The intent of this post is not to judge, preach or convert but to let
other searchers/seekers know how I struggled, overcame, outgrew and
finally had to reject Christianity.
In my younger years I struggled and struggled for many years
trying to understand Christianity, God, Jesus, Satan, Genesis, etc.
I tried to come to grips with the basic doctrines, core beliefs and
ideas of Christianity, i.e., with the real essence of Christianity. I
tried to understand the various teachings and also the contradictions
in Old versus New Testament.
What is/was the truth? Why? What did it all mean?
Why all these stories? Why were 66 old Jewish books (39 OT, 27 NT)
selected from among the many and bundled into a Western bible?
Why did such a mix of philosophies grow into a world religion?
Who were really the main idea-masters, originators, consolidators?
How and why did Christianity and Islam arise from Judaism?
Why did the merciful and loving Christian God require his son to die
for us at a wooden cross, where did the fall in the Garden of Eden
come from and what was its meaning, who was Satan, where is heaven,
who or what is God, is there a soul, etc., etc.,
Questions and questions and always more questions.
I also tried to understand the behavior of so-called Christian
nations, colonizing or wreaking havoc in non-Christian countries
(and now again conducting horrible neo-colonial bombing wars for
oil and gas on non-Christian darker-skinned peoples in Asia and
Africa (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Philippines, to name a few).
I tried to understand the enslavement and killing of Africans, the
mass murder of native Indians, and the many horrible wars waged
by Christian Americans and Europeans on poor, often darker
skinned, people all over the world. And the two World Wars started
by Christian nations in Europe.
Christianity was supposed to be a religion of peace, of turning
the other cheek, of loving your neighbor like yourself,
and it was very clear to me it was not, its philosophies did not
work, or did not enlighten its believers, or at least did not
seem to lead to a better and more humane world.
I contemplated the Genesis creation story, with Adam and Eve
as the first human couple, Noah and the flood, the many prophets,
the Messiah, the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection,
revelations, and the many stories and prophecies in the Bible.
Then very slowly (over maybe about 5 years) I came to understand
and accept several truths described below. These truths enabled me to
gradually throw off the yoke, the blinders and the intellectual
shackles imposed by a long childhood indoctrination in Christianity.
And amazingly but steadily and happily (and also irreversibly)
I BECAME FREE ----- FOREVER ----- !
That was still pretty dramatic, e.g., when I read Robinson's
Honest-to-God and followed his brave search for answers (a search
beyond the usual Christian dogmas and ideas) I cried
and shivered.
While reading his questions and ideas, he suddenly made me
realize it's both bold and brave to jettison anything that does not
make sense. He was trying to get there but in the end he did not
fully make it. He could not break through and become free.
But he was the first one who made me see a glimmer of
light and hope in my own search: To think 'out of the (Christian)
box', and especially to no longer feel restricted by ancient 'holy'
books and ideas, to no longer feel obliged to take ideas and beliefs
at face value, i.e., to no longer accept:
"We can't explain it, but you have to 'believe', it's all true!"
"God has a plan for you, but we can't begin to understand it."
Then my struggle completely changed from thinking solely about
what was written, translated, changed, edited, and embellished
in the Bible and trying to make sense out of THAT, to thinking about
what really made sense - to me.
This was followed later by thinking about Teilhard de Chardin's
fantastic and elaborate ideas of increasing complexity. As
Robinson he was searching for answers and came up very
ingeniously with divine forces driving towards increased complexity.
As Robinson he also did not quite make it, but in his thinking
he was jumping miles ahead of the ordinary Christian theologian.
The standard Christian answers were not working for him either.
So with endless creativity he developed grandiose and remarkable
new ideas as a substitute for the explanations by Christianity that
failed him.
That was later followed by Dobzhansky's books on evolution,
Bertrand Russell's courage, wisdom and ideas,
books on comparative religion, and others.
I slowly began to realize:
'There was no need to struggle anymore - forever':
Not due to surrender, but due to liberation: Liberation from
irrationality, illogic and indoctrination in ancient religious
beliefs.
I understood ---- and (as happened with Galileo when he understood the
position of the earth and its path in the solar system) these insights
and thereby this freedom was really irreversible.
