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Good/Bad Christianity

As most of you know, I post some rather scathing stuff about Christianity.

There’s a few reasons for this, the most obvious being the level of abuse I went through in churches – from subtle forms of gaslighting and manipulation, through to some pretty heavy stuff. Basically, I’ve experienced the full length and breadth of what Christianity can offer.

It’s taken me many years to sift through the mess and discover my own sense of self, my place in the world, and what sort of “spirituality” works for me.

Most of my posts are directed towards the extremists and fundamentalists, who embrace an extremely toxic form of religion that has little to do with the things Jesus apparently preached.

Strangely, having participated wholeheartedly in that type of religion for many years, I actually have a high level of empathy for those in the “system”. I genuinely understand how one can get hooked into it. I appreciate the patience of friends over the years, many of whom stood back and let me go through it all, and some who confronted me with the harsh reality.

In the end, both ends of the spectrum helped me see what I was doing, but it was those who really challenged me, directly but politely, that caused the biggest shift.

Sure, I’d dig my heals in, and do the mental gymnastics needed to justify my beliefs, but eventually, straightforward logic and reason won me over, along with experiencing genuine, unconditional love, with no expectations and conditions.

So for those of you who would agree with how disgusting that form of Christianity is, but get rather disconcerted that I’m painting you all with the same brush, let me qualify things.

For me, the entirety of Christianity has become irrelevant, and that colours my opinions. But I totally appreciate those who have a “real” loving faith that reflects the nice bits of the bible and embraces doctrines that truly benefit themselves and humanity.

Here’s the thing though…

Christianity, in any form of “good” or “bad” is 100% subjective, built on traditions and assumptions, filtered through emotions in a way that builds deep levels of confirmation bias. This means that, for the “good” ones, they look for good in the theology and doctrines. They see through the lens of love.

But Christianity doesn’t make people compassionate and empathetic! Yes, that’s a bold statement, but I’ve found the reality is that the people who find Christianity as a place of deep love and acceptance, that helps them with existential angst, and provides a loving and supportive community, were already like that in the first place!

“Good” people become “good” Christians.

But Jim, there’s so many testimonies of “bad” people getting saved and turning their lives around!

So, here’s the other thing…

When you look closely at those testimonies, and if you have the chance, the personal lives of those people over longer periods of time, we find a very different picture. Nearly all embrace the most extreme forms of fundamentalism, becoming religiously obsessed, with obnoxious agendas to “get everyone saved”. They are the ones who exemplify bigotry, condemnation, exclusivity and division. They preach hell and damnation.

They have taken the things that make them “bad” and wrapped them up in Christianity. This creates a veneer of pseudo love, that other Christians (mostly fundamentalists) approve of. This means that even the “best” Christians accept them, to greater or lesser degrees, as just passionate and “on fire”.

In all my interactions with Christianity over 40 years, through a huge range of denominations, and working with countless people in many capacities, I’ve found this to be true. And yes, there are people who were originally loving and compassionate, but got caught up in “bad” things, so their testimony does have some validity. But even then, most of those in this category don’t become the religiously obsessed I’m talking about.

But wait, there’s more!!

As I mentioned, the entirety of Christian beliefs are a subjective construct, with no empirical evidence whatsoever. But that’s the case for ALL religions! The “spiritual” is something we have no evidence for, apart from anecdotal stuff, emotional experiences, visions etc. There’s nothing to actually prove that ANY religion is true, let alone THE truth. It’s all various degrees of dogma.

BUT, that’s actually OK. Because the real benefits of any religion are in what sort of person it makes you (or helps bring out in you). It’s all about metaphor and allegory, shaped by stories and legends etc. Whether they are literally true isn’t really important – it’s how we live that gives religions any credibility.

So yeah, when we embrace dogma, we are instantly on the “downward” path. Instead, as most “good” Christians do, hold your beliefs lightly, ready to change and grow. Embrace questions, fight through dogma, be open to answers from anywhere. Trust the deep love that is already in all of us (although that can be buried very deep for some).

