by Eric von Laudermann<\/i><\/p>\n
This is a condensed version of a letter I once wrote to a Christian acquaintance (I hesitate to use the word \u201cfriend\u201d). I had told her I could never be a happy Christian unless I had some sort of psychic ability to see the reality of the spirit world myself, rather than merely take her word for it. (She claimed to have such an ability; she later inadvertently proved herself to be lying about that.) She kept insisting that only Christians can truly be happy, and finally I snapped, and all of this (and more) came out.<\/p>\n
Christianity is designed to make people miserable. I don\u2019t understand why you\u2019re happy with it. I don\u2019t see how anyone can be. If you think Christianity is a source of happiness, you obviously need to read the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations again.<\/p>\n
As a child, I never had an intuition that there was a God, never felt like some invisible entity was watching over me or cared about me. I strongly suspect that if I had never, as a child, been exposed to the concept of deity, it never would have occurred to me that there might be a God. I certainly would have eventually found myself asking \u201chow\u201d the world was created, but it never would have occurred to me, without prodding, to ask \u201cwho\u201d. And yet, my mother, my teachers at school (a Catholic school, though I was too young to realize that there were other kinds of schools), everyone around me, all insisted that the force which created the universe had thoughts, emotions, intentions, and a personality.<\/p>\n
I would have loved to be able to explore reality some more and learn about this creator-person. Unfortunately, I never got the chance. My mother is Catholic, and she had her own answers about God to fill the gaps in my knowledge which I was so eager to fill. I believed in the Catholic version of God because that\u2019s the only version I had. The Catholics got to me first. Christianity was never my<\/i> belief system; it was other people\u2019s belief system forced upon me.<\/p>\n
In my Catholic school, \u201creligion\u201d was taught alongside physics and math, as if it were just another catalogue of facts. Nobody told us they were beliefs. Nobody told us that other people have different beliefs. We were just told these were the facts, that\u2019s why we follow the rules, and that\u2019s how we stay out of Hell. Worshipping Jesus was an obligation, something we had to do or else. Where\u2019s the joy in that?<\/p>\n
Naturally any religion that outsiders would mention later would seem foolish compared to \u201cthe facts that keep you out of Hell\u201d. Although it\u2019s understandable that someone with an unshakable belief would teach that belief as fact, when I look back on it today it seems like a subtle form of brainwashing. Still, I knew that I was being taught to trust humans, not God. I eagerly awaited the day when I had something I could actually believe<\/i>, instead of just trusting someone\u2019s word.<\/p>\n
There were always parts of the religion that bothered me. Many of the things I was taught in Sunday school about things that God and Jesus did seemed nonsensical and unjust, no matter how I tried to make sense of it. I recognized that my reactions would send me to Hell if I couldn\u2019t stop, and realized I wouldn\u2019t react this way if I understood God better. So I started asking the teachers questions. On the few occasions that my questions weren\u2019t seen as troublemaking, the response was always the same: \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it. Just have faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obviously, then, faith involves not thinking and not asking questions. But my unease persisted. Since the teachers weren\u2019t going to help me, I started turning to the source: the Bible. That only made things more confusing. The Bible\u2019s version of justice seemed very inconsistent. As I got deeper into the meaning of Original Sin and the sacrifice of Jesus, the entire premise of Christianity began to sound unjust and evil.<\/p>\n
The God of the Bible is, quite literally, bloodthirsty. \u201cYou killed someone? I don\u2019t take kindly to killers! Die!\u201d He demands that something must die and\/or suffer eternal, infinite torment in Hell, for even the smallest of transgressions. \u201cYou didn\u2019t properly dispose of your feces? Die!\u201d Often, the transgression doesn\u2019t seem like a transgression at all. \u201cYou spoke my name? Die!\u201d Often, his rules make no sense. \u201cYou didn\u2019t mutilate your newborn son\u2019s genitals? Die!\u201d I mean, try reading<\/i> Leviticus some time.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s not too picky about who or what should die, either; it doesn\u2019t have to be the guilty party at all. It could be an innocent animal, or God\u2019s own sinless son. As long as something dies, God\u2019s happy. Last time I checked, punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty is unjust. It doesn\u2019t make up for the damage done by the guilty, nor does it show the guilty how wrong they are or encourage them to change their ways. It doesn\u2019t right the wrong by any stretch of the imagination. It\u2019s a complete non sequitur. Of course, if God exists, he naturally has the right to deal with sin however he sees fit. But if it involves punishing the innocent, don\u2019t call it justice.<\/p>\n
