Following on from the very helpful loss of faith thread I'd like to ask for more assistance please

I think that part of the problem I'm currently having is because of childhood ideas of deity. My family were not christians, but my mum had strong ideas of blame and retribution. E.g. If I fell over it was "god's punishment", if I was too vain and looked in the mirror the devil would pop up, my teenage acne was a sign of badness coming out, people with cancer had some inner wickedness (sorry Tas ! she was a bit of a numpty as I've said before !). I also read a lot of mythology and stories like the one of Arachne where people were proud or greedy or whatever and got short shrift from the gods made a big impression, as did a patch of fervent christianity in my teens. I read a lot of the saints' lives and felt a lot of guilt.

I'm starting to realise that whereas I thought I'd thrown out all these ideas as ridiculous and supplanted them with my Paganism, in fact a lot of these old fears still linger on. I don't have what I'd call a personal relationship with any deity, and I think I've maybe just been papering over my old ideas of who god is with who the gods are, if you see what I mean. I still fear judgement, feel guilt and worry that my innate "badness" as a person will affect my family.

So after that ramble on my question is really this: for those of you brought up in other faiths with fixed ideas about guilt, blame, atonement and so on, how did you free yourself and avoid carrying those ideas forward into your new faith ?

I guess it might not help much to say I deal with a lot of them while I was a Christian?

The great spiritual directors within the christian faith tended to give short shrift to guilt if you had nothing to feel guilty about. They realised a lot of people who came to them for direction had the guilt thing, and they spent a lot of their time instructing others to go easy on themselves abd avoid being over-scrupulous. What with reading their directions and a course of counselling which helped me face the guilt my mother had thrown on me in childhood, I managed to clear out enough of the guilt tripping to function properly. Then I studied counselling myself, and psychology, and that introduced a healthy sense of proportion.

I can't imagine you're innately bad, Snippety - you don't sound like a psychopath to me. You just sound like an averagely normal human being who had her self-esteem seriously damaged in childhood. If you're serious about trying to rectify the perversion of the Christian faith your childhood instilled in you, I'd suggest you try a dose of the reasonable stuff, then move on to addressing how your pagan faith might work without any Christian hangovers, perverted or not. One of the best of the spiritual directors was the Abbe de Tourville and that link gives you the flavour of getting shot of the 'bad' Christianity. (Don't bother with the introduction and history)

Personally, I can't get rid of the judgement part of Christianity because that's part of the religion. Either I (or any other non-christian) is right, and Christianity is wrong, or Christianity is right, in which case we may all be condemned to hell, if one listens to the fire-and-brimstone preachers. There are other Christian theologies about the afterlife out there. But say they are right - what am I supposed to do? Return to church and try to believe? Can't do it. Pretend? Nope - that won't work, and I'd only be unhappy. But then, as I say (though quite gently to Christian friends), I don't want to know a God who is willing to condemn millions of human beings to some sort of eternal non-state (and/or suffering) on the grounds we didn't serve him - especially when orthodox Christian theology states that no one feels drawn to Jesus unless he calls them first. Does that seem like fair treatment? Would you want a relationship on those terms?

So I guess the answer to your question is complicated: a combination of thinking through the theology from a pagan perspective and personal counselling. And talking to Christians - good, sound, intelligent Christians, about the problems they have with their own faith, and the problems you have with their faith. If you want to try that, you can't do better than try this forum.

I guess I had the advantage of not being brought up in any religion ( though it was always left to me when I was older to choose one with no offense taken). Having never been exposed to the idea's of guilt and retribution, it simply never occurred to me. Good things happen, crap things happen. I never saw any connection between these things and what people believed.

Marto - life's easier without baggage

Hi Snippety. I've read your posts on here and the way you talk about your family, I don't think there's much bad in you to feel guilty about.

Us autistic lot don't get afflicted with this kind of thing, or at least, not directly. Other people believing it can still make life difficult for us.

At school when we did R.E. , I recall one of the themes we did was the evolution of "Jehovah" in terms of offence and punishment. The turning point was the book of Job, where the entire business is that bad things can happen for no reason - i.e. not as a punishment. I can't remember much more than that. I have no truck with Jehovah.

As an ASD person, I tend to look at things in a mathematical way. Statistically, bad things happen. You operate to minimise the risk, if you can, but you can never remove the risk completely. That's life. The Gods don't enter into it. Or, they can, but they are just another random variable.

I like the Buddhist approach that if people do bad things it affects everybody, and ultimately themselves. You can argue karma from a sociological and from an environmental perspective.

How to get rid of the baggage that comes from Xianity?

I read the bible, that's what ultimately led me to stop being a Xian. It just doesn't make sense, like Ned Flanders said, he lived according to the bible, he even did the stuff that contradicts the other stuff just to be sure. Once you realise that the whole thing is a house of cards that's built on the dodgiest set of texts you could wish for, it ceases to have power over you. And once you actually start to believe that it's all nonsense, you're free of the guilt and baggage that comes with it.