I understood that religion develops in every human tribe or culture,
and that different cultures will develop different religions. And
with those insights the hold of mental slavery in the form of
Christianity (as well as the philosophies of life of related, similar
mono-theistic religions = believing in one single all-powerful
God', i.e., Islam and Judaism) was broken - - forever.
The mind broke free and I was now flying unencumbered.
No longer mentally stunted, no longer kept in intellectual captivity,
no longer bogged down in difficult struggles and confusion about
the hodgepodge of ideas provided by ancient 'holy' books and various
derived books.
These are the 10 basic (simplified) truths I came to understand:
1. All religions and gods are 'man' made, made and made up
by humans. Not necessarily to deceive but as a result of new
ideas and concepts that accompanied the development of
various cultures. These ideas evolved over generations and were
of course influenced by other religions, cultures and people
migrations.
They were gradually accepted, adapted, embellished and written
down as the (new) truth, the (new) philosophy of life, the (new)
gospel, the (new) 'true' religion.
2. The Christian concept and definition of a 'soul' is untenable.
Why? Evolution is a fact and nowhere in the long line of evolution
was the 'soul' (or something like the soul that - per definition -
makes us immortal) suddenly inserted in a certain species and
at a discrete point in time by an external power/deity.
If I contend that the 'soul' was suddenly inserted in a living
"human" being, e.g., 1 million years ago, I must then believe that
his or her parents of practically the same intelligence did not have
a soul. Why would a deity start with inserting a 'soul' in a new
infant at a discrete point in time? And maybe insert a soul in his/
her future mate as well so that all descendants from then on would
have a soul (while discounting the parents, and their parents, and
their parents, etc., all with practically the same intelligence)?
For me that does not make sense so I face two conclusions:
All living beings have a soul (e.g. as part of the 'essence' of LIFE,
however we define that) or no living beings have a soul. As I
do not believe a worm has a soul, I conclude that the concept
of a soul in each human being is a man-made construct."
It is man-made because we have a need to believe that
we (or at least our 'spirit' or our 'soul') are immortal and will
exist forever, that we consist of more than matter and that
that extra is basically immaterial and will go on forever.
We also fear death. We cannot accept being gone forever.
We cannot accept never to see loved ones again.
We cannot understand death and the reason for death.
We must deny death so we must believe we are immortal.
We also have a need to formulate reasons for our existence.
We have a deep need to believe that we will outlast all the
pain and misery in our earth-bound lives and will 'live happily
ever after' in a glorious place of light and joy called 'heaven'.
3. There is no heaven and hell. All religions are man-made, and
the concepts of heaven and hell are man-made. They were created
when social groups evolved culturally and developed written
and unwritten rules, rites and laws: To keep individual behavior
in line and within boundaries - to be beneficial to the group or to
its leaders. Heaven was a carrot, hell was the stick.
4. The Christian dogma of sin, with human beings having free
choice to obey or disobey, is untenable, as 'sin', killing, fighting,
death, etc., already existed millions of years before human beings
came about.
That means in the long line of evolution there was never a discrete
point in time where the 'first' human being suddenly had free choice
to obey or disobey. That also means the dogma of Christ's death at
the cross to atone for our sins is untenable. Human beings evolved and
never (suddenly) had free choice to obey or dis-obey (=sin).
The Christian God sacrificed his son to atone for all sins
for all people forever for all times. That brilliant idea of hope
and total redemption and forgiveness by the almighty ruler
likely arose from much older pagan religions that had human
sacrifices at their core:
The ultimate sacrifice, as proof of total obedience and worship,
is giving up your most valuable and loved 'asset', which is to give
up/offer/sacrifice your own SON (as in the Abraham-Isaac story).
That's why 'man' eventually came up with the idea that Christ
- the Son, God's own Son - was sacrificed by God, the Father,
and died for the sins of all mankind.
This was really a BRILLIANT and UNLIMITED expansion of the
original but much more limited idea behind human sacrifices.
Not only did the all-powerful God himself give part of himself (the
Son) as the sacrifice, this sacrifice was so big, so ALL
encompassing, so full of love and acceptance and mercy, that
it forgave ALL sins of ALL human beings
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