This whole \u201cscapegoat\u201d practice is found in all religions involving animal sacrifice. The idea that it is not only possible, but also moral, to somehow take guilt and responsibility from a sinner and transfer it like a physical substance into the body of an innocent creature \u2013 be it a sacrificial animal or Jesus \u2013 so that the sinner doesn\u2019t have to be punished for something he did, but the otherwise innocent creature suddenly has to be punished for something it didn\u2019t do<\/i> \u2013 is probably the biggest problem I have with Christianity.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s apparently more interested in punishing sins than in reforming sinners. Can you imagine what it would be like if the American justice system worked this way? I can see the headlines now\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThe serial killer who has been terrorizing the East Coast was finally caught yesterday. However, the chief of police decided to let him go. \u2018I don\u2019t want to interfere with his freedom of choice,\u2019 the chief said. \u2018If he wants to be a killer, so be it.\u2019 Of course, the people demand justice, and justice demands that someone pay for the crime. To meet the public\u2019s demand for justice, the chief has decided to send his own son to the electric chair. He assures us that his son has been bred specifically for this purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there didn\u2019t seem to be a clear relationship between \u201csin\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d. A harmless thing, such as wearing clothing made of mixed fabrics, made a person just as Hell-bound as a murderer. Why not teach people what\u2019s so bad about the things that God finds sinful? After all, if a sin doesn\u2019t have inherently bad consequences, what\u2019s so wrong about it? Very often, the only negative consequence of a so-called sin seems to be God\u2019s decision to punish it. In other words, \u201cBecause God says so.\u201d Yeah, right. How convincing was \u201cBecause I say so\u201d when your parents used it?<\/p>\n
The scariest thing the Bible made me realize was that all the wacko religious groups are right. They follow the teachings of the Bible much more closely than the mainstream religions do. After all, if the Bible is God\u2019s word, and the punishment for defying it is eternal Hell, why take chances trying to interpret it sensibly? Your soul is at stake; best to play it safe and take the Bible as literally as possible. How could taking it literally be a mistake? God wouldn\u2019t punish you for obeying His word, would He?<\/p>\n
So why not cut your hand off if it \u201coffends\u201d you, like they do in the Middle East? Why not handle snakes and drink poison, like some churches in the Southern U.S.? Why not \u201cmake yourself a eunuch for the kingdom of Heaven\u2019s sake\u201d (Matthew 19:12), just like the Heaven\u2019s Gate cult? Why not deny your children medical care and rely on prayer to heal the sick, like the Christian Scientists?<\/p>\n
And if eternity in Hell is the only punishment for even the tiniest flaws, why not go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it? When I graduated from my first college, the family took me out to the mall to celebrate. It was a Sunday, and just about the only thing open was an Orange Julius stand. They all bought celebratory drinks, but I refused, simply because the Orange Julius logo is a cartoon of a kid with horns and a pitchfork! I felt terrible about separating myself from my family like that, sitting there and watching them drink, refusing whenever they offered me some. But hey, it\u2019s a small price to pay for my soul, right? Jesus himself said that we can only follow him by rejecting our family and friends, and Jesus was no liar, right?<\/p>\n
Thank you Lord Jesus for such joyful thoughts! Doesn\u2019t being Christian make you so happy?<\/p>\n
In short, I\u2019d feel like I wasn\u2019t being a proper Christian if I didn\u2019t take the Bible as literally as possible. I\u2019d have to be a fundamentalist. But I had a lot of trouble trying to live up to God\u2019s requirements, especially since so many of them contradict each other, are impossible for a human to follow, or make no sense. I could never figure out how to be a proper Christian; and the more I read the Bible, the more confused I became.<\/p>\n
And if all of the items on this list of things in the Bible that confuse me are \u201cdelusions\u201d, are they demonic or are they from God? How can I be sure that God doesn\u2019t want me<\/i> to reject Him?<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t like the picture of God that the Bible painted, but I was still too afraid of Him punishing me to be honest with myself about how I felt. Eventually, I learned to suppress my true feelings, and pretend I wasn\u2019t troubled by the parts of Christianity that seemed nonsensical and unjust. Because, of course, we all know that only an evil person would find Christianity nonsensical and unjust. I was so scared of going to Hell that I was willing to subject myself to such nonsense and injustice, as long as it was all true. After all, you can\u2019t fight the truth. It still bugged me that there was no way for me to tell that it was<\/i> true, without just taking other people\u2019s word for it. It never seemed<\/i> true to me. But I figured that if it was<\/i> true, I would someday find out that it was, and not have to have faith in other people, rather than God. I dared not ask God or Jesus to show me that they were real and that Christianity was true, because that would only prove that I didn\u2019t have faith, and then God would have to send me to Hell. Of course, hiding my true feelings was just an attempt to deceive God, so I guess I was going to Hell anyway\u2026 <\/p>\n
