life”.
Now, I was much younger than he was when I was a full force believer. But, I believe I felt just as strongly. I believed it all. I went around trying to “save” all the kids in my neighborhood… but, my main mission was to save my own father.
HeisSailing made a comment about getting his mom to come to church:
“I would try to convince my mother, once a committed Christian and now a practical atheist, the error of her backsliding ways. I even got her to go to church with me a few times, but not before informing the pastor that I was bringing her and if he would not mind directing a word or two of his message her way.”
This really reminded me of how when I was a young girl, I would be pressured into singing or doing “specials” in front of the church. Then, I would be asked to put the pressure on my father to come to church to see me. After all, I was “Daddy’s little girl”, didn’t he want to see me perform? So, he did come… for at least the first few years of “specials”.
Each time he said “yes honey, I’ll come see you sing” – I would report back to my mother. Then my mother, her friends, the pastor, and my brother and I would rejoice. He’ s coming! Hallelujah! And we’d all pray hard every day until the day of the “special”, that when he came… THIS would be the time the lord would come down and bonk him on the head and turn him into the perfect Christian father and husband. When it didn’t happen… we’d go back to plan A. Try, try again. Repeatedly I was put in this position of trying to save my own father. For years.
Eventually, my father stopped coming to every “special” of mine. He knew the deal… and he didn’t like being approached by the pastor and pressured each time he came either. It was like the whole church was looking at him when he’d come. “Here comes that atheist husband and father!”. They could’ve sold tickets to see the freak atheist! LOL So, I can’t blame him for not wanting to come – even at the time. He probably also sensed the pressure being put on me, and didn’t want to be a part of that either.
I know it was very hard for him to eventually start telling me, “no honey, I won’t come see you sing”. I would then have to report back to my mother that I had failed.. he won’t come… I’m sorry. She would then freak out and get very upset. She made me feel terrible when he didn’t come. She’d make me ask him again and again. And, then they’d argue and she’d try to make him feel guilty for not coming, and make ME feel guilty and like he didn’t care about me in the process.
Eventually, I didn’t WANT to keep singing either. (surprise surprise!). Mostly because I didn’t want to keep pressuring my dad and going thru this.. and because I was starting to have my own doubts about all of it. Not only about my beliefs, but I started wondering if I even had a good voice or not! (loletinf!;) When I finally stood up for myself and said that I didn’t want to do a “special”, I suddenly didn’t feel so special anymore. Not just my mother, but the church leaders also made me feel really bad. Like I was a quitter… giving up… back-sliding… and, they then put pressure and guilt trips on ME asking me over and over when I would sing again. My mother even said something like, “how is your father ever going to be saved now??! “.
Looking back, I can’t believe how much plotting and scheming it all was. The pressure, fear, and guilt used! Unfortunately, since I was in it, I understand their thinking and putting the pressure on my Dad. They really felt it was their duty and apparently rudeness, politeness, respect, and common courtesy fly out the window when you are trying to save someone’s soul (and do your Christian duty ). This is bad enough.
However, what really gets me (and I don’t want to sound whiney here, but) is how could they do that to me? I was a little girl. A little CHRISTIAN girl who wanted to believe all they were teaching. They played me. They used me. How could they put that kind of pressure, guilt and fear on me?!?
And, when I say “they”, it was NOT just by my mother. It was also her friends, the pastor, the choir director, the church leaders. What kind of people scare the crap out of a little girl telling her that her father, (who she loved wholeheartedly and was a GREAT Dad) was going to burn in hell? Tell her that over and over?? Which is bad enough… but, then tack on the, “unless YOU can save him” part. ?? And we prayed.. and prayed… And I cried… and cried…
I just don’t get it. I don’t get how adults, in their right minds, could think this was an okay thing to do. ?? The “RIGHT” thing to do?? It makes me mad still when I think about it, and leads me to the only logical conclusion I can think of, and that is that they ALL were not in their right minds!
HeisSailing wrote:
” I then became exhausted from witnessing. I was exhausted and drained from believing that I and my small sect of Christian brethren have the exclusivity on truth and everyone else, no matter what their beliefs, are going to eternal torment. I was sick of believing that I was on the narrow path of righteousness, and my loved ones are on the wide path leading to destruction when in many cases, they are just simply much better people than I am.”
This is a huge part of why I eventually didn’t believe and don’t believe in any one religion, or in religion or God at all really. Not only because I can’t fathom the idea of my own father going to hell (which is a biggie, I admit), but, also ALLLLLL the other people. It can’t be. It makes no sense.
HeisSailing then wrapped up his post by saying:
“Then I became sick of that guilt, I became sick of that arrogance of exclusivity, I became sick of looking at our life as a trial from God to see if we believed the correct doctrines, and I refused to accept it anymore.”
Like him, I also “became sick” of these same things… The eternal dangling carrot, and the constant fear of hell. I am glad to be rid of them.
PS – If you haven’t already – I suggest you go read HeisSailing’s post in full, as he writes much better than me and makes his points with much better reasoning…
Take care,
~smj
Putting off “the call”…
July 31, 2007 — samanthamjI am being a bad daughter….. again. I have been putting off calling my mother back. I am just so fed up with things that she’s doing. Even though I haven’t talked to her, I received some verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry lengthy emails form her – telling all about her time at “The Call”, and then her latest trip to help with Katrina – which she writes more about praying than anything else.