“Good” Christians don’t care about converting you, getting people saved, and making sure they believe the correct doctrines. They just want to get on with loving people, allowing their loves to speak for themselves. They innately live with empathy and compassion, with a belief system that reflects the simple example of the unreligious aspects of Jesus.

So get out there and just live life to it’s fullest – with love, compassion and empathy, and quietly believe whatever you want.

[Note: I use “good” and “bad” as descriptors, rather than specific moral judgements on the people. In some ways, I’d prefer to use “beneficial” and “detrimental” as they have different connotations, but that’s a whoooole other topic!]

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Christian Universalism sucks

Embracing Universalism was part of my deconstruction journey.

It was the only thing that made any genuine sense and had an ounce of integrity in relation to the foundational premises of Christian theology.

Sure, I knew all the traditional reasons why not “all” were saved, but no matter how I juggled theology with my personal sense of justice, forgiveness and love, any concept of hell, and all that entailed, was more like the work of a psychopath than a loving god.

So Universalism was the obvious solution, and there is plenty of scripture that can be cherry-picked to support it.

Recently, I’ve had a long conversation with a couple of Universalists, which brought to light the problem that I’d always wrestled with about the whole topic.

Universalists are just a group with another set of dogma that sounds much more loving, and yes, it does paint god in a far more gracious and loving light. However, it’s still based entirely on yet another set of interpretations of ambiguous scriptures (which is the basis of every single denomination, sect and movement in the Christian ecosystem).

But what I’ve consistently found, and what I was also guilty of, is the level of patronising arrogance displayed by its supporters!

This isn’t, however, obvious on the surface and you have to dig a bit deeper to uncover it, and when you do, they can get quite nasty, but in a loving, passive aggressive way!

You see, god is sooo magnanimous and forgiving that eventually, everyone will discover how awesome Jesus is and how he made it possible for god to love everyone and save them all. They no longer speak in terms of judgement and condemnation, but the infinite love of their god.

They embrace that sense of superiority that most Christians have and take it to a whole new level. No matter what you believe, or how you behave, ultimately OUR god will have the last say and take you in no matter what. You’ll end up being transformed by his “presence” and love, whether you want it or not.

Our god will eventually give you no choice, and if you challenge him/us on that point, you are just ignorant and we’ll have pity on you and settle back in a smug confidence that you’ll see we were right all along.

All communication becomes reduced to this arrogant, patronising smugness, wrapped in a veneer of pseudo love, that ultimately, is just as ego-feeding as all other forms of religion.

Then they get upset because you challenge them on the point that they are still assuming THEIR god is the only true god, and their entire premise is nothing more than gaslighting.

So yeah, nice try guys, but no cigar.

It’s still the same dogma and subjective beliefs, just wrapped in nicer packaging.

 

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Is altruism truly altruist?

altruism (ălˈtro͞o-ĭzˌəm)

  • n. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

One of the traits we most admire in humans is altruism.

We reward and revere the most altruistic in society and recognise our desire to be that way ourselves – but usually as an unattainable goal.

So what makes the most altruistic of us capable of such acts? Well, it’s not selflessness! On the surface it appears to be, but there is a deeper motive in every human – self-worth.

We do good, selfless things because at the foundational level, they make us feel good about ourselves. We make sacrifices, go out of our way, to help others without thought of our own needs. We do have genuine empathy and compassion for others – absolutely! But that’s the emotion triggered by our paradigms and not the core motivation. Ultimately we do good because we feel good.

Sure, we can do it as an act of discipline, actively denying our need to feel good about it – which pretty much amounts to masochism and self flagellation, LOL. Or we can recognise that feeling good about doing good is why we keep doing it. And the more we do it, the better we feel, which inspires us to keep doing it!

So stop pretending that we are being a martyr – to others and, more importantly, to ourselves. Recognise and embrace our need for self-affirmation and self-worth that really drives our altruistic actions anyway. This avoids the false humility and builds integrity and honesty in ourselves and our relationships.

