Whatever works for you

Whatever works. Let’em have at it. Hail Mary!

I refuse to feel depressed.

I was not raised religious at all. Never talked about it with my mom. Met my birth father years later and he was surprised I did not believe.

The problem is not the predisposition to believe, its the brain chemistry states of worship and experiencing awe.... The minds that pray and feel this way are of course the communal survivors and it "feels to them" like there is something special in this, but really it seems to me just an expression of do these rituals and your ancestors rewarded these brain states with these chemicals, hoorah!!

As the increasingly despotic and tyrannical Roman monolith poses as controller of catholicism, I am appalled that he risks becoming trapped for the hackneyed "aesthetic" reasons. And at best it (if he remains strictly detached) would only stunt him and not help him grow. Sadly some wouldbe atheists can't offer a better model themselves. Perhaps earlier generations had bad religion but are still buying into the stunting of growth unconsciously.

I think this may be a definition issue. If you see god as demanding of religion then its repulsive. I see god as being defined as whichever energy is the most powerful, or most powerful group of energies.

If I focused on that and kept seeking answers to what that is, I could fall for catholicism, if I accept that I cannot know and have disproof for catholicism then I would not seek an answer to the question of what is the most powerful force by looking to catholicism.

So despite them feeling they had a predisposition to be catholic, it could just be their life made them more curious about the most powerful energies and they were willing to accept catholicism as having explanation for that.

In essence I do not believe anyone is actually predisposed to needing religion. Their just not realizing there are alternative explanations for their questions and concerns.

When I was growing up, I didn't know anything about religion. The only time I went to church was when my mom took me to a funeral. My mom worked a lot (running a florist), but always had time for me. As long as I kept my room clean, and did my assigned chores around the house, she would give me money to by my favorite thing to do, read and collect comic books. I was heavily into Marvel and DC Comics when I was growing up. I did not discover what religion was until later in my teen years.

He simply said in the intro that his family was astonished and appauled and did not qualify the statement. Then he says he chose Catholicism because he liked it. I am so moved that after I play with myself I will convert. Maybe I will just play with myself.

I am now an Atheist formerly a Catholic believer. The problem with religion or the Catholic church version is that it makes sense. Once u swallow the basics that are always glossed over, like original sin, Jesus died for our sins etc. It is logical, linear and easy to follow.

It is not the convertees problem but the exploitive conversion process itself.

This is an excerpt from a longer work of mine, and details the exploitive conversion process. It is not the victim (convertee's) failure, but the exploitive nature of the conversion process. I detail that below.

Rose Colored Glasses

"The human mind is capable of many different mental states. Influences of chemistry both external and internal (LSD and LOVE for instance) but also meditative states and euphoric states, change the way we think and perceive the world around us. Religion actively seeks to make people experience these states and then teaches them these are evidence of God. They are just temporal mental states.

Faith is like donning a pair of rose colored glasses.

Religion teaches that not only is faith good, it is the highest form of good. Christianity in particular teaches people that they are so wretched their own God is unable to have direct contact with them. The situation is so dire because of Adam’s sin that God is forced to become a human and allow himself to be horribly tortured and killed in order to allow humans to once again “feel” him. They tell you that despite your being so horribly flawed God loved you so much he voluntarily underwent this savage torture and death, just for you (and everyone like you). Many will even ask you what that must have felt like. They say things like “How much must God have cared about you to do that?”

Now, unless you’re a truly broken human being (like Hannibal Lector broken, a sociopath), this contemplation on your part will evoke emotions. We are emotional beings and those emotions give us empathy for our fellow man. Anyone who honestly contemplates what that must have felt like, and how much someone would have to care about another to willingly undergo such treatment; especially since they are really God and could have with a wave of their hand have ended it all, will be overcome with emotions. A deep sense of WOW, of admiration for such a deed, of love for someone caring that much overcomes you.

Now that you are in this mental state they will seek your salvation. They will ask you to accept Jesus into your heart. They ask you why you would waste such a precious gift from God. They ask you why you don’t love God enough to accept this gift. Most people succumb at this point and convert.

The more rational person has some doubts, and this is where the fear of not accepting this gift comes in. Since Adam’s sin God has not been able to be in your life (in other words this emotional state they have worked you up into cannot be yours unless you accept the gift). If you fail to accept Christ you are doomed to never have God in your life! Worse, when this life ends, which it might at any moment, you will be forced to go to Hell, where you will be tortured endlessly. God does not want you to go to hell, that’s why he sent Jesus. Please accept God’s gift, don’t waste it!

Now if you believe and accept the “gift’ you acquire faith. You have put on the rose colored glasses of faith. At that point everything you see is tainted by faith. If the sun shines on your face you feel it is the love of god and if you get a promotion it is evidence of gods caring for you. The inverse is also manipulated by this emotional state, if you get into an accident and are unhurt God spared you and if you lose your job god has other plans for you. If your child gets ill with cancer and dies it is Gods will and we are too small and stupid to understand God’s mysterious ways.

The problem with all this is that it is a con, the greatest con of all time. Christianity works you up into an emotional state and then takes advantage of that state. The religion then actively seeks to keep you in that emotional state, for life. If your emotional state weakens you are having a “crisis of faith”, if you fall away from religion you are a “backslider”.

Perhaps the worst and most devious aspect of this con is the fact that people “of faith” are taught to evangelize to others and spread the “good word” or “good news”. This aspect of religion makes the con victim into a willing con man, who believes with all their heart they are trying to save the souls of others from hellfire. It takes the best aspects of our own humanity and uses it to convince others of what the believer has been convinced of, without a shred of evidence.

This makes religion like a disease or virus that spreads from person to person. Most people infected with religion remain so for their entire lives because they keep reinforcing these base concepts over and over, re-invoking the same emotional states again and again. This is termed the “Love of God” and many denominations wallow in these emotions. Other denominations use other tact’s, some more cerebral, some more emotional, some more mystical or magical, in this way it spreads to more and more types of people and self-reinforces.

A simple exercise of quantifying and qualifying the facets of enough different cultures past and present should bring one to the appropriate conclusion. As Hitchens and Dawkins have each suggested at different times in their careers, it may be inherent in the species to have such a strong desire for convenient explanation stories in order to cope with the incredibly complex experience of being an intelligent and unique animal.

Religion, which we might as well just call superstition, is just one way in which the human being attempts to make sense of an otherwise peril-fraught and insignificant-seeming existence.

Therefore, it just may be that we can't help it. Some of us overcome it, most of us don't - but things are improving as our species learns more and more about how the universe operates. Hopefully this new age of reason will stay the course and ultimately evolve our thinking away from superstitions. There's more reason now than ever to feel like the day is imminent; what a great day for our species it'll be indeed.

His "I had always had a sense of God" shows his disconnect from science. It's his life, and his choice.

People will choose to believe in what they want to believe in at the end of the day. As long as they were not forced into believing in whatever it is they believe in, I am fine with that. The problem is will this person be so kind as to let his children grow up and believe what they want to believe?

"And I was fascinated by all the coordinated standing, sitting, kneeling, responding, reciting and praying."
Like for how long?

IDK, pretty brief story. What was the point ?

i am sick at heart what is happening there. i can't think of much else.