Many Voices on the Truth about Christianity

I started out in life learning the world revolved around the Christian god and church. By age 9, I was searching for answers. By 19, I was still searching and not finding anything. I dabbled in different denominations thinking maybe I find some clues. I got married in the church, attended a Marriage Encounter, and thought I had found a home in the Catholic church. I tried to be devout. I did a lot of reading, studying, and learning about Biblical history from the Parish priest. After 15 years, I had more questions than answers, and I knew the Catholic church was not the home I thought it was. I went further down the rabbit hole by being seduced by an Evangelistic church. Was that ever an education. I stayed there for five years, thinking maybe I wasn’t really seeing their teachings like I thought I was. But I was wrong. I was really seeing them that way, and more, that was even worse. But I kept on trying until my daughter died and the church congregation shunned my presence at services. After three months, I gave up and walked away. That began my deconversion, assuming, of course, that I had converted at all to start with.

So, when I read the following, I found I could relate to much of it.

There is a lot here and I don’t expect you just to believe me and these other voices. But I do suggest you do some reading, research, and reflection to see if you are believing what you are told unconditionally.

“Today I spoke with TV anchor and radio personality Cheryl Marella, who grew up exposed to Catholicism first, then Protestantism and being “born again,” before she began her deconstruction and eventual deconversion from Christianity.

We covered many topics, including:
• Seeing her parents get “born again” and how other family members got pressured to do the same.
• Experiencing a barrage of Christian events that were designed to indoctrinate.
• Growing up under a strict and fierce preacher.
• Being told that god intends for you to suffer a lot as part of his master plan.
• How transforming our minds away from religion helps us to thrive.
• How patriarchy, especially from religion, creates a stifling and toxic environment, but is accepted, even by women, due to extensive brainwashing.
• How a lot of faith is based on fear of punishment and hell.
• Grappling with the experience of sincerely wanting god to feel real to you, but never actually feeling his presence or feeling like the teachings make any significant difference to your life experience.
• Realizing during deconstruction that we don’t agree with the Bible’s bizarre morality anymore.
• Working through how Christianity denigrates people’s self-worth and teaches us we are broken without the psychotic and bloodthirsty Yahweh character.
• Healing from the injunction to submit — to the Bible, to the mythological Yahweh character, to church leadership, and (for women) to men.
• The dynamic of Christians feeling like they should have a platform and a strong voice, but that others who disagree with them should have their platform diminished or silenced.
• Dealing with anger after we deconvert, as we realize others who were steeped in mythology were dominating our lives and decisions for many years.
• Realizing that sexuality and pleasure are beautiful and healthy parts of life, especially as we remove shame and “dirtiness” from our worldviews.
• Grappling with the reality that years of brainwashing cannot be undone quickly, and searching for the many roots of religious ideas that are deep in our psyches.
• Learning to own the process of reclaiming our identity and the life skill of loving ourselves just as we are, apart from the god character and the Bible’s false messages.
• Dealing with the (often) total lack of compassion from Christians.
• Learning to live in the present once you realize the afterlife is made up as part of mythology.
• Undo the damage of the teaching that we need to distrust ourselves, and instead trust the Yahweh character, with his capricious, bizarre, psychopathic, narcissistic, bloodthirsty nature.
• Deconstructing the teachings of the eternal, infinite, conscious torture of hell over finite sins.
• How Christians think they are on the right path and everyone else is fringe, even though they are extremely fringe, compared to reality.
• How to begin healing from religious trauma.
• How dealing with friends who are still stuck in the Bible prison feels like a nonstop battle.
• The importance of pursuing the truth, regardless of where it takes us.
Many thanks to Cheryl for sharing her story, and for the many ways she reminds us to get empowered, educated, inspired, to love ourselves, and to awaken as many people as possible of the importance of self-improvement.

It’s a long video but worth watching:

Because of my experiences with Christianity, I have a less than stellar impression of the church, the bible, or Christianity.

The twisted teachings of Christianity totally fucked up my sexuality, and I didn’t realize how bad until I was 60. I was pissed that I had missed out on so much. And it wasn’t just me. Most of the men lived by the teachings that they were entitled to take what they wanted and give back very little, if anything.

The following are some of the things I’ve learned and agree with since leaving Christianity behind me.

Many people, both inside Christianity and out, think that Christianity is one religion. But it has more than 30,000 different denominations.

I was once told by a woman from the Pentecostal church that they are taught that their denomination came first and all of the rest followed. But their’s is one of the newest being just over 100 years old. This shows that many denominations teach what they want their congregation to believe.

The three Abrahamic religions put their followers in a cage. Anything outside of their teachings are discouraged. So most adherents learn only what the church tells them to believe.

You will see a lot of comparisons between Jesus and Horus, especially at Christmas time. Horus is just one of the gods that is compared to Jesus. Mithras is another.

Christians will say that only Jesus was real and that all of the others were made up, despite the fact that all of the others were around long before Jesus was said too. It’s like the nativity story, which is said to come from many virgin birth myths from other cultures. Again, Christians deny this. So they apparently are saying that god so loved these stories he used them in his own book? Doesn’t that pretty much admit there were other god before the Christian god???

Speaking of teachings, conservative churches don’t like these teachings to be questioned. Especially by children. I asked a similar type question in Sunday School when I was nine. I was told to go and read my bible, which I did. Six times. I’m sure that teacher was relieved when my family moved away.

That same Pentecostal woman told me that the King James version of the bible was the very first bible ever written. Because that was the only one she knew. It never occurred to her to find out for sure.

Years ago I got into a rather heated argument with a Fundamentalist Christian about Halloween. I asked if he had bothered to do any research on the subject. He said, yes, extensively. I asked what sources? He said the only source he needed was his bible. Halloween isn’t mentioned in the bible (spoiler alert, neither is Christmas). I suspect he was using just one bible verse, from Exodus which says “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” which is a bad translation. The original said “Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live” which meant don’t listen to anyone trying to poison your beliefs of god and the bible. Like me.

There are some great books that debunk the stories of the bible. Of course, devout Christians will not believe any of it, but if you are questioning biblical teachings, you might find them helpful. One such book is “Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Lived At All” by David Fitzgerald. Another that I like is “101 Reasons for Non-Belief” by I.M Probulos. Oh, and one more: “101 Myths of the Bible” by Gary Greenberb.

There is an interview with David Fitzgerald on YouTube:

I had a woman storm out of my house because she overheard me say that god was the biggest abortionist around… assuming, of course, that there was a god. But the bible even indicates that. She didn’t like my opinion, voiced in my own home. She obviously hadn’t actually read the whole bible.

Could this be proof that someone didn’t read the whole passage, let alone the whole book?

These both are forms of Christian entitlement. They believe that religious freedom means freedom of their own religion and all others are expected to abide by conservative Christian teachings.

L Ron Hubbard said the quickest way to make money was to start your own religion. So he did. Although Scientology is more of a cult than a religion.

Conservative denominations tend to live by the Domination/submissive lifestyle that doesn’t require consent. The roles are determined by gender… men are always the Dominate and women are always submissive because their interpretation of the bible tells them so.