The Bible tells us that the very heart of man is evil, and everything the heart motivates us to do is sinful. I always wanted to get into the arts; that\u2019s where my heart has always been. So naturally, I avoided it like the plague. I had no interest in college, but my parents wanted me to go, and I sure didn\u2019t want to follow my heart to Hell. Mathematics always came naturally to me. If anything is my gift from God, math is. So that\u2019s what I studied, even though I had no real interest in mathematics careers.<\/p>\n
My ability to draw is not God\u2019s gift to me. It took years of my own<\/i> effort to gain that ability, and it\u2019s still not always there when I want it. My art is therefore sinful. After all, I specialize in fantasy artwork: things that God did not create. How dare I enjoy something that God did not create! How dare I create! That\u2019s God\u2019s job! I\u2019m trying to be like God! I\u2019m going to Hell!<\/p>\n
I pretty much sleepwalked through my college education. I couldn\u2019t even choose a career, because I couldn\u2019t be sure what God wanted me to do. If I make the wrong career choice, I\u2019m going to Hell. Besides, on what basis should I choose my career? If I choose something I enjoy, then I\u2019m a hedonist, and I\u2019m going to Hell.<\/p>\n
I felt uncomfortable making any choice without God\u2019s approval. Seeking approval became the motivation for every major choice I made; and when I did get approval from the people around me, it was never good enough, because it wasn\u2019t God\u2019s<\/i> approval.<\/p>\n
Any attempt to improve my life would just show Jesus that I wasn\u2019t willing to let him<\/i> improve my life, and I\u2019d go to Hell. Any action I took would show that I didn\u2019t have faith that God would take action, and I\u2019d go to Hell. Any attempt to follow one of God\u2019s rules would end up breaking another one of God\u2019s rules, and I\u2019d go to Hell. Any choice I make without God telling me to is a sin by definition, and I\u2019d go to Hell. I was too afraid of doing the wrong thing to do anything<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And by the way, did you know that it\u2019s a sin to think you\u2019re saved? It\u2019s called the Sin of Presumption. I didn\u2019t know what it was called until I heard it mentioned on a Catholic TV show, but I had already figured it out by reading the Bible. We\u2019re not supposed be sure we\u2019re going to Heaven; we\u2019re supposed to \u201clive in fearful hope\u201d, as the show put it. I guess that kind of life makes you happy, but not me. <\/p>\n
The Bible taught me that Satan is the lord of the natural world, so I grew to hate nature. The Bible taught me that \u201cthe imagination of man\u2019s heart is evil\u201d, so I grew to hate art. The Bible taught me that I can\u2019t follow Jesus unless I hate myself, so I grew to hate myself. The Bible told me to love my neighbor as myself, so I grew to hate my neighbor.<\/p>\n
Then, in college, I ran into a whole group of people, of various religious backgrounds, who had all already had direct interaction with their deities. It was like there was a support group for those who had \u201cspiritual discernment\u201d. That\u2019s when I panicked. There I was, following the rules as best I could, still never actually making contact with God, and all these other people, half of whom weren\u2019t even Christian, claimed to be actually having conversations with Jesus, angels, ghosts, demons, nature spirits, etc.<\/p>\n
I had always hoped that Christianity\u2019s truth would eventually make itself known to me. Suddenly I was confronted with a whole range of belief systems which, if the people could be trusted, seemed a lot more valid than one about an invisible, absent, silent, Christian God. I wanted the kind of experience with my God that everyone else was having with theirs. The Bible had always led me to expect<\/i> it. But if only one religion is true, how could all these different people be interacting with all these different gods? Perhaps they were deluding me. Perhaps they were deluding themselves. Perhaps God was deluding them<\/i> (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).<\/p>\n
I realized that the surest way to avoid coming to false conclusions about the nature of God is to never automatically believe what people say. Humans can make mistakes, and humans can lie. I had to get to know God for myself. But the Bible clearly states that God \u201ccalls\u201d some people to Him, and doesn\u2019t call others. So salvation is entirely up to Him; it\u2019s got nothing to do with our morality or our free will. And the book of Revelations mentions that the \u201cBook of Life\u201d, containing the names of everyone who will be saved, was written at the beginning of creation. Everyone\u2019s fate has already been decided. God punishes us for not being one of the people He decides not to punish. For all I knew, my lack of intimacy with God was a clear sign that He has already decided to damn me, and nothing can change that, not even Jesus.<\/p>\n
So now, I wasn\u2019t just on the verge of being a fundamentalist; I was on the verge of being a fundamentalist who\u2019s convinced he\u2019s damned. Isn\u2019t that<\/i> a portrait of joy and contentment.<\/p>\n