Thank you all !

Those links are great, Moonhunter. I've registered on the forum and will maybe pluck up the courage to post some questions when I've had a bit of a lurk

I did read the Bible, Gawain, and as you say it was very helpful indeed in determining once and for all that I'm not a christian. In fact I was amazed that anyone outside of Israel actually came to believe in it in the first place, but that's a whole other thread. I think I have trouble with continuing my logical thought - as in I don't believe in christianity and all its baggage - into my day to day emotional and internal dialogue - the Gods are going to some how "get back" at me and mine because of bad things I've done or ungrateful thoughts I have. I am on a waiting list for CBT therapy for some anxiety issues, so maybe that will help (when I get it ).

I think it is going to be a combination of going through the theology, as you say Moonhunter, and showing myself what it really is - like shining a torch in the scary wardrobe for a kid. I also need to address the fall out from my broken family relationship. I think because family is so important in Heathenry this has become a big issue for me - I have estranged myself from my parents so now I fear my son or husband will be taken as punishment. I feel guilty and hypocritical because of what I've done, although I don't regret it because my life was hell and I'm a lot happier.

I really appreciate everyone's help and comments.

Hi Snippety - and no offence taken whatsoever pet!

Firstly, the xian baggage - I think this would have happened regardless of whether your mother was a xian or a Hindu. The whole guilt trip thing was a means of manipulating for the early and later Church. Whether it still is, I niether know nor care.

What your mother did was also a form of manipulation - the fact she did it in the name of xianity isn't the real issue. Like I said, she would have found ways of twisting ANY tenets to her needs: demoralising you and making you dependant on her for approval.

I personally feel that a great deal of your current confusion stems from the fact you are now a mother. Please bear with me here.

I can well remember the feelings of sheer terror and dread whenever I read the newspapers or heard on the TV/radio of yet another war. It made me feel incredibly guilty (!) about having brought another perfect small person into such an awful world - one over which I had no control. A parent is designed to protect offspring until said offspring are able to function independently. They look to us for food, protection and guidance. Small wonder then that we begin to question, not just our abilities to provide the necessities of life, but also the ability to prevent wars, murders etc. Then, quite naturally (IMO) enters the first of the niggling doubts about spiritual guidance: can we be absolutely SURE we are right? What if we are wrong and subsequently fail our child in matters of belief - or lack of such?

Do you see what I'm getting at here? It's bad enough ( I assume) for parents who have had the benefit of decent parenting themselves, but for those of us who were damaged, the issues that parenting throws up are massive - to say nothing of the “normal” responsibility to a new person fears experienced by most.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you – but I do know the difficulties you’ve undergone in you own upbringing. All I can suggest is that you maybe take a step back from it all. Enjoy the brilliant aspects of you life, try to stop analysing something that will resolve itself one way or the other. Often when we do this, the answers become clearer.

Incidentally, something else has occured to me. Heathenry seems to be a very warrior type of faith. The sagas, and the proving of things etc. Maybe this is subconsciously compounding your fears (assuming you have felt these) for you son, being born into a world where the horrors of war are only a TV switch away. (Re wanting to protect being at odds with a warlike people?)

Whatever, I wish you well.

I wonder how many folks have left Christianity from reading the bible??

Yeah, that was kind of like the thing that did it with me too...well that and a couple of heathen gods showing up.

The thing that people often forget about the bible is that the old testiment has four recognised groups of authors, each group with its own agenda e.g the group referred to as the Deuteronomists were mainly concerned with extolling and promoting monotheism among the Jews. The new testiment is written by people who didn't even know Jesus and then to top it off, the whole thing was chopped and changed by a council of roman types that really wanted to make it back up their policies.

No wonder it reads like a mish mash of rubbish!

Still, it's not as bad as the book of mormon but that's a whole other thread too

Snippety, if you look at the sagas for evidence as to how people were in terms of how they perceived deity - basically they would swap and change and pick up worshipping a god or just drop that worship. The only occasions I have heard of where the god has been angry, that has only really been because the ex-devotee went round slagging that god off!

I know you're bordering on atheism and I know this is more godsbothering stuff but what I'm trying to say to you here, is that even if you do find that atheism makes more sense to you, you will still have that sneaking suspicion in the back of your mind that they do exist and that you will get in trouble for walking away....at least for a while while you work through your conversion baggage.

What I'm saying I guess is that the heathen gods aren't as jealous as yahweh, questioning and discovery are values that seem to be appreciated...er...just don't badmouth them

p.s Heathenry isn't a warlike faith, it just attracts wannabe warriors because 'the vikings were warriors and they believed in Thor et al. didn't they?'. These people do no favours to the culture they claim to respect and love. The vikings were a minority in a very varied society. There is so much more to it than the bloody vikings and wannabe warriors.

The thing that people often forget about the bible is that the old testiment has four recognised groups of authors, each group with its own agenda e.g the group referred to as the Deuteronomists were mainly concerned with extolling and promoting monotheism among the Jews. The new testiment is written by people who didn't even know Jesus and then to top it off, the whole thing was chopped and changed by a council of roman types that really wanted to make it back up their policies.