Sadly our conditioning (especially when religion is involved) regards this as unhealthy and even sinful.

We have a lot to unlearn!

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Live Loved!

Live Loved – it’s my favourite tag. But I realise it sounds a bit glib and clichéd. I’m sure that those who are familiar with my work, however, would realise I wouldn’t say something that lame without having a good reason!

On the surface it’s simply saying live as though you are loved. But there’s a lot more to it than that!

It’s not “as though” you are loved – it’s “from a place of” love. Love from God? (some Christians use the expression to mean that God loves us so we should live with that as our foundation), Love from others?

Nope.

It’s love from ourselves – love from the core of our being – self love – self worth. It’s recognising that external love in any form can only ever be an affirmation at best and a crutch at worst. Until we discover our own sense of beauty and wholeness – unconditional acceptance of our entire being as it is – treating ourselves as we would treat someone we love – we will never really understand the power of love.

That’s a pretty radical statement, and I can hear all the objections screaming at me as I type this, lol. We are taught through the media and religion that we are really crap and need something outside of us to make us better. We need “stuff”, we need “romance” (someone who completes us and makes us whole), we need God (because we are born broken and sinful). You get the idea. And yet we say that kids are born so perfect and innocent, full of love and trust.

Everything we experience from birth shapes our entire self image, and that is then passed on to our children and society in a self perpetuating cycle of self denigration.

But what is there in me that really is loveable?

Let’s turn the question around – who told you that you aren’t loveable? We are taught to judge ourselves harshly, and judge each other. Sure we have the obvious judgement around actions that are destructive and affect our personal safety, but I’m talking about our internal judgements. We are presented with some elusive goal of “perfection”. We are lead to believe we are never good enough and the road to this goal is a carrot dangling in front of us that we can never reach. We struggle with guilt, shame and remorse, always comparing ourselves to the perfection that eludes us all.

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries
Carl Jung

So the question really becomes about simply recognising everything that makes us who we are without judgement and accepting it. From that place – and that place ONLY – will we ever grow past what we perceive as flaws. When we try to wrestle with our “demons” we give them power and they become the centre of our focus. But if we allow the “bad” to simply be a part of who we are and unconditionally accept it to the point where we refuse to judge it any longer, we can love ourselves – right now! The paradox then becomes clear, that change will begin from the inside out. We treat ourselves as someone we love – really love! Someone who we would pamper and express our undying love for, shower with affirmations of their worth and beauty and constantly affirm, completely disregarding (and not even noticing) their faults.

Yep, it’s a paradox, and flies in the face of all we are taught. But it works. In fact it’s the only thing that works. If we give the focus to change and growth over to an external force (God or another person) we are abdicating our central and exclusive role in the process. We must do this for ourselves. In fact some of the doctrines of religious beliefs that say things like “more of Christ and less of me”, “I’m a sinner saved by grace” etc are actually very destructive.

So when I say Live Loved, I’m saying to let go of all self judgement, unconditionally accept yourself right this second, and treat yourself as you would treat a lover, because you are love incarnate.

 

 

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Deconstructing Jesus

I’ll preface this blog by saying that the Christian belief system is a very mature one, in that it’s doctrines have become a panacea and comfort for countless people. It provides security for our eternal future, a safe haven from our darkest struggles, hope for a better life, loving communities and a way to navigate the complexities of life. The writings of Paul in the New Testament are powerful observations of human nature and methodologies for navigating our failings. For most Christians however, it all comes down to “relationship with Jesus”.

In my own life, through all the years of crap, it was my relationship with Jesus that kept me going!

We claim that whatever people say and do and whatever claims about God people make, Jesus is real and loves me more deeply than I could ever imagine. When we experience the “living Christ” we know that we know he’s real and alive in us.

Atheists and critics tend to focus on all the absurdities of the bible and the mythical anthropomorphic god, the hypocrisy of the church and so on – all the really obvious stuff. But for those of us who have experienced the reality of Jesus none of that matters, in fact we may even agree with a lot of it! When we “know” Jesus, nothing is going to shake that belief because we experience him everyday and every way in our lives.