Yet for some reason, the Christians were happy with being Christian. Apparently, one needs the help of the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible properly. My own understanding led me to conclude that God is unjust, so I asked the Holy Spirit to change my understanding. Instead, my feelings toward Christianity got worse. At that point, I did<\/i> start asking the Christian version of God to show himself. He didn\u2019t. I nearly drove myself insane trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.<\/p>\n
Whenever I asked people why God didn\u2019t answer my prayers, the answer was, \u201cGod always<\/i> answers prayers. But sometimes the answer is NO.\u201d I prayed for Jesus to come into my life. He said NO. I prayed for Jesus to save me from Hell. He said NO. I asked God if He loved me. He said NO.<\/p>\n
I cried myself to sleep at night. What a joyful religion you have!<\/p>\n
As long as I acted on the assumption that the Christian God was real, I was running around in circles, hating myself for being unable to reach Him, hating myself for how the Bible made me feel about Him, and feeling like God hated me because I seemed to be the only one He was leaving out of the loop. You say being an atheist and living without Jesus is depressing? Imagine being a Christian<\/i> without Jesus. I assure you it feels much worse. Christianity taught me self-loathing. <\/p>\n
Christians kept giving me advice that seemed to contradict other Christians, and also contradict the Bible. For any action a human being can possibly do, there\u2019s always a way of seeing it that makes it look sinful\u2026 and God is all-seeing. I couldn\u2019t avoid the notion that the reason all men are sinners is that, to God, all acts are sins. I was paranoid, and I saw some big nervous breakdown on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Until I realized that my misery was my own damn fault for taking seriously all the conflicting advice I was getting. If my mere humanity makes me too limited to understand the Bible properly, then that\u2019s all the more reason for me not<\/i> to follow it; acting on my misunderstanding would only make things worse.<\/p>\n
I guess I\u2019m lucky that my mother didn\u2019t yank me out of ancient history classes, the way Christian Scientists yank their children out of health class, or Creationists yank their children out of biology. I learned that there have been many different stories throughout history about gods creating the world, and someone has taken each story just as seriously as the Bible is taken today. I could see that the book of Genesis looked \u2013 and felt<\/i> \u2013 like just another myth in a long line of myths. Eventually I realized that the only reason I used the Bible as a guide to truth was because people<\/i> were telling me to. The very idea that the Bible is a more accurate guide to the supernatural world than any other book of mythology from any other religion, did not come from my own feelings, or even from God. Humans<\/i> gave me that idea. And as I said above, humans can make mistakes, and humans can lie.<\/p>\n
Eventually I realized that since I had no proof that God existed, it was possible He didn\u2019t. Now, instead of just two possibilities (one: God is evil; two: God isn\u2019t evil, He just hates me), I had a third. I decided, for the sake of my mental health, to put some distance between myself and Christianity. Realizing that only God could make things clear, I asked Him to do so one last time, but with one condition: that I wouldn\u2019t risk Christianity again until He did.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s pretty much where I am now in my \u201cquest\u201d: waiting for God to speak up for Himself for a change. Giving credence to anything less would be dangerous. (I could tell you about a friend of mine who chose Jesus over sanity\u2026) I realized I couldn\u2019t please God, so I stopped trying. Which is, itself, a sin. I still feel that all acts are sins, but I take away the fear\u2019s power over me by reasoning, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can do about it, so I\u2019ll just accept it. I\u2019m going to Hell.\u201d Acceptance: the last stage of grief.<\/p>\n
While waiting for God, I decided to try participating in my life for a change. I started taking film classes at night, and really enjoyed it. I\u2019m fascinated with the decision-making involved in filmmaking, working out which pictures and actions tell a story best. I never felt so at home as I did on a movie set. I\u2019m now attending art school full-time. Technically I can\u2019t afford it, but I don\u2019t care, as long as I\u2019m learning how to do something I love. One teacher, who supposedly never gives out compliments, told me that I have a natural talent for sculpture. I certainly never would have discovered this (God-given?) talent if I continued to follow the God who made art a sin. (Exodus 20:4 \u201cThou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s why I prefer fantasy subjects for my art.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m certainly happier than I ever was as a Christian, so it\u2019s hard not to be offended when someone offers me a chance to return to despair.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Eric von Laudermann This is a condensed version of a letter I once wrote to a Christian acquaintance (I hesitate to use the word \u201cfriend\u201d). I had told her I could never be a happy Christian unless I had some sort of psychic ability to see the reality of the spirit world myself, rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1308,"featured_media":0,"parent":5349,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6294","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n