Hmmm. Maybe not so much... it is one thing to reject and repudiate Christianity, it is completely another thing to write it off as non-intellectual, nonsensical and self-contradictory. It is none of those things - frankly, many of the finest minds in history have held Christian convictions and have done so with their intellectual marbles intact. I'm not so sure how helpful it is to parody what these folk believe, as we would be very quick to defend the diverse principles and practices that exist in the folk contributing to this board. I think that we also have to be a little more accurate when we represent what Christians actually believe so as not to appear as foolish to them. We ought to get our facts right and not make basic errors in our assessment of the tenets of their faith.

Hope that doesn't sound too inflammatory, but I just think we need to be a bit more careful, you know? Forgive the newcomer for being so direct...

Snippety and others who have registered at the Moot today (you know who you are. ) your accounts have been activated (unknowns usually have to jump through hoops before I activate accounts so the spammers don't get in). Lurking is quite permitted, although the existing members don't bite (I keep them well fed so they don't feel the need to munch on the newbies. ). But if you've got questions (even if you think they may be stupid... the only stupid question is the one you really want to know the answer to but don't ask because you think people might think it is stupid) then do ask away.

BB

Mike

Pencils, everything I wrote about the bible is fact. If you were to look into the actual history of the bible, the evidence uncovered by scholars and archaeology - you would see that. Also I fail to see how you can say that the bible is not contradictory? We are talking about the same book here, right?

As for beliefs, yes, many fine minds did have Christian convictions, however a great many of those minds had no issue with questioning 'biblical fact'. Had they not, europeans would probably still believe the sun and planets orbit the earth and that the world was created in seven days!!!!

Nice little documentary examining the bible from a theologian's perspective. The interesting thing in this is that the guy is a Christian.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=20...178434620&hl=en

Thanks so much for all the support and replies. It's made me well up today !!

Tas - I think you're totally right. Becoming a mum has made me a) question my own upbringing with renewed vigour, absolutely shit myself with fear every single day for 16 months and c) reassess my whole outlook on life in every way. I had severe anxiety after I had my son and, as I say, I'm on the waiting list for some CBT to help me out with general anxiety issues. Meanwhile Mr S is a great support and helps me keep things in perspective (mostly )

Els - thanks for your post. It does help to get the Heathen POV. Part of my problem is that although my current path seem to be veering towards atheism it feels like I'm being led there and "shown" things which is a contradiction in itself. I think, probably like every newbie, I have a lot of misconceptions and conflated ideas about Heathenry which are slowly dissipating. In my heart I feel like I will come back to the Heathen path renewed and revived. It just may take some time. I've been practising on my own in a kind of bubble for years and seem to have developed some bad thought habits that need addressing in the light of what I have learned from the Heathens here.

I get where you're coming from Pencils. I'm hoping by joining the forum Moonhunter posted I can learn more about diverse christian viewpoints. I think I need to discern as Tas said how some christian ideas were used as manipulation by my family. I also think I need to revise my ideas about how the Gods manifest and interact with us. I've said I've never had a personal relation ship with a spirit or deity - maybe this is why !! Cern, the Moot looks great - really interesting. I'm going to have a good old rummage tomorrow and think of some pertinent questions.

Thanks again to all

Not sure just how helpful this ongoing discussion will necessarily be. I would hate you to consider me unthinking here, however. I did spend 15 years in full time Christian work before making the leap to my current journey, and have more than one degree in theology. The suggestion that I need to look into the actual history of the Bible and consider evidence, is somewhat redundant. I think I'm probably sufficiently qualified to speak to that. I have no desire to be an advocate for Christian faith and conduct any longer, but I think it a shame that they be ignorantly misrepresented. Perhaps we oculd shift this discussion into PM, and I would be happy to dispell the fallacies that you believe to be factual.

Sorry to sound combative... I just think we need intellectual rigour, rather than impassioned ad opinionated misrepresentation.

Meh. Maybe you need to subscribe to the Pagan and Christian Moot instead

First, one can only apply intellectual rigour to the history of Bible, not the bible itself which is a book of mythology as I'm sure you know. I do not have many degrees in Theology , but I've read a lot of bibles ( I prefer the Vulgate ones, though the K.J. is more poetic given the language ).

I quite agree with Elswyth and saw no evidence in her posts of 'impassioned and opinionated misrepresentation'. There was no misrepresentation.There are contradictions in that book and most historians would agree. Any mythology book is bound to have elements that cannot be reconciled with themselves and frequently when re-written or re-organized over time, attempts are made to address these problems. Unfortunately, this didn't work with the bible , the contradictions are still inherent to it.

Thanks for the invite to the pagan christian site. It's a step up from 'Exwitch' , but IMO, not really a place for pagans who are not interested ( from a faith perspective) in becoming christian . That is just my opinion from what I read there which seemed to have a lot people being rewarded verbally for 'finding christ'.

