Lilith posted this in the forum in response to someone who has been trolling the threads lately. I thought it was so good I’d highlight it for everyone to see:
Caddy that explains a lot. I’m sorry for your loss. Plenty of people regret abortions. Plenty don’t. I’m sorry that you’ve mired yourself in a belief system that punishes you and makes it impossible for you to get to your heaven. It must be a heavy burden to carry feeling like a fraud with other believers, worrying what rain of judgment you would experience if they ever found out. You don’t have to swim in that pain. I’m quite sure this will fall on deaf ears, but I have to try — you can put this toxic belief system down as simply as you picked it up. You’ll notice I didn’t say easy. There is nothing easy about it, as my presence here shows, but it is simple. Just set it down.
There is really only way for you to escape hell: Decide it doesn’t exist. You CAN spend this life (perhaps the only life experience you will ever have) fearing everlasting damnation for ONE decision that negates any good you have done or ever will do in this world.
Rather than spend another minute trying to make up for something which BY DEFINITION you cannot make up for, decide to let it go. Let the guilt and shame go. Quit trying to dance as fast as you can to make it go away.
Regards,
LilithGood luck.
They are programmed with self hate from the very beginning. The 1st thing you learn is the fear of Hell not the love of g0d. So it is very difficult to throw the HELL thing off.
The sad part is all the BS about abortions is evil. Where does it say that? You can tell from the how the lady feels that she is accepting the verbal BS from the people around her and not looking at the buybull and realizing there is NO command against it. Forget the kill/murder commandment as this is not the point. Throughout the OT the jews were are killing all sorts of fetuses and in one section there are instruction on how to do it!!!
With the way people continue to be in those religions, you have to wonder if they really like feeling like sinful evil beings going to hell, wallowing in their feelings of guilt over doing nothing really wrong.
Your answer to the lady was very gentle and considerate – good job!.
Obviously it changes based on what group of Christians you’re dealing with, but in my experience the fundamentalist, evangelical church I belonged to was the opposite: they led with “God’s love” and only brought up Hell once in a while. They still believed it–they have to, it’s in their Book–but I think a lot of them know, either consciously or unconsciously–how fucking ridiculous it is. It’s embarrassing for them, so they tried not to mention it too much.
Not just self hate, but masochism as well. They begin to enjoy feeling the shame and guilt as they grow older.
Seriously though – why wallow in self-pity and self-hate? It will get you nowhere but the mental ward, popping happy pills or committing suicide yourself (also a sin).
I really haven’t seen churches opening charities that benefit or counsel people who have been through abortions. They instead cast those people off in their time of need because they are sinners going to hell. That doesn’t sound like a club that I want to be a member of.
They are just continuing their mindless traditions.
To be fair, I have seen some church-based groups, even in the Catholic church, setting up counselling for women who have had an abortion and trying to help them move on with their lives. Obviously their focus is on hoping it won’t happen again and in reconciling with god and seeking forgiveness, but there is sometimes some form of support there. Of course, this all depends on the particular community you find yourself in, and I firmly support the comment quoted in the original post. The best way to escape the judgement is to stop judging yourself. It’s a simple step but a long, hard road. This comment from Lillith is very positive and encouraging and I hope many readers struggling with guilt over whatever issue take it to heart. You may think you have taken a life, but whether true or not there’s nothing that can be done about it now. But you can stop yourself from letting your own life be wasted and destroyed by the guilt and fear if you let it go. If any afterlife and celestial deity exist, as a finite being you cannot do anything that they cannot easily undo, and you cannot offend infinitely in order to receive infinite punishment (or please infinitely in order to receive infinite reward). No human should really feel ashamed for not meeting the standards of a perfect being.
I recently came out of the reason closet as an atheist and felt the weight of religious guilt and lies lift off me. It truly was liberating when I accepted the real truth and I that my happiness is in my hands, not some invisible man in the sky with his illusionary paradise.
Yeah. It was wonderful for me too. Especially the loss of all that cognitive dissonance.