I want so bad when I do talk to her, to NOT let her bother me. I want to be supportive to her… and give her credit for following her heart. But, it’s so hard when I feel her thrusting all this crap at me. But still… why do I let her get to me? I should be use to it by now. I mean, I know what she’s going to be talking about, and that there’s no sense in trying to tell her how I feel about any of it. I tell myself I won’t let her get to me. She’s sick. I feel sorry for her… but, yet – every time we talk – especially when she’s on a roll with her latest “adventures” – I wind up feeling drained, and annoyed, and aggrivated by the end ot it. And, yes… somehow guilty as well….
You should have heard her go on and on in her email, though. I was curious, and skeptical of some of the things she was saying – so I stupidly went to Youtube to get a peek for myself. I found many many short clips there… mostly of people praying, singing, jumping, speaking in tongues, and shouting. Most of it didn’t surprise me. Some of it brought back not so good memories and I was glad I am not still in that scene.
Still….. most of the people looked happy…. really happy. There was one clip that almost made me wish I still believed… This one:
Don’t they look happy? All 500 million of them (man there’s a lot, isn’t there?) The part where they all were singing “hallelujah” hit me. I remember that song well… and I actually really liked singing… and remember feeling moved many time during that song. It is a pretty song. Just being in a group… where everyone is swaying and raising their hands and really wanting to feel that love is a powerful thing. I think now, looking back, that much of my faith and feelings were just wanting to belong… basking in the community and “good” vibes. Then again, I remember getting almost the same really cool feeling when I went to see “The Who”. I think, longing to be a part of something is a huge part of all that…
There were many more clips regarding “The Call” that made me think I made the right move by getting out… and raised seriosus doubts in my mind about the whole deal, and especially Lou Engle – the “prohetic” leader. Here’s a much longer clip than you’ll want to watch:
Lou Engle was also very involved in that whole “jesus camp” thing – which I personally found very, very disturbing. Sadly, I could relate. My childhood experiences weren’t far off from a lot of what they are showing. (see this post of mine for an example)
Maybe not quite as big of a group… but, same thing on a smaller level. Here’s a clip from that too:
I especially didn’t know wether to laugh or cry at this lady going off about Harry Potter being evil:
My oldest son loves Harry Potter. So do I. I know damn well that if my mother had her say – she would agree with the above clip. She hated halloween and totally had me freaked out about evil spirits when I was a kid. Almost everything was off limits or “evil”. I have vivid memories from teen group leaders telling me how evil rock music was… how just the beat was satanic… making young people want to move in sexual ways. We talked in length about Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” song, and don’t even get me started on the KISS albums! LOL (Kids in Satan’s Sanctuary! Look out!). I imagine the kids now days get a real earful over Marilyn Manson LOL
I get a kick out of all the “christian rock” music now. I gues, that beat is okay this way.. as long as they are not dancing for “the flesh” and only for God. My how things keep changing. LOL
Can anyone seriously blame me for putting off talking to my mother. Ok Ok. I’ll call her tommorrow. I promise…
~smj
Say what?? God got your tongue?
June 29, 2007 — samanthamjOne of my friends was asking me about speaking in tongues… this, is a little of my personal experience with it…
I mentioned before about how we switched churches a few times when I was a kid… Starting off Baptist, and then each change leading to a more jubilant Pentecostal/Full Gospel type. We were at one in particular from the time I was about 7 or 8 – until I was about 14 yrs old. I went in there a wide-eyed, full blown Baptist believer kid… and left a skeptical and somewhat bitter teen.
I’ll never forget my first Sunday at that church. The pastor was Italian and screamed constantly. People clapped and shouted “hallelujah!”, raising their hands and yelling “AMEN!” here and there. I was shocked and scared. I felt Read the rest of this entry »
“Surrendered” Wives ??
June 24, 2007 — samanthamjWhile visiting the blog “The Journey Out“, I happened to come across this disturbing article posted in “Feministing.Com” on a book called, “The Surrendered Wife”.
Here’s the opening on it:
Remember that book, The Surrendered Wife, that came out a while ago and got all sorts of press because it basically told women that the key to happiness in marriage was to shut-the-fuck-up?Well it seems that some folks are taking it wa-ay seriously.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about in my last post – about growing up with double standards that were reinforced by my father, my mother, and the church.
Another really sad thing is, I think this is the book a few of my close girlfriends (who fairly recently became serious Christians) were reading and getting in to. They didn’t discuss it too much with me, because they knew I wasn’t into religion and thought I would “poo poo” it. Man, were THEY right!
What little I just did learn about it was appauling! I can’t believe this book would be so popular today, and feel sorry for all the young girls who will be taught their place in society by their own parents and church with the assistance of it.
I also found this article on it by Leanne Bell. I am not familiar with who she is, but, I liked her article on this book . The following is an excerpt from it:
It’s a shame Mrs. Doyle thinks women can’t balance a chequebook and be great lovers too. It’s a shame that she believes holding an opinion and voicing it will ruin her marriage. It’s even sadder to think that she believes going back to the fifties when women had to work too hard for too little respect is the answer.
The answer is not to surrender to anything. The answer is to fortify yourself. Be the strongest, most vibrant invidual you can be. Embrace your sexuality and enjoy it, don’t consider for a second abdicating the wealth of your personality and the value of your character in order to maintain a facade of a marriage to a man who doesn’t appreciate what he has. And don’t dare teach your daughters to grow up with such low expectations, such little self-esteem, such dismal hopes for happiness in marriage.
Mrs. Doyle doesn’t understand that surrendering your body amounts to prostitution, that surrendering your autonomy is as good a being in prison, and that surrendering your mind is slow, sure, mental death.
Amen Sister!
~smj
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Mom's a religious nut & Dad was an atheist 