So I believe Elswyth points stand. But I also think people are free to believe whatever they like and also, to critique mythologies. People here critique pagan mythologies, I see no reason not to critique other ones as well.

Marto

Marto, it's not so much the 'finding Christ' bit that people are 'rewarded verbally' for. More a case of having made a difficult spiritual decision. We DO sometimes have people go the other way and we're equally supportive. What we DON'T do is try to push people in ANY particular spiritual direction. We talk people through the process they're going through and try to help them make their choices informed ones.

When people are going through either a crisis of faith or changing their faith perspective it can be particularly traumatic. We try to provide people with non-judgmental support through that process and we also try to avoid slipping into the trap of presenting misinformation as fact. We also try to examine different beliefs with a view to helping people from different faiths gain an accurate understanding of those beliefs. So we encourage the asking of questions.

The Moot is NOT a Pagan forum. It is also NOT a Christian forum. It is also not a forum specifically dedicated to Muslims of Jews (the two other faith groups we currently have represented by our members). So if you're looking for a forum that simply caters to one specific faith perspective or promotes one perspective then of course you're going to find the Moot doesn't necessarily meet your needs.

Exwitch was run by Christians. The Moot is run by Pagans and Christians and is owned by myself. I've never been a Christian and am not drawn to becoming one either. But I AM married to one and, strangely that doesn't strike fear of conversion into my heart to the point where I feel I must rant and rail against my wifes faith with whatever snippet of propaganda I can find. In turn, my wife, having been a witch when I married her does not feel the need to push any of the crap that comes out of places like Reachout Trust.

So Marto, if you feel the Moot is not for you then that is fine. But I'm afraid your brief read of the forum has led you to inadvertently misrepresenting what actually takes place there. Of course you're entitled to your opinions, even if they are ill informed (that kind of thing happens if you only scratch the surface of something rather than studying a little more closely..... the latter being something we try to respectfully encourage at the Moot).

BB

Mike

Mike, you shouldn't make snap judgments . You have no idea how much time or when I've spent reading at your forum, do you? I don't think so.

I think you are quite right that people change beliefs all the time. I know quite a few pagans I think would benefit from throwing in the 'Pagan' towel and going back to have a talk with their old Vicar. Seriously. See, being an Atheist, I don't have a dog in this race so I don't really care how many times people shuffle through the religion deck and I agree that it's nice to have support when one does decide to change and/or change again.

However, my opinion of the forum is not changed. I didn't slag it off nor would I. But I am entitled to an opinion without someone deciding to discredit my reading or critiquing abilities. At least *I* think so . I am not ill-informed.

As for 'Exwitch', I well remember quite a few of your posts there that were decidedly not charitable to pagans.people do have long memories and also, copy-pasta skills There is nothing that has been written on a forum that cannot be accessed.

But! I believe in leaving the past in the past. .

Good luck with your forum and I hope it helps lots of people go through their 'spiritual transition(s)'.

Marto

Trouble is Marto, for some of us unlucky enough to have "baggage" it just isn't that easy I wish it was. I can assure you catagorically that there is no way on Earth that I would become a christian. It is 25 years since I've been near a church. Having read the Bible my conclusion (just mine, mind you) is that it seems to be a progressive sect of Judaism that somehow got disseminated over a huge area due to secular machinations - the Roman Empire, the British Empire or what have you. I am not drawn to any aspect of it, but recognise that even without a christian upbringing I have lingering thought patterns from childhood that are hampering my progress as a Pagan/Heathen now that I attribute to christian thinking from my elders.

In the same way that reading the Bible confirmed for me the need to rediscover an approximation of the faith that christianity may have supplanted in my country (I know I'm on all sorts of shaky ground here ), I'm hoping that reading what christians who are open minded enough to belong to a multi faith forum have to say will help me determine how the manipulation I've been subject to in the past has coloured my spiritual thinking.

I think it pays to know about christianity. We live in a nominally christian country. We will come across christians from time to time and many of us have christians as immediate family. I had christian midwife. She was excellent and very respectful of our family faith. I know some of them are not so tolerant, and some Pagans aren't either. I don't dislike christians because of the way I was brought up. Maybe the forum will help and maybe it won't. I think it deserves a chance

One of the good bits of being an atheist is that we don't have to translate normal human feelings into 'god being angry'. However, as I don't have a conscience, it is something that wouldn't have affected me anyway.

Now this is observed by me, ie anecdata, so take it how you will, but I have noticed a lot of pagans transferring the restrictions of christianity to their new pagan path. For example, the feelings of guilt and sin seem to carry over, and the idea of strict monogamy is also very prevalent amongst pagans I know. I find that weird - if you are so unhappy with the restrictions of one religion, why take them with you to another one?

Opinion and passion are good enough for me, along with experience. I don't see how intellectual rigour can be applied to the bible when it's full of contradictions. As for misrepresentation, people have posted about their own experience, how can you say that's been misrepresented?
One of the big problems I have with Xianity, which is relevant to this thread, is that, on one hand you can be loaded with guilt about every minor action of your life, and on ther hand you get told that you can be an absolute bastard but if you repent on your death bed all is forgiven and you're straight into heaven.