When everything fell apart for me, the only thing I had was Jesus. I could rest in the fact that he was there for me, speaking to me, telling me it was OK and he’d look after me. But as I began to dismantle the theology and doctrines, the historicity and veracity of the bible, church history, other religions and philosophies and especially psychology, I had to take a second look at this “relationship”.

As all the external beliefs slowly crumbled I was left wondering what this relationship actually was. What exactly was my heart “hearing” when we talked? Where did these words of love and comfort come from? It wasn’t until I had the honesty and fortitude to let go of my security in that voice that I could see it for what it is. It was me all along!

Yes, it was my deep longing for love being voiced by my subconscious desires. It was my own heart telling me I’m loved and good and to hang in there. I had taken my “innermost thoughts” and ascribed them to a deity. I had separated my heart into “me vs god”. The core doctrines of Christianity told me that my heart was deceptive and there was nothing good in us, and that the only way we could grow was to nurture our relationship with Jesus, so this inner voice, that the bible said was the Holy Spirit (which is the same as Jesus, which is the same as God, or not), was the only thing to be trusted. However, we could only trust it if it aligned with scripture!

But that opened the door for Jesus to be able to say anything to me as long as it could be backed by scripture. This was beginning to become rather a mess, because there are millions who claim to hear Jesus say all sorts of stupid stuff, backed up by scripture. So the only thing that I could say for sure was Jesus voice were the words of love and acceptance, because without that, I had nothing. I was already nothing more than a piece of shit saved by grace, God didn’t have to remind me of that all the time, so his love was the only thing that made sense to me.

But as I said, when I finally had nothing left to lose, I discovered that my own heart – desperate for love and acceptance – was really this “Jesus in me”. I decided to accept that as the reality, instead of all the complicated twisted theology of the trinity and human nature, and how God lives in us.

My heart, in it’s deepest place, is pure and loving. I’m not intrinsically broken and sinful. None of us are! We certainly lose sight of that however, as we blunder on through life, and completely lose sight of that deep perfect love, but it’s there none the less.

So I no longer talk to Jesus, or listen for his words of love and comfort. I don’t wait expectantly in prayer for that still small voice to whisper to me, or his passionate embrace of my soul. I open the depth of my heart to hear what’s always been in me – that part of me that is beyond ego, that existed before our paradigms were formed by life’s interactions and expectations. My heart knows me better than any deity, better than my scrambled thoughts, better than my deluded ego. It’s my own deepest voice that speaks love, and that is a power and strength that no deity can ever match!

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What is God?

Religious people believe in God – Atheists don’t. Simple really – until we ask what we mean by “God”.

Here’s a little summary from Wikipedia. Have fun getting through that!

If you come from primarily Christian, Jewish or Islamic backgrounds, God is an all powerful being. He is “omni” everything and predominantly masculine, especially in Christian and Islamic beliefs. Other religions are a little more generous with their idea of God and many have a whole heap of them.

Then there are those who prescribe to a less humanised type of God, who see God as a power that exists in everything. Some see God as nothing more than the power of love. Others see God as consciousness. In fact there are so many definitions of God that when we say “I believe in God” we could really mean anything! Image result for my god is better than your god

Most traditional views, especially in the big 3, offer an anthropomorphic view of God as a single Deity who has complete control over everything. Others prefer something along the lines of Hinduism, where God’s are still anthropomorphic but there are millions of them, representing every aspect of life through metaphor and allegory.

I’ve found that when I talk to people as an “ex-Christian” they assume I no longer believe in God. They assume that there is only one type of God – their God. The same for all other major religions.

So when we enter into discussions, even outside of the traditional Christian/Abrahamic beliefs, we must remember that we all see a different God/gods. An atheist will scorn your belief in any god, but most assume you are talking about a type of Abrahamic God.

