Probably the best post I have read about this so-called relationship with god from a former Christian.
Well worth the read.
On the day before my 18th birthday, I realised something that in combination with all of my other doubts pushed me over the edge and made me an atheist. The being I claimed to love more than anything else in the world, the being who I worshipped, the being who I lived for and the being I claimed I would die for, may as well have been a stranger to me in terms of our relationship. I knew God no better than I did 14 years ago when I was first indoctrinated.
This was major to me. In church I, like many people learned that “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion” and that “God wants to have a relationship with you”. It became fundamental to my beliefs, which is why realising how false it was in my life was so crushing.
Obviously, Christianity is a religion, and not…
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A Tale Unfolds 
Now there’s a lot of food for thought!
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Not bad at all.
Still say the experience of Christians in the US is wildly different to the experience of Europeans or Australians or Kiwis, or Canadians, to name a few. They’re utterly surrounded by this nonsense. It’s in their politics. In their schools. For them it’s a journey to get out. For the rest of us it’s just a step to the right.
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Agreed, JZ. I don’t think we can really grasp how immersed they are in all that nonsense. I mean, many of them hear Christian music blaring out of the dentists’ office speakers., for instance. Here in Canada, the word to describe religion would be – for most people – discreet.
I read through some of the comments on the original thread. So very typical of the thoroughly indoctrinated. As I’ve noted so many other times, imagination is a powerful thing. Logic completely leaves their brains.
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Left a couple of comments on Ross’ blog-post. It is a very good read and quite sensible, to say the least. Enjoyed it.
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Well, I enjoyed this person’s writings at first, but as in so many LOOOONG dissertations, the writer became repetitive –i.e., saying essentially the same thing, just using a slightly different script — so I stopped reading and just skimmed the rest of it.
But overall, yes. What he said was “spot-on” and confirms what many of us “ex-ers” have experienced.
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I imagine for many of you “ex- ers” it is often a case of been there, done that .. nothing to see here … move along.
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Whenever anyone claims to have a “relationship” with an immaterial entity, you know they’re faking it.
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It’s even more weird than having a relationship with your teddy!
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Read it, got it, carried on with my day. Philosophically, there’s value in understanding personal/collective relationships with God. The post made valid points, forgive me for groaning. Groans born of exasperation with religious jibber-jabber, swelling tide of ignorant faith based assumption and relentless defense of life without God.
Forgive my rant. Worked with a long time client today who claims Starbucks logo is sign of the devil, God will punish perpetuators of a global “plandemic” conspiring to vaccinate humanity with doomsday microchips, Monkeypox is God’s plan to annihilate deviants and the Statue of Liberty is a beacon of evil directly linked to Hell. Sigh.
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What??!? Are you saying you don’t agree with your client? 😮 I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
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I would hate to uncover similar beliefs among some of our long standing clients. Sadly I have no doubt some of them are just as wackadoodle as your client.
*Sigh*. T’was ever thus.
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He couldn’t have said it better. When I was growing up it was the trendy thing to say “it’s a relationship, not a religion”. I’m not sure where the phrase came from except from a place of desperation and trying to make Christinaity seem more nicer. He has a new follower.
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It was probably instituted as a way of divorcing themselves from all those nasty, rotten Not Really
Proper Christians who
went around slaughtering Native Americans, ran the North Atlantic Slave Trade, went on pogroms against the Jews and every sect that was considered heretical, ( all of ‘ ’em at one time I’ll bet), sexually abused kids, and refused to burn their Beatles records.
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Lol hey now I thought they were the ones who despised the Beatles since they made the ‘blasphemous’ claim of being bigger than Jesus.
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That was a misunderstanding. Lennon was talking to a slightly deaf reporter.What he actually said was: “The Beatles are bigger than Rod.”
Rod Stewart wouldn’t be famous for another five years.
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