Which is one of the reasons I suggested some people jack in the idea of being 'pagan' and simply go with what they know. There is so much in neo-paganism IMO, that is just 'altered' ( or altared ) clothing from Christianity, why not go back to it? No shame, no foul.

Thing is, I DO understand how many times in our culture we are bombarded with 'christian' ideas - from Christmas to laws that it is hard to truly escape. Much easier to just 'accept'.

My problem with most of the 'Bigs' is that they do not treat women, gay people or other religions as 'equals'. Therefore, no matter how much one may find some pithy and sympathetic line from the bible, it doesn't change that and so - screw them. Sorry, I will not belong to any group that sees certain other people as innately inferior.

I'll give the Anglicans points for trying to change some of that, but I take them away again for the schism it created.

Just my opinion and again, I couldn't care less, I really couldn't. I see the horror and inequality around the world backed up by religions and just...despair.

However, people should always be free to believe what they want to. They can't in the 'bigs', ( which is one of my problems with them) but that's people's choice and they are entitled to it same as mine.

One person's mythology is another person's life rules and strictures (or freedom from same )

Marto

I just need to make sure I'm not being misunderstood here. I don't want to suggest for single minute that anyone here should believe or follow Christian teaching - if I wanted that, I would never have left my former path.

I'm not a closet evangelist - I am making my own way, thank you very much. I simply want to avoid people in our community falling into the same trap as Christians who make uninformed and blanket assumptions about paganism.

"Oh, so you're a pagan? All pagans are Satanists."

"Can I come to one of your midnight sex sessions?"

"Aren't you afraid of being arrested for abusing children?"

"Phwoar! Raping virgins must be cool... how do you get away with it?"

"Eeew. Drinking blood? Is that safe?"

I guess at one point or another, we've all heard some or most of those. It would be a shame if our discomfort with Christian teaching/practice/behaviour led us to saying uninformed things.

Statements like these are simply factually untrue:

The thing that people often forget about the bible is that the old testiment has four recognised groups of authors, each group with its own agenda e.g the group referred to as the Deuteronomists were mainly concerned with extolling and promoting monotheism among the Jews. The new testiment is written by people who didn't even know Jesus and then to top it off, the whole thing was chopped and changed by a council of roman types that really wanted to make it back up their policies.

No wonder it reads like a mish mash of rubbish!

You and I may dislike things Christian, but we could at least avoid making basic errors when we talk about them. This is historical hogwash - sorry. Maybe I shouldn't get frustrated about it - I have no intention of applying to be Archbishop of Canterbury, so I will leave it be. It would just be a shame if we became like the folk who misrepresent and judge us so freely.

I wouldn't say that I was being particularly impassioned, opinionated or misrepresentative. Not in my last post anyway...but I probably will be here .

I just alluded to Documentary Hypothesis (
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/2/Judaism/jepd.html) and some of the popular contradictions in the bible. I mean the biggest and most well known one would be the OT saying 'An eye for an eye' but the NT saying 'Turn the other cheek'. And don't even get me started on Moses' supposed authorship of the OT or the chopped out bits between the Jewish sources and Christian.

I might not be a Christian but that does not mean that I am completely ignorant. I actually find the bible and the early Jewish texts to be quite fascinating. Especially when compared with the texts written by other cultures of the period.

While you have extensive knowledge of the bible, I think before maybe you looked at it from the subjective eyes of a believer. Trust me, the bible reads completely differently to a non-believer. When you don't believe that it's the word of yahweh then it's fair game (like any other mythology) for criticism.

You seem to think I have a problem with Christians and Christianity...oh the irony.

The amount of times I have gotten into disagreements on this board for being against the Christian bashing that sometimes goes on....

I checked out the PaganChristian moot site a while back and I occasionally still go for a look but there is nothing that would make me want to join there because like Marto (and I'm really sorry to say this Cern), I do think it's pretty Christian biased. I also don't really think that we could ever truly have an interfaith dialogue with a religion that could never respect or accept our beliefs. Christians do what they do, I do what I do and as long as they (or anyone else) leave me alone to do my thing then I have no problem.

My ex called them the 'Jesus in a dress' brigade, ie they just made Jesus a female and then carried on. I am not entirely sure that Gardner or Valiente had that in mind way back when, but they lived in much more moral times than we do now. Seriously, Aleister Crowley the wickedest man in the world? He wouldn't even be considered slightly naughty these days!

Although I was raised Anglican, my mother had her very own schism with the Church and refused to go, therefore ensuring all her children becoming atheists. However, my view of Christianity is coloured by Evangelicalism, especially what I see on the internet and on the news being 'practiced' by certain Americans.