Many people who leave traditional religions recognise that there is the possibility of a power/force/whatever that is beyond our understanding. This relates to ideas such as:

  • We are all part of God
  • We are all gods
  • God is pure love
  • God is the innate consciousness of the universe
  • God is nature
  • And countless other variations on the theme

The thing is, no one is right OR wrong. We simply don’t know.

However! We owe it to ourselves, and the entire human race, to consider what our particular God is really good for.

Does our God:

  • Contribute to a better world, promoting peace, love and tolerance?
  • Teach us to accept others unconditionally?
  • Help us tend for the planet in all it’s beauty and bounty?
  • Give us real empathy for all people?
  • Fight for injustice and abuse without an agenda? and so on…

When I was a Christian I would have answered yes to all the above, but with the overall condition that Jesus must be at the centre of it all and you had to accept him as Lord and saviour. Only then could you truly love. I know many Christians (and Muslims and Jews etc) who genuinely don’t have an agenda, but the majority do. The genuinely loving ones hold a different foundational belief in the nature of God, often far more “mystical” – seeing the bible as metaphors, and doctrines as less important than inclusive love. This is also true of the other religions.

In summary, it comes down to what God have we created in our own minds? How have we shaped our beliefs to encompass something that includes all humanity in a way that brings unconditional love to all? We can’t simply say “there is no god”, because we don’t know. We can’t prove one way or the other. But we can look for beliefs that on the one hand, satisfy our need for love, acceptance and security, and on the other, are rational and not elitist/exclusive dogmatic systems.

If genuine, unbiased love is the “fruit” then go for it. Just don’t pretend that YOUR god is THE god.

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Popper’s Paradox

Free speech,

Tolerance,

Unconditional love…


 How do these things work in reality?


 In 1945 the philosopher Karl Popper proposed the paradox of tolerance.

In a nutshell he said “if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant”, or to paraphrase that: we can only survive by being intolerant about intolerance.

As we all know, white supremacy and all it’s ugly variants are making headlines and empowering those who secretly embrace those views to speak out. There’s also the current political mess in Australia over gay marriage, where conservative christians are doing all they can to stop it.

So where do we draw the line on free speech and religious freedom?

We have to draw it somewhere, or our society will become victim to it and we will loose those very freedoms!

The balance is in how we confront them. If we use “violence” (physical, vocal or in any form) we are playing the same game, and when confronted in this way, the intolerant simply dig their heels in and use the opposition to fuel more intolerance.

Respect for their humanity is key. To recognise that we could be the same if we’d been raised in a different environment is a sobering thought. It’s a learned trait, something we aren’t just born with. So compassion and empathy is the key to any communication, bypassing the rhetoric and reactionary thought processes and focussing on understanding why people are like this.

At the risk of being overly simplistic, it comes down to a lack of love. They never experienced the type of unconditional love themselves that breeds self worth and empathy for others. They are broken and angry, but instead of looking within, they are lashing out at the rest of us.

But they still have to be stopped from spreading this disease, and that’s where we have to draw lines. Although love is the only “cure” for these people, we still have to deal with the affects they are having on our society.

The alt right issue is pretty obvious, but the christian right style of bigotry, especially towards LGBT people is more complex because of the religious freedom problems. And that opens a very large can of worms because it will eventually confront all religions on issues of bigotry and tolerance.

Perhaps it’s time we stop being afraid of challenging people’s belief systems?

We can do this with love and patience without compromising our stand. They believe they are doing the right thing, so we have to talk to their hearts, bypass the religious rhetoric and present compassion and empathy for the broken as our motivation.

We also have to remember that for most christians it’s a case of “the bible says so”, and that’s a tough nut to crack. But with the same level of compassion we can help them to understand that their views are in error, as have been so many christian opinions over the centuries, that had to be adjusted and morality, ethics and science outgrew the ignorance of ancient culture.

We must be strong but loving – compassionate but without compromise – draw the lines but help them gently step over them. It’s hard work, but if we can step back from our own reactionary thought processes we will be able to exercise the love they need to see in action.

 

 

(Originally published 24/8/17 on Jim’s Awesome Blog)

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