Ditto.
I guess my view of this post is a little more negative. It’s almost like the suggestion is, “It feels bad, so don’t believe it.” I don’t believe in Hell because there’s no good reason to. (In fact, there’s good reason not to.) If I saw good reason to, I’d believe in it–no matter how it might feel.
I only mention it this way because when I read things like this I try to put myself into my old Christian mindset. If I had read this ten years ago, I would have sneered, “See? They think they can just ‘decide’ Hell doesn’t exist. They’re choosing to live in a fantasy world, but one day their self-imposed delusions will be torn away. Then they’ll know that they can’t just ‘decide’ Truth according to how they feel.”
I had similar thoughts.
I thought maybe it could be worded, instead of “decide” there is no hell, “realize” there is no hell.
My view is, if it works for me, helps me live a functional life, then it’s a good idea to believe in it. I don’t care if I have to believe in space aliens, or in fairies, or in deities. As long as I am a better person for it.
The converse is, if it doesn’t work for me, if it cripples me with guilt, or depression, or anxiety, then I will decide to ignore it. And you know, if there is a benevolent God, He would not design a belief system that tortured people.
So yes I am deciding. But at the same time it is a more empirical approach, looking for beliefs that fit with my everyday life experiences.
I’m just wondering – how can it work for you if you know, deep down, that it cannot possibly be true? How can a fantasy help guide your life? For instance, Santa worked for me until I knew he was fake. Then it no longer motivated me to be good.
Santa only works for the month of December anyway. Are there any other “saints” that you are supposed to be good for?
I’m a protestant, so there were no intermediaries or saints. We talked directly to Jesus (who is god through the trinity). Come to think of it, I didn’t have a helluva lotta reason to be good then, did I??? (explains a lot….) Santa was IT, man. Until I was about 6 – mom and dad felt compelled to spill that he wasn’t real – only jesus was real, and what christmas was REALLY about…..a religious upbringing is like living in an asylum, where up is down and fantasy is reality.
I’m still waiting for George to answer this question – I pose it sincerely….
I believe the suggestion is a bit more complicated than “if it makes you feel bad don’t believe in it”. It’s about living as though there is no hell because the hereafter is not something we can control. For someone to spend the rest of their life believing they are going to hell (or in another circumstance, heaven) no matter what else they do, then nothing positive can come of that mindset. Life would just be a waiting room, or a train carrying us unceasingly to our (pre)destination. That’s why there is no good reason to believe in hell at this point for this particular person – it will provide nothing but added fear and torment to this life on earth.
I agree with your point that Christians would likely read this as just deciding things like hell don’t exist, but that’s because they are trained to see all things in a binary system. In someone deciding to move forward from a belief in hell to improve their life they would see simply breathtaking arrogance at someone denying raw truth to suit themselves, and miss that there is also the positive of starting a new life with a more hopeful approach.
Drama queen, they love the self flagellation makes them feel good.
Christianity is people-control. It keeps women in their place. They’re not supposed to be loose cannons going around having sex without squeezing out babies. (That’s for men only.) They wouldn’t be tied down to their proper place as breeders like God intended.
Fear of pregnancy and punishment for abortion – instead of providing contraception and sterilizations and vasectomies to men – is keeping them under control.
I think this is a HUGE factor – control of women (and control of their property through inheritance – this is a rule that best serves the male ruling class). But I also think there is a legimitate branch in this argument – those who truly are concerned about the “personhood” of the fetus, when it is able to feel pain, the fact that it has a separate blood type, etc. I have had 2 abortions, and years later I’m so GRATEFUL that was available to me. I have never been wracked with guilt over it at all and I’m grateful that my christian upbringing didn’t screw me up in this way too. Today, I’m of two minds on the subject – I would be less willing to abort today, simply because since I became an atheist I have a more sensitive conscience, and am more thoughtful about everything I do. Sometimes there is no GOOD decision – abortion must be the lesser of two evils. I think it’s ok for pro-choicers to ackknowledge that this might be the case.