Seriously, there is something wrong with a religion that lynches blacks, persecutes other races, hoists an effigy of Barack Obama into a tree, and vandalises houses of people teaching evolutionary theory then think they have some moral high ground because they spend time in a church. Jesus probably thinks it wasn't worth the trouble dying for some people's sins.

People don't seem to get that Christians truly think that anyone who doesn't believe what they believe are going to Hell, which is why so many of them try to convert so many of us. I know they are only (mostly) doing it because they don't want to see us burn, but proletysing is the one guaranteed way of putting me off someone's religion (that includes Hare Krisnas by the way. I like them, I just don't need to be sold the Bagavad Gita [again])

Hi Elswyth

I think we posted at pretty much the same time! Please don't take any offence at my comments about ignorance - I have no desire to judge you personally... I just picked up on some of the inaccuracies in what you had said. Apologies if that came out wrongly.

Just to pick up on your reference to this 'popular' contradiction to give an example of how people look foolish when they criticise the 'errors and contradictions'... what we have here is two statements standing in different contexts.

An eye for an eye - is all about legality and justice. It is part of the OT judicial teaching. If you or I hurt someone, then the punishment that we receive should be appropriate and not too harsh or lenient. Losing an eye for deliberately blinding someone is fair do's. It stops the law executing people for running a red light, and prevents rapists getting away with 15 hours community service. It establishes the right of the state to intervene fairly in criminal actions.

Turn the other cheek - is all about attitude. If you slap me, I may well have the right to seek legal recourse, but it doesn't mean that every time someone wrongs me I should look up the telephone number for a hit man. You slap me, and I win the moral high ground and diffuse the situation by being less combative in return. I avoid being vengeful, which is different from pursuing what I am 'entitled' to. It speaks of attitude rather than legality.

It isn't an issue of contradiction - the two statements address different issues. So, without wanting to look like a Christian apologist, we need to be a bit careful about saying ... "Look at all the contradictions!"

It isn't a matter of subjectivity - it is concerned with actually taking time to understand what the other is really saying.

Meh. I thought I had left this 'bible explaining' stuff well behind me...



Can we change the subject yet?

As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Since I'm anti-death penalty, I could never go with the 'eye for an eye' reasoning, especially given how many people in the U.S. get executed and then it's found they were innocent.

And that's not 'subjective', that's real.

This isn't about anyone 'defending' Christianity, it was about the inherent contradictions in it and the denial that there were any. Nobody asked Pencils to defend the faith, they were questioning some of the statements made about it - same as we do here for 'pagan' statements.

Marto

And telling people that they're wrong without producing anything to actually back that up.

To be honest Pencils, there are whole lists of bible contradictions out there and not very good explanations written to try and explain those contradictions. In my opinion, some of the explanations given are clutching at straws and twisting words.

Last biblical question for you...what do you think about the word Elohim?

Just a reminder for those who have lost track, the OP asked "for those of you brought up in other faiths with fixed ideas about guilt, blame, atonement and so on, how did you free yourself and avoid carrying those ideas forward into your new faith?"

This seems to be veering towards a discussion about Biblical literary criticism and a few other things which would probably merit a whole other thread. I'm happy to split this one, if that's what folks want to discuss, or someone can start a new one.

Trying to get back to Snippetys OP about bringing the guilt and the way of thinking over to pagansim with you.
Well its not suprising really its The sum of our experiences that defines us. All expericences good, bad, happy, guilt, all of them.
With the advances made in Head Doctory in the past 100 years its easy to find out a lot of the How's and Why's (what makes us tick) if not being able to deal with them ourselves.

Lets not forget that children sometimes very young children are exposed to religion, as they are forming their map of the world. Look at the old Catholic Prests Axiom "Give me the child till 7 years old and I will give you the man"
All thsese imposing buildings, and sense of occasion and ritual will screw up a small mushy mind. And give us "baggage*" we will carry for years. Add some screwed up Parenting to the mix and its a recipir for mental disaster.

Theres techniqes for dealing with the past and the way we are. There's hours of Psychopherapry, theres sitting a talking it through with people who have had simialr experinces and sharing those experices, theres sudden life changing experices (walking away from a Car accident that should have killed you). Theres Magical and Wiccan exersies, involving things like sensory depravation and pain-Shamanistic exersises to use a very broad term.

Snippety, the period of re evaluation and questioning is part of the "Healing*" process. The tools and techniches you used to survive are now becoming redunandnt. So you are examining them and theor future use.

Pagaism exposes a much greater degree of "Thinking for yourself" than Orgainised Religions. Thats part of the bigger picture of "Taking responisioty for your actions"

I think its somehow similar to when I was reading accounts of Drug Addicts and part of their healing process, came a sudden onrush of realisation and gulit and then they worked through it to better things.

Dont worry about it. Go with it and enjoy it.




*Hate those yankieeisms and psychobabble.

I'm not saying it's the whole answer, but I certainly gained a lot of ground at one stage of my life, by making affirmations. Every day I told myself I loved and accepted myself and I was worthy and deserved the best and other such stuff, over and over again. I chose to brainwash myself - because although you can intellectually grasp the lack of logic in your ingrained guilt, it's the subconscious that holds on to the pattern and needs to be reprogrammed.

I was completely stuck in a blame-resentment-self pity cycle, such that I had absolutely no choice about how I responded: when my mother criticised, I cringed.

After I'd furiously brainwashed myself for some time, I dreamed I boldly told my mother what was wrong about what she was saying. Shortly after that, I had the opportunity to say it for real, and I did. (I went a bit over the top, bearing in mind that my poor mother has also been trapped in the same cycle, but it shifted things for me.) And she did get the message, though she has had a huge struggle to change herself.

I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with your spiritual path. You can be an accepting sort of person in any faith or none. Accepting yourself is the key: stepping to one side and looking at yourself with total compassion and support. Fighting for yourself in the same way you would for your loved ones.

If that were the case then you would also cite the support that has been offered to people who have been moving from Christianity to Paganism. Your comment seemed to suggest the forum was all about Pagans becoming Christians. perhaps I misread something. Did I?



You are indeed entitled to your opinion, but I still feel that what you presented in your previous post misrepresented the Moot. As founder and owner of the forum I suspect I too am entitled to my opinion and am also entitled to refute comments I perceive as misrepresentation. I chose to suggest you were ill informed concerning the forum rather than to suggest you might be deliberately misrepresenting it. Was I wrong to do so? Certainly if you are suggesting we're only supportive of those who are changing from Paganism to Christianity then you are misrepresenting us.



I won't deny that. I think there are an awful lot of Pagans who make very crass statements about Christianity as a faith when what they really mean is the interpretation of Christianity that they encountered from some who claimed Christianity as their faith. Are all Pagans King Kev's?

There are Christians who have used their faith to further their own agendas.... historically sometimes on an enormous scale. But if we are to speak out against that kind of thing then we need to make sure we've got all the facts straight and are applying them appropriately. Going in with misinformation simply makes it easier to dismiss anything we might have to say. Targets need choosing with care.



Me too. I remember you at Exwitch also.



Thank you. I know it has already done so and it is indeed to be hoped that the process is continued.

BB

Mike

Just reading through some of these posts.... there are some brilliant comments. I've only followed Pagan paths. But I've followed a few. I've not really found any ideas became so fixed that they couldn't be shifted. But I have found that, whilst there were aspects of paths that were not in keeping with how I saw things, there were others that were worthy of keeping. I suspect that could be said for other more drastic path changes. I know my wife said that some of her best training for ritual actually came from the time she was first a Christian.

In terms of overcoming fixed ideas..... I think, from what I've seen, it can take time. The whole process of changing ones faith requires asking a lot of questions of oneself. Some ideas are not just fixed by prior beliefs, but by societal or community norms. Some ideas may have been part of the reason why people began following their former beliefs, yet may not fit in easily with what they're moving to. Labels can REALLY get in the way there. But people change their beliefs over time. They see the world differently. As we get older we change our perspective. Ok, so some may have been grumpy so and so's even when they were younger. But most of us grow to be that way. The most long lasting beliefs tend to be those we have taken a long time to reach..... pondered deeply and explored what WE believe. Not what the faith label believes. So ponder those fixed ideas deeply in terms of how you see the world and don't worry about labels. If they don't fit then your pondering will have helped you find what DOES fit and, more importantly, WHY it fits.

BB

Mike

i wasnt brought up in any religion my mum used superstitions to keep me in line ,that and a slap round the legs,i agree with Taz 's comments about this being linked to you being a mother yourself,it is also human nature to feel guilty about things that quite often we have no control over,its not always to do with your religious beliefs ,although in your case you have been influenced by the views of your own mother
if something goes wrong in my life my first instinct is to think "who have i upset"even though i am an atheist,it really frustrates me that i sometimes think this way especially as i dont know why im doing it, i just think that sometimes its just human nature to feel this way and not always faith related

an example of this is yesterday at work we were having a clear out and we found some Bibles on one of the bookshelves,the staff i was working with decided to throw them away,i couldnt bring myself to throw away the one i picked up,it was inscribed inside as a gift to a grand daughter from her grandfather and the date of the inscription was 1919,this in itself made me want to save it as it made it personal so i brought it home and its gone on the bookshelf
i dont believe in god and i dont believe in the bible,so what was it that made me save this book from the rubbish,i used the excuse that it was disrepectful to throw away something that once meant something to someone,but was that it really or was a scared that something bad would happen if i let it be thrown away,so i have kept it just in case the god i dont believe in is actually real

An interesting idea from the last post. If you had copies of the various sacred texts from whatever culture - say the Eddas, or the Bhagavad Gita or the Bible - and they were falling to pieces: would you throw them in the rubbish? Would they all be equal to you? Or would you hesitate about any of them and, if so, which?

I'm pathologically incapable of throwing out any book so I'd probably get the sticky tape out.

actually i am quite annal about books anyway and wont throw one away,so maybe thats another resason why i kept it,it wouldnt matter to me about which sacred text it was i just couldnt bring myself to throw it away

Just a quibble. I was never a member of 'Exwitch', that was a place I would never have joined. Ever. Non-negotiable.

As far as the remarks I was mentioning , they had to do with the things you found 'evil' about pagan practices. But like I said, that was then, this is now and no need to disinter dead ideas.


Marto

Hey, Snippety-doo-dah, you should listen to me and not this over-intellectualised bunch! You probably won't ever get over the guilt stuff totally because it is burnt in at an early age and includes mum's manipulation when you were impressible and still thought she was the sun and moon! Julai, as always has a good answer, affirmations do help! My problem was the opposite to yours, I never felt guilts for things I did, I had a 'ukkem and fukkit attitude (which I still haven't totally lost). I had to remind myself daily for a while that other people do matter, that some of them hurt, some are worthwhile etc etc. And it worked.
One thing I can tell is that you are worthwhile, and probably all the bad things you did and do are well balanced by the good things you do. And I know that just from reading your posts, ain't i clever?
Nasty people deserving of punishment usually just don't care except cna they get away with it. You do, thats one thing. the trouble with that sort of manipulation is that it actually distorts your view of yourself, so that the bad things you do have more emotional weighting than the good. And anyway, YOU DON'T have to spend your life watching yourself lass! You've got a tolerant and loving partner, friends and more. Just let [i]them[i/] tell ya if you go off beam, I am sure they will AND still love you - about time you carried on just being Snip! life's too short and you are too worthy to punish yourself. There isn't any easy way of getting through such things and I reckon reading up on it just ads to the brain strain!
So just do what I do, make it a habit to do what good you can when you can but don't worry about ti otherwise, just in case you do owe a debt for some bad somewhere, meanwhile just be Snippety Doo-dah! You are OK. Just be honest, that's all you can do, don't try and be so perfect. In the eyes of some you are already I am sure, and I bet some quite like you being a bit wicked too!Oh, and if you do want a god or goddess to confirm you, then just sit down every now and again and ask for one to come visit! It shall happen.
Jesus or his mum might even come visit. I'm sure he'd find you fun!
Get another tattoo.
jape

How odd.... I wonder what the context of my memory there is then. maybe a discussion about EW somewhere else. My memory isn't infallible. But.....



that sounds VERY out of character. Our discussion isn't strictly on the topic of the OP. But you've piqued my curiosity. I wonder if we could take this to PM and you could point me in the right direction to find where I might have made such a statement. I really can't think why I would say such a thing unless I was saying something about Pagans being humans and as equally capable of 'evil' as anyone else..... But let's explore this in PM, yes?


BB

Mike

Marto, I've been thinking on this a little further.... if you'd rather address the matter in a different thread rather than in PM, that too would be ok.

BB

Mike

From my experience of other people who have changed faith I noticed that one of the things nearly everyone took with them was the same idea of guilt and retribution that the OP refers to. Interestingly though it was most notable in their attitude to the small stuff rather than more abstract areas of ethics and morality. The thing is that although people seem to suffer from the guilt caused by small transgressions of their faith they still at the same time take comfort from it. I guess because if we are willing to believe that some mechanism punishes the small injustices then that same mechanism (god, karma etc) is there to handle the big injustices and that is a comforting thought and it helps us make sense of a chaotic and random world. Small wonder then that even when people become disenchanted with a religion and choose another one they are prone to taking these ideas with them. Becoming an atheist (as I did) presents a problem because there is little space to take these ideas along. I found the idea of bad things happening to good people a pretty hard thing to come to terms with and I was lucky not to burdened with any great sorrow or guilt at the time. I wish you luck wherever your spiritual transition takes you Snippety and I hope that it's not too difficult a journey.

Ah Jape, thank you ! You always make me smile. And you're right. I'm far too self-analytical and always worrying about the past and the future. I really do need to chill and just be....reminds me of the line in the Kate Bush song "Am I doing it ? Can I have it all now?" I keep checking to see if I'm really in the moment or just kidding myself thereby destroying the whole thing

Dogs Mercury - that is a very interesting point. My other half always says that I cling to these ideas because I'm frightened of the power I would have without them - same as I like to believe I'm fat Rationally it's an exhausting way to be but there must be a reason why I haven't shed these ideas. Perhaps that's a good way to come at it .

If nothing else I've been really amazed by the thoughtfulness of everyone's replies and have a lot of new food for thought. I'm going to initiate a period of reflection for myself from Samhain maybe to Ostara (the festival at which I first declared myself a Pagan) and see what transpires.

Well fine, but get another tattoo! You have to reward yourself to balance the guilt feelings, do it right, without selfish indulgence, and it stops the need even for much introspection. Be a kid again not a fucking constant grown up, get back the magick.

Have 2 designs ready to go Jape - one for inner forearm, one for nape of neck. Unfortunately no spare cash for the foreseeable future As soon as I've got some you can be sure I'll be down that tattooists